Assesment of CO2 capture and storage form thermal power plants in Argentina

NORMA AMADEO; HECTOR BAJAMO; JOSE COMAS; JUAN DAVERIO; MIGUEL LABORDE; JUAN POGGI; DARIO GOMEZ

Vancouver - Canada

Congreso; 7th International Conference on Greenhouse Control Technology; 2004

University of Regina and Natural Resources Canada in co-operation with the IEA(International Energy Agency) Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme

A study was undertaken to explore two options of CO2 capture from natural gas combined cycles (NGCC) in Argentina. Natural gas is the predominant fuel for thermal power generation in the country and NGCC has been the choice for new generating units, particularly after the liberalization of the electricity sector in 1992. A high level assessment on sources to sinks matching was done taking into account the technology type, location, emissions and vintage of large stationary CO2 sources and the characteristics of the local sedimentary basins. Based on the proximity of thermal power plants to geologic reservoirs with potential for sequestering large volumes of CO2, a NGCC was selected as reference plant for a case study concerning the conceptual design of post and pre-combustion capture facilities. To the best of our knowledge this is the first assessment undertaken in Argentina on CO2 capture from thermal power plants. We have focused on capture since it is the main contribution to the abatement cost. The same hourly flow rate of natural gas was employed to design the associated post and pre-combustion facilities using today’s best available technology. A monoethanolamine process was selected for post-combustion capture and a steam methane reformer coupled with a water-gas shift reactor for hydrogen generation in the pre-combustion facility. An extensive survey of published data and models concerning physical equilibria, kinetics and heat transfer of the processes involved was conducted. We used the Aspen Plus process simulator and the results were validated in regard to the reviewed literature. The installed cost of the post-combustion capture is dominated by the cost of the absorption columns and the blower that moves the flue gas from the NGCC to the recovery unit while the steam methane reformer dominates the cost of the pre-combustion unit. Total capital investment for the pre-combustion unit was more than twice that of the post-combustion unit.