A pilot plant is harnessing clean energy from natural gas
HOUSTON—A pilot power plant outside Houston is currently testing a technology to capture clean energy from natural gas. NET Power, a collaboration between technology development firm 8 Rivers Capital, Exelon Generation and energy construction firm CB&I, believes it can generate power at least as cheaply as standard natural-gas plants and then go on to capture—and repurpose—the carbon dioxide released along the way.
The project was recently featured in MIT Technology Review’s annual 10 Breakthrough Technologies list, which is designed to highlight innovations that will have widespread consequences and change lives in dramatic ways.
The 50-megawatt plant features a new power technology called the Allam Cycle, which burns natural gas with pure oxygen, as opposed to ambient air, to produce electricity. The system uses the byproducts of this combustion process, predominantly supercritical CO2, to drive a turbine specially built by Toshiba. A large portion of the CO2 is reheated and recycled to the front of the process, and the remaining high-pressure, high-purity CO2 byproduct can be removed via a pipeline and sold to third parties.
Selling the captured carbon dioxide will help to reduce overall expenses even as it will provide a valuable resource for other industries. While these are still early days, NET Power hopes to see growing demand for captured carbon dioxide in cement manufacturing, plastics and other industries.
The project is in the initial testing phase, and results from early evaluations should be released soon.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology recognized the value and potential of NET Power’s innovative efforts, stating, “Of all the clean-energy technologies in development, NET Power’s is one of the furthest along to promise more than a marginal advance in cutting carbon emissions.”