Apparently DOE Actually Backed An Energy Winner -- With Coal

Remember the "list of 38"? That is the growing list of solar companies funded by DOE that have all gone bankrupt or have had significant financial problems.

It turns out that DOE actually backed a winner -- a coal technology company. I cannot make this stuff up.

The Bismarck Tribune is reporting:

Great River Energy, operator of the Coal Creek and Stanton station power plants, will transfer its unique coal-drying technology to Tangshan Shenzhou Manufacturing Co. in China.

The agreement allows the company to sell Great River's DryFining technology in power plants in China for 10 years, using Great River for design and integration services.

The technology was invented by Great River in a Clean Coal Power Initiative with the federal Department of Energy and is one of a limited few DOE projects that is now commercialized.

I believe a company in Australia, or the government of Australia, was also interested in this process; if my memory is correct (and it probably isn't) I blogged about it several years ago, somewhat amazed that Australia was shipping their coal to North Dakota to see if their coal would yield to the process. If that is accurate, I do not know how the test turned out.

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There are a number of coal technology processes and a number of coal companies in North Dakota. I can never keep them straight: the companies nor the processes.

That's why I posted several stand-alone posts a long time ago to help me keep all of this straight:

• coal beneficiation: a huge success story 
• coal projects in North Dakota

Read those links first. Again, they were written a long, long time ago when I was still trying to figure things out. There are probably errors, but I will gladly correct them if alerted.

[I believe the correct spelling is "beneficiation," though it is spelled "benefication" on occasion according to wiki.]

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A story published by The Bismarck Tribune on September 6, 2009, also had to do with drying coal, but was being done by GTL Energy, not Great River.

A million pounds of New Zealand lignite is en route to a southwestern North Dakota plant designed to remove water from the low-quality but abundant coal.

Once processed at the unique, new drying plant near South Heart, the fuel will be shipped back to the Southwest Pacific nation in chunks the size of barbecue briquettes, weighing at least one-third less, burning cleaner and producing more energy, said Robert French, the chief executive officer of GTL Energy USA Ltd.

Plentiful in North Dakota and other parts of the world, lignite can be used to fuel electric power plants. But it usually has a moisture content of 30 percent to 60 percent, meaning it is heavier and more costly to transport than other forms of coal.

"Lignite in its natural state can be one-third water," said Steve Van Dyke, a spokesman for Bismarck-based Lignite Energy Council. "For every three coal cars, the third one would be nothing but water."

But as noted above, I do not know if this test took place, or the results.

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A reader provided the following after the original post:

The little physics/chemistry experiment on the prairie is GTL Energy.  Their process is in competition with the process you mention at Great River.

The GTLE site is just outside of South Heart, which is ten miles west of Dickinson.  For the last several years they have been processing quantities of coal from around the world to prove their process.

From a website:

GTL Energy Ltd (GTL Energy) was formed in Adelaide, South Australia, in 2000 initially to investigate coal-to-gas and gas-to-liquids technology for a specific project in Australia using low rank coal. This led GTL Energy to research and develop process technologies to convert low grade coal into higher rank fuel for cleaner, more efficient power generation, gasification and liquefaction. 

Low rank coal comprises sub-bituminous coal, lignite and brown coal, all of which contain substantial amounts of water (20% to 70% Total Moisture (“TM%”) by weight). Due to its high moisture content, low rank coal diminishes power plant efficiency and produces more emissions per unit of energy produced. 

GTL Energy’s primary objective is to upgrade low rank coal by removing a significant amount of water, thereby raising the thermal value, reducing emissions, improving the transportation and handling characteristics and increasing the market value of the fuel. Upgrading coal from low rank to high rank may result in access to stranded resources and a reduction in emissions.

In tests to date, the GTLE Process has reduced the moisture content of coals from around the world, thereby increasing the energy value and the dollar value of low rank coals.

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Disclaimer:  I'm rushed right now, and might have to clean this post up. But as noted above, the various coal technologies and the various companies confuse me. I don't purposely mislead anyone. Regardless, it looks like the reader clarified this for me. Hopefully it's closer to being more correct than my original post.

