Allam Cycle Production Plant Update -- August 2, 2017

This is for the archives. I've only mentioned "Allam" once on the blog; I've mentioned La Porte, Texas, a couple of times.

For background, three links:

• wiki: Allam power cycle
• Forbes, February 21, 2017  -- it looks like we will know a year from now whether the technology works 
• this post, November 18, 2015
• today's post by RNB Energy: natural gas takes front seat in the oil-driven Bakken
• a YouTube video (miserably long; start at 2:05)

The first Allam power cycle production plant is scheduled to come on-line later this year in La Porte, TX.

A reader suggested that with the (somewhat unexpected) large gas production in North Dakota, one has to wonder if it might make more sense to use natural gas directly rather than convert coal to gas (at least initially), using the Allam cycle.

If one considers the amount of lignite in North Dakota, one can think of our state as a huge energy producer (Allam power cycle) not in terms of decades but in terms of centuries.

Allam cycle is essentially zero emissions, as I understand it. Algore would be thrilled.

The reader went on: due to population differences, fossil fuel energy's impact on a NoDak is 15x that of Texas' energy on a Texan. That applies to tax revenue and overall economy.

If the Allam cycle production plant in Texas is a success, there might be huge opportunities in North Dakota.

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Meanwhile, In Michigan ...

From The Detroit Free Press, data points:

• plans to build "a state of the art" natural gas power plant to replace two outmoded plants burning coal
• $1 billion plant
• 1,100 MW
• 100 acres
• power for about 850,000 homes beginning in 2022
• slightly less than $1 million / MW 
• unlike wind/solar: dispatchable; instant on/off
• because of the dependability of wind/solar and the fact that they still  have night in Michigan, the natural gas plant is likely to be running 65% of the time