February 21, 2007—While renewable energy technologies are supplying a growing fraction of the nation’s electricity, energy companies are also pursuing cleaner ways to generate electricity from coal, according to a recent report from the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).
GE Energy Financial Services, a unit of General Electric, announced in January that it is investing in a Kentucky power plant that will convert coal into a fuel gas similar to natural gas, which will be fed into a combined cycle gas turbine. The 630-megawatt facility will be built in Henderson County, with a 20 percent equity investment by GE. Construction is expected to begin late this year, with commercial operation beginning in 2010 or 2011.
A gasification power plant is also being planned near Houston, TX, but with a unique spin, says EERE. Hunton Energy, an independent power producer, announced plans in January to build a $2.4 billion power plant that will gasify petroleum coke, a refinery byproduct similar to coal. A nearby Valero Energy Corporation refinery will provide the petroleum coke, and Hunton Energy will use a combined cycle gas turbine to generate as much as 1,200 megawatts of power. The company plans to sequester the carbon dioxide produced by the plant by injecting it into the ground, possibly as a means of enhancing oil recovery from nearby oil wells, explains EERE. The groundbreaking for the first phase of the power plant is scheduled for 2008.