More later, if necessary.

Wow, I learn a lot from this blog. Thank you to all the readers for keeping me honest.

Getting Closer: South Heart Coal Beneficiation REVISED Application Has Less Than 400 Deficiencies

Link here. Regional links break often and break early.

Fortunately these are just minor deficiencies, like failure to cite uranium levels in the ore.

Local groups are concerned about a coal company’s 376 deficiencies, while the company and North Dakota Public Service Commission representatives attribute minor technical errors to the shortcomings.

Deficiencies range from typos and incorrect web links to questions about groundwater and the presence of uranium.

All updates to the South Heart project are posted here.

Coal Benefication: A Huge Success Story -- No Thanks To .....

Updates

November 29, 2015: on eve of Paris global warming conference, BBC had a piece on India. Some data points: 

• unlike virtually every other country attending the conference, India has not set a future cap on emissions, let alone proposed cuts
• India proposes to treble CO2 emissions within the next 15 years
• china plans to open a gigantic coal mine every single month until 2020 as part of its strategy to double coal output to a billion tonnes a year
• India can maintain that output for the next 300 years; the county has 301 billion tonnes of accesible coal
• total global emissions since 1850: India accounts for just 3% to data; the US is responsible for a third; Europe and other developed nations account for 45%
• India with second greatest population; hundreds of millions still live in terrible poverty
• average Indian: 1.6 tonnes of CO2 every year; an average American - 16.4 tonnes; the Japanese, 10.4 tonnes; and the average European, 7.4 tonnes

November 18, 2013: Germany announces largest hard coal station build since 1998; at least ten new coal-fired plants coming on line over the next two years. 

October 14, 2013: coal will surpass oil as the key transportation fuel by 2020 -- Mail OnLine.

Coal will become more in demand than oil by 2020 driven by growth in China and India, despite campaigns to reduce carbon emissions across the globe, a new report reveals.

Marking a return to an era reminiscent of Britain's industrial revolution, the rapidly expanding economies in the East are turning to coal since it is cheaper and more reliable than oil or renewable energy sources, energy consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie said on Monday.

Rising demand in China and India will push coal past oil as the two Asian powerhouses will need to rely on the comparatively cheaper fuel to power their economies.

Coal demand in the United States, Europe and the rest of Asia will hold steady.'China's demand for coal will almost single-handedly propel the growth of coal as the dominant global fuel,' said William Durbin, president of global markets at Woodmac.

'Unlike alternatives, it is plentiful and affordable.' China - already the top consumer - will drive two-thirds of the growth in global coal use this decade. Half of China's power generation capacity to be built between 2012 and 2020 will be coal-fired, said Woodmac.

July 8, 2012: KMP to ship more coal through Gulf-friendly states; west coast environmentalists putting kabosh on shipping coal from the west coast. 

January 9, 2012:  a fourth extension; waiting to see if Obama administration is more favorable to the coal industry; not gonna happen; will have to wait for change in administration 'cause it doesn't look like hell will freeze over this winter; very, very warm in North Dakota this winter

• The state Industrial Commission in 2006 committed up to $10 million in state aid from coal tax collections to help weigh the project's potential. About $1.3 million has been used so far.

Notes In General

This is a summary of coal plants in Montana and North Dakota with regard to "haze" in the national parks:

• Three big coal plants in Coalstrip, Montana, 140 miles southwest from Bowman, ND
• Small coal generator in Glendive, Montana (MDU); so small, it is used only as a back-up unit
• All other coal power plants are well east of the parks, in Mandan, Center, Beulah, and Underwood, ND; and the wind generally blows west to east; these coal plants are not the cause of haze in the parks

Original Post 

With all the attention being given to the oil industry in western North Dakota, it is easy to forget that there is also a thriving coal industry in the state.

