Contract let for coal gasification plant

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Nov. 9 -- Tenaska Energy Inc., Omaha, has let a contract to Siemens Energy for coal gasification technology at the planned Taylorville Energy Center (TEC), one of the first commercial-scale facilities of its kind in the US to use carbon capture and sequestration.

Siemens will provide equipment contracts and licensing agreements for four 500-Mw-class gasifiers.

The TEC, in Taylorville, Ill., will have gross generating capacity of 730 Mw, and net capacity of 500-525 Mw.

It will use a hybrid integrated gasification combined-cycle process to convert coal into synthesis gas, which in turn will be converted into methane, called substitute natural gas (SNG) by project sponsors, to fuel power generation.

Officials of Tenaska, the TEC managing partner, expect the facility to produce about 33 trillion btu of SNG/year.

Volumes not needed as fuel for two gas turbines will move to a connection with the interstate pipeline system. Amounts will depend on coal and gas prices. Company officials say current modeling indicates the pipeline volume of SNG will be about 10 trillion btu/year.

The project will capture as much as 3 million tons/year of carbon dioxide at the synthesis gas stage, more than half its output of the greenhouse gas. It will sequester the CO₂ underground near the plant site or sell it for use in enhanced oil recovery.

Tenaska and Siemens officials say capturing that much CO₂ will make the TEC comparable in greenhouse gas emissions to a power plant fueled by natural gas.

The facility is expected to cost $3.5 billion. The US Department of Energy has selected the project for negotiation of loan guarantees totaling as much as $2.579 billion under a program created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

DOE last month issued a notice of intent for the preparation of an environmental impact statement for the TEC loan guarantee.