Coal Gasification Project In Odessa, Texas, Set To Break Ground Later This Year; Whiting To Use CO2 For Permian Basin EOR -- April 1, 2015

FuelFix is reporting:

A new power plant in West Texas that could transform coal into cleaner-burning natural gas is poised to break ground later this year, an executive in charge of the project said at a conference in Houston Wednesday.

The project, located on a 600-acre site in Odessa, uses coal as a feedstock for a 400 megawatt power plant. But instead of burning it, the plant uses a chemical process to first strip it of carbon, sulfur and mercury.

The result, project leaders say, is a hydrocarbon that can fuel the power plan but burns even cleaner than natural gas — even though it was derived from coal. The extra carbon dioxide that gets stripped away is sold to production company Whiting Petroleum, which can pump in underground through a process known as enhanced oil recovery that helps coax more hydrocarbons from the earth.

“We’re not actually burning coal; we’re unlocking hydrocarbons,” said Jason Crew, CEO of Summit Power, the Seattle-based company behind the undertaking dubbed the Texas Clean Energy Project.

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded the project $450 million in federal grants. Even though the U.S. is moving to phase-out coal in favor of natural gas-fired plants and alternative energy sources, coal is still poised to be a vital source of energy for the U.S. and other countries for years to come, said  Jason Lewis, federal project manager at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.

• Background: Texas Clean Energy Project. 
• Background: Integrated gasification combined cycle.

The Odessa project is one of three carbon-capture projects in Texas.

• The Petra Nova project, a joint venture involving NRG Energy Inc., is under construction in Fort Bend County. Technology added to an existing power plant is designed to capture carbon before it’s emitted into the atmosphere.
• Air Products and Chemicals is capturing carbon from a hydrogen production facility in Port Arthur. All three projects have received federal support.