I have a very nice primer on three new technologies being developed in North Dakota which could revolutionize the coal industry around the world:

• coal beneficiation (drying)
• above-ground gasification
• below-ground gasification

Today there is an excellent story in the Minot Daily Press about the benefication process at Underwood, North Dakota. Underwood is literally halfway between Minot and Bismarck, about an hour's drive from both of these cities, on US Highway 83.

The coal benefication process removes water and contaminants like mercury and sulfur from the lignite; compresses them into briquets which makes it much easier to ship and much more energy efficient for electric power plants.

I would never have thought this process would have worked. Over the years a lot of money has been sunk into this project requiring the partnership of private investors, a lignite cooperative, and government agencies, including the federal government. This did not happen overnight. It took decades.

And it is a real success story, at least based on what I am reading about it today. Engineers from around the world, as far away as China, are coming to see the Creek Coal Station, owned and managed by a consortium called Great River Energy.

As I was reading that story it reminded me of a recent article in a national newspaper in which President Obama expounded on the (few) jobs that that wind energy industry had created under his watch. In fact, the wind energy programs had been in the works for years and begun and promoted under the auspices of the Bush administration. It took years just to get the environmental impact statements completed, resolve the legal disputes (in court), obtain the rights-of-way, and fund the projects. Erecting the towers was the easy part, and that was all done under the previous administration. President Obama did not give credit where credit was due.

This is what caught my attention in today's article:

In 2002, Great River Energy received funding help from North Dakota's Lignite Energy Council to establish a pilot project using a 2.5-ton-an-hour fluidized-bed dryer. When the coal bubbled across the dryer, as if in an old-time coffee percolator, the agitation caused denser material to fall to the bottom of the dryer. The process separated material containing a high percentage of sulfur and mercury from the lignite fuel.

The results of the study led the the U.S. Department of Energy and Great River Energy to enter a collaborative agreement for another phase of testing. The $31.5 million project was managed by the department's National Energy Technology Laboratory with support from Lehigh University, Electric Power Research Institute and several companies.

Let's say this project was still in its infancy in 2008. Would this project have gone forward under the Obama administration?  Is it likely that the Obama administration would have been interested in a fly-over state doing research on the dirtiest and least efficient coal in the world (that would be lignite)? I was not even convinced this could work. There's no way the Obama administration would have been interested.

It is being said in more and more venues: President Obama is anti-business. It began as a partisan mantra, but is becoming mainstream. He is definitely anti-coal.



I am reminded of a quote often attributed to Robert F. Kennedy:

"Some people see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not?" (I don't have a clip of the actual speech. Sorry.)

Somehow I just don't see anyone in the current administration asking, "Why not? Why isn't the government more interested in promoting business? Why can't we make one of our nation's greatest resources (coal) clean and efficient?"  The Chinese must have translated Robert F. Kennedy's speech for their schoolchildren.

This is all the more perplexing during a economic slump with an unemployment rate at 10% and worse in some areas of the country.

Anyway, I digress. Congratulations to all the folks who have persevered in the coal industry under great odds favoring failure.

Updates

April 19, 2011: We're getting closer. The revised South Heart Coal application has less than 400 deficiencies.


January 13, 2011: South Heart Coal completes revision of application for coal mine and coal processing facility near South Heart, 25 miles due east of Medora, ND, center of the south unit, Teddy Roosevelt National Park; and about 14 miles from the entrance to the park on I-94.

December 1, 2010: PSC denies South Heart Coal's application to strip mine. Company remains optimistic, "getting closer." The state mining permit covers 4,581 acres near South Heart. The mine would fuel a proposed hydrogen-to-electricity factory that is expected to cost more than $1 billion.

November 5, 2010: South Heart Coal will re-submit its bid to strip mine coal three miles west of South Heart. South Heart Coal is jointly owned by Great Northern Project Development and Allied Syngas Corporation. There are indications that the coal will be used to power a new power plant similar to the Creek Coal Station using coal beneficiation technology.

