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Oxy-Fuel Firing Technology for Power Generation

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Handbook of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation

Abstract

In order to generate pure streams of CO2 suitable for sequestration/storage, various routes are possible, involving either precombustion strategies such as the use of gasification technology combined with shift reactors to produce H2 or alternatively post-combustion strategies such as CO2 scrubbing with, for example, amine-based carriers. One of the more direct approaches is to carry out the combustion in pure or nearly pure oxygen-oxy-fuel combustion to produce primarily CO2 and H2O in the combustion gases, resulting in almost complete CO2 capture. Until recently, the primary avenue for deploying this technology was with conventional pulverized fuel-fired boilers, and there is already one large demonstration plant operating in Europe with more being planned in the future. However, more recently oxy-fired fluidized bed combustion (FBC) has also become increasingly important as a potential technology, offering as it does fuel flexibility and the possibility of firing local or indigenous fuels, including biomass in a CO2-neutral manner. Both oxy-fuel combustion technologies have been examined here, considering factors such as their economics and potential for improvement, as well as challenges to the technology, including the need to generate CO2 streams of suitable purity for pipeline transport to available sequestration sites. Finally, the emission issues for both classes of the technology are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance and advice of Dr. David Granatstein (Granatstein Technical Services/CanmetENERGY) and Drs. Yewen Tan and Murlidhar Gupta (CanmetENERGY), for a number of valuable discussions during the preparation of this chapter, as well as suggestions for various amendments and improvements, and he would also like to thank Professor Filip Johnsson of Chalmers University, Sweden, for valuable suggestions about potential problems for oxy-fuel CFBC.

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  1. CanmetENERGY, Natural Resources Canada, 1 Haanel Drive, K1A 1M1, Ottawa, ON, USA

    Edward John (Ben) Anthony

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Correspondence to Edward John (Ben) Anthony .

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  1. Departmemt of Chemical Engineering, University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi, USA

    Wei-Yin Chen

  2. National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology (AIST), Nagoya, Japan

    Toshio Suzuki

  3. Institute of Advanced Engineering Technologies, University of Applied Sciences FH Technikum Wien, Vienna, Austria

    Maximilian Lackner

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Anthony, E.J.(. (2017). Oxy-Fuel Firing Technology for Power Generation. In: Chen, WY., Suzuki, T., Lackner, M. (eds) Handbook of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14409-2_39

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