Ikelic - Alliance Digital Repository

STATUS OF COAL PROJECTS (Underline denotes changes since June 1994)
COMMERCIAL AND R&D PROJECTS (Continued)
Texaco Syngas Inc. has initiated efforts to restructure the financing of the Texaco Cool Water Project and continues to negotiate
with Southern California Edison Company for the power purchase agreement based on the California Energy Commission Com
mittee Order dated November 2, 1992. Successful negotiation of the power purchase agreement, with necessary State of California
approvals, would allow the acquisition of the Cool Water Gasification Facility, by Texaco Syngas Inc. from Southern California
Edison Company, to be completed.
Project Cost: $263 million for original Cool Water Coal Gasification Program
$213.7 million for the commerical demonstration of the liquid-phase methanol process
THERMOCHEM PULSE COMBUSTION DEMONSTRATION - ThermoChem,
Energy (C-577)
Inc., Northshore Mining, and U.S. Department of
ThermoChem is implementing a Cooperative Agreement with the Department of Energy's Clean Coal Program for the demonstra
tion of steam-reforming, low-rank coak at full scale (720 ton/day). This $37.3 million Cooperative Agreement will provide for the
design, construction and two-year operation of a unit to produce char and synthesis gas for Northshore Mining's Direct Reduction
Iron project in Silver Bay. Minnesota. ThermoChem is the prime contractor in this effort having won a DOE competitive award in
1991. Stone & Webster Engineering and Ogden Environmental Services are subcontractors and partners in this effort. This
demonstration project will supply the char for the first of three Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) units planned by Northshore Mining.
An expansion of the ThermoChem unit would he expected to provide char for the two additional DRI units.
The heat required for the gasification will be supplied by the combustion of cleaned gasification fuel gas in numerous pulsed com
bustion tubes. The products of pulsed combustion are separated from the gasification products. Since no dilution of the
byproducts of combustion or of gasified fuel gas occurs, a medium BTU content fuel (300-400 BTU/scf) gas will be produced. The
turbulent nature of the pulsed combustor contributes to a high combustion heat release and density high heat transfer rates to the
gasifier bed. The fluidized bed coal gasifier also offers high turbulence and heat transfer rates.
In this project, design and permitting will be completed in 1996. with the operation beginning by the end of 1997.
- TOM'S CREEK IGCC DEMONSTRATION PLANT TAMCO
Power Partners and U.S. Department of Energy (C-580)
TAMCO Power Partners, a partnership between Tampella Power Corporation and Coastal Power Production Company will build
an integrated gasification combined cycle powerplant in Coeburn, Virginia. The U.S. Department of Energy will fund 48.3 percent
of the $197 million project under Round 4 of its Clean Coal Technology Program.
The project will demonstrate a single air blown fluidized bed gasifier, based on the U-GAS technology developed by the Institute of
Gas Technology. The plant will burn 430 tons per day of local bituminous coal and produce a net 55 MWe. Power will be genera
ted by firing low-BTU product gas in a gas turbine generator and by a steam turbine generator supplied by the waste heat from the
gas turbine.
A cooperative agreement was signed with the DOE in October 1992. A power sales agreement has yet to be signed.
Project Cost: $196.6 million
- UBE AMMONIA-FROM-COAL PLANT Ube
Industries, Ltd. (C-590)
Ube Industries, Ltd., of Tokyo completed the world's first large scale ammonia plant based on the Texaco coal gasification process
(TCGP) in 1984. There are four complete trains of quench mode gasifiers in the plant. In normal operation three trains are used
with one for stand-by. Ube began with a comparative study of available coal gasification processes in 1980. In October of that
year, the Texaco process was selected. 1981 saw pilot tests run at Texaco's Montebello Research Laboratory, and a process design
package was prepared in 1982. Detailed design started in early 1983, and site preparation in the middle of that year. Construction
was completed in just over one year. The plant was commissioned in July 1984, and the first drop of liquid ammonia from coal was
obtained in early August 1984. Those engineering and construction works and commissioning were executed by Ube's Plant En
Division. Ube installed the new coal gasification process as an alternative "front
end"
gineering of the existing steam reforming
process, retaining the original synthesis gas compression and ammonia synthesis facility. The plant thus has a wide range of
flexibility in selection of raw material depending on any future energy shift. It can now produce ammonia from coals, naphtha and
LPG as required.
The 1,650 short tons per day gasification plant has operated using four kinds of coal-Canadian, Australian, Chinese, and South
African, and about twenty kinds of petroleum coke.
Over 43 million tons of feed including 1.6 million tons of petroleum coke, had been gasified by June 1994. The overall cost of am
monia is said by Ube to be reduced by more than 20 percent by using coal gasification. Furthermore, the coal gasification plant is
expected to be even more advantageous if the price difference between crude oil and coal increases.
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SYNTHETIC FUELS REPORT, JANUARY 1995