The land plan described in the application has been designed to provide coal to a commercial scale gasification plant to be located adjacent to the mine, Deutsch said. GTLE has a coal beneficiation plant project less than a half a mile away from GNPD’s proposed project. “Yes there still is (sic) plans to build a beneficiation plant,” Southwick said. “It will be the same process that GTLE uses, in fact we’ll license GTL’s process, but it’ll be a much larger facility than GTL’s.” Southwick said a plant is planned for the property’s south end where the extracted and beneficiated coal would be gasified to make hydrogen to drive a turbine producing electricity. “Our plan is to still build that power plant,” Southwick said.

It's still a bit confusing to me, but it sounds like South Heart Coal will dry the coal and then use that coal for coal gasification.

Update on Coal Projects in the Area

Updates

July 23, 2011: Update on Basin Electric coal gasification/CO2 generation and capture, as well as new calls for government policies to support EOR. 

October 30, 2010: Update on Coal Creek Station. This is Great River Energy's benefication plant located between Bismarck and Minot where lignite is dried to produce a better fuel. The concept is working and engineers from as far away as China are coming to visit. The company's patented process is called DryFining. This appears to be more successful than most people initially thought. A synopsis of this plant:

The Coal Creek Station in Underwood, ND, has a coal drying process they have been working on for years. "They" claim a 29% moisture reduction in the lignite, causing a 14.5 % increase in heat content of lignite. This process also causes a reduction of 52 % of SO2, a 37 % reduction in mercury and a 32% reduction in NOX2. This plant is also going to dry coal for a new power station being built in Jamestown, ND.

October 6, 2010: The nation's only commercial-scale plant producing natural gas from lignite paid off its last loan to the US government (long story, see link). The company is Dakota Gasification Company, a subsidiary of Bismarck-based Basin Electric Power Cooperative.

Original Blog

Call me obsessive-compulsive, but it often leads to good things.

It's a long, convoluted story -- too long and too convoluted to go into here -- but my obsession with DKRW has led me down a strange but interesting path, with lots of dots to connect.

I am a novice when it comes to coal, so this posting is simply for me to start understanding what is going on in North Dakota with respect to coal. Yes, it's a bit off-topic from the Bakken but there are too many stories about coal "in the Bakken" for this site to ignore. Again, this is for my benefit, and anyone who can shed light on what is transpiring is welcome to comment.

First, we all know about the South Heart Gasification Plant, or at least I thought I did. But I am getting a bit more confused. It's possible that there are three projects in the works in and around South Heart, Stark County, North Dakota (USA) regarding the use of coal.

Hopefully others will help me out.

The three projects:

• Beneficiation: A coal-drying process to transform lignite into a more efficient coal.
• Above-ground gasification: A coal-gasification plant.
• Underground gasification: An underground coal gasification project.

Beneficiation: The coal-drying process

This was the first story I linked: New Zealand shipping lignite to North Dakota to test the concept. Recent reports suggest that the New Zealand test was successful.

The plant in North Dakota, operated by GTL Energy and slated to open at the end of December, aims to prove that new technology can remove much of that water content and impurities to make the fuel more cost efficient and increase its energy value. French said the company hopes the plant will reduce lignite water content to 10 percent using a process called beneficiation.

The plant, which is designed to process about 240,000 tons of lignite annually, is the first commercial-scale project of its kind.

The coal-gasification plant

South Heart Coal (SHC) is a subsidiary of Great Northern Power Development (GNPD), which is affiliated with Great Northern Properties, the nation’s largest private coal reserve holder. In January, 2008, these two entities (SHC and GNPD) announced their intent to move forward with a $1.4 billion proposal for a coal-to-gas plant and coal mine at the same site. If the proposal is approved, construction could begin in December, 2009, (need to find update), and the plant would be operational in 2012. Subsequently (in 2009), SHC has changed its permit (due to legal wrangling) to forego the gasification plant and simply become an electrical generation plant.  [Update, November 4, 2010: South Heart Coal has resubmitted its proposal, but limits it to strip coal mining; promoters says coal-drying technology licensed from GTL will be used by a new plant to be built three miles west of South Heart.]

The project is located 30 miles west of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park and air status concerns for the park make the location problematic (need to find update). From SourceWatch.com.

Note: SourceWatch states the project would be WEST of the Theordore Roosevelt National Park. Folks living in the area tell me that the project is EAST of the park.  UPDATE: the folks at SourceWatch replied to my e-mail and said that yes, indeed, they will correct that. For me that makes the "air status concerns" a lot less problematic.

It is my understanding that South Heart Coal was also considering an IGCC power plant there (it is confusing to me whether this is a new project or related to the "coal-to-gas plant" noted above).

Integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants are believed to be the type of power plants that will predominately be used to add to our electrical power supply, replace our aging coal power plants and out increasingly expensive natural gas power plants. Source: The Energy Blog.

Near Beulah, North Dakota, a coal gasification plant. 

Basin Elecric Power Cooperatiave (Basin Electric), through its for-profit subsidiary, Dakota Gasification Company (Dakota Gas), owns and operates the Great Plains Synfuels Plant (Synfuels Plant). The Synfuels Plant is the only commercial-scale coal gasification plant in the United States that manufactures natural gas. It is also the cleanest energy plant operating in the state of North Dakota, according to a comparison of emissions data available from the North Dakota Department of Health.

• Average daily production of natural gas is about 153 million cubic feet, the majority of which is piped to Ventura, IA, for distribution in the eastern United States.

• The Synfuels Plant supplies carbon dioxide to the world’s largest carbon capture and storage project in the world in Saskatchewan, Canada. Dakota Gas currently captures between 2.5 and 3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.

• The $2.1-billion plant began operating in 1984. Using Lurgi gasifiers, the Synfuels Plant gasifies lignite coal to produce valuable gases and liquids. Located five miles northwest of Beulah, ND, the Synfuels Plant has been owned and operated by Dakota Gas since 1988.

• About $477 million has been invested in the Synfuels Plant since 1988 to achieve environmental compliance, improve efficiency, and invest in new byproduct development. 

DKRW is promoting a coal-to-methane-to gasoline project in Medicine Bow, Wyoming, in the far southeastern corner of the state. I assume this is an above-ground gasification project taking the process one step farther along, to make gasoline. 

Underground gasification concept
I first came across this concept earlier this month in a Bismarck Tribune.com story.

"It could be the bridge to a low-carbon, energy-rich future," said Friedmann, a researcher in carbon management for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. "I consider this to be the cleanest coal."

The technique can be used on deep-underground coal seams that are shielded from groundwater. The process works by injecting oxygen and steam into a seam, sparking a chemical reaction that converts the coal into a gas that is collected through a boring injected into another part of the coal vein. The synthetic gas - "syngas" - that is produced can be used in electrical generation or processed into synthetic fuels and natural gas feedstocks.

"It's not a new technology, but it's one that is new to a lot of people," said Mike Fowler, who works on climate technology for the Clean Air Task Force, an environmental group in Boston. The process has been around for decades, but has not been used in North America until recently.

This needs to be updated, but at least I'm starting to get a clearer picture.

The importance of all this is to figure out politically where coal stands. I think the DKRW site is most helpful:

The CTL facility will utilize General Electric Company’s coal gasification technology to produce synthetic gas, which will be cleaned to remove substantially all of the sulfur and carbon dioxide (CO₂). This process significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts associated with traditional uses of coal.  The cleaned syngas is conditioned, modified and converted to methanol.

It is my understanding that GE and the current administration get along with each other very nicely. The administration sees GE as a "green" company with GE's emphasis wind turbines (albeit a losing proposition). The DKRW site promotes its efforts by prominently including the corporate logos of Arch Coal, XOM, and GE.

This speaks volumes and suggests to me that despite all the anti-coal rhetoric coming out of Washington, coal as an energy source for America is going to be around for a long time.

By the way, remember: Warren Buffett bought Burlington Northern Railroad, which I believe is the largest mover of coal.