Coal Power Plant Shut-Downs

(Below) There are literally dozens of small coal power plants that have either been shut down or will be shut down soon. Some still have many useful years of electricity generation left in them. There is a path back to life for them.

All over the world there are thousands of depleted oil fields.  The oldest ones ran out of oil over 150 years ago and were simply abandoned and forgotten. The lifecycle of an oil field frequently goes something like this:  1., About 30% of the oil is easy pumping. 2., About 30% of the oil in a now-depleted oil field can be flushed out using alternating solvent and water injection cycles from injection wells drilled around the edge of the oil field to push the remaining oil toward the oil pumps. 3., About 30% of the oil is too strongly attached to pores in the sand and cannot be extracted with today's technology.

This implies that there is as much oil still to be obtained from existing depleted oil fields as mankind has already obtained since the beginning of the age of oil. Carbon capture provides the key that can unlock that massive wealth of energy.

Global Locations of Depleted Oil Fields

One of the best solvents to flush oil out of a depleted oil field is liquid carbon dioxide (CO2). 

Power generation jet engines are available that can deliver long service running on raw crude oil.

There are post-combustion carbon capture systems available that can capture over 90% of the carbon dioxide from the exhaust of crude oil burning jet engines. This amount of liquid CO2 is sufficient to power the crude oil burning jet engine in an endless circular CO2/oil/CO2/oil cycle.

This web page is about converting coal power power plants to carbon captured combined cycle power plants with crude oil burning jet engines supplying the heat to make the steam necessary to spin the the old coal power plant's electricity generating steam turbine.

Combined cycle power plants are made worldwide by perhaps a dozen different power plant companies. 

General Electric makes a very efficient 750 megaWatt combined cycle power plant called the "FlexEfficiency 60".  Depending on details, they are usually installed and on-line in 6 to 12 months.

A 750 megaWatt power plant's electricity wholesales to the grid for almost 1 million dollars a day.  Think about what that does for the local economy. 

For levelized cost comparisons of different types of power plants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source 

3 times 750 mW would produce 2,250 megaWatts, bringing an end to Michigan's 2,233 mW electricity shortfall. 

These units put out almost the same amount of electricity as a small nuclear plant and are "Dry", i.e., they don't need cooling ponds or rivers.

Usually made to burn natural gas, they can be equipped to burn oil instead - and Michigan is the U.S.' 17th largest oil producing state.

When burning biodiesel oil instead of fossil fuel oil, the FlexEfficiencies are considered by the Climate Change people to be "carbon neutral", meaning they neither add to, nor remove from, the air's Climate Changing carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution.

By locating carbon-neutral manufacturing facilities on obsolete coal power plant sites, the local staff and all the access equipment could remain employed for a whole second career of making both larger quantities of electricity and large quantities of carbon-neutral syngas biosynfuels.

In South Central Michigan there are several such plants located near depleted oil fields that could be used to provide the necessary oil.

Initially, the obsolete coal power plant would have something like the combined cycle plant below added to it. Excess energy not used to power the carbon capturing equipment could be used to power the old electricity generator.

(Above) Combined Cycle Electricity Generation Plant with Integral Carbon Capture.

Post Combustion Carbon Capture process using an amine solvent to absorb (CO2 Absorber) and then reject (CO2 Stripper) the CO2 gas.

(Above) Salt beds about 2 miles down have been identified by geologists as being some of the best in the world for permanent sequestration of CO2. Either excess CO2 from the syngas biosynfuels plant or CO2 produced by regional sources - such as natural gas enrichment operations - unable to dispose of their "Dirty CO2".

For the carbon-neutral fuel plant in this article, a CO2 disposal well straight down on the company's own property couldn't be a cheaper or easier revenue stream.

(Below) Using depleted oil energy to make synthetic carbon-neutral liquid biosynfuels for vehicle use.  See  >

Component Descriptions

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12  Back      Crude oil as a fuel: (pdf)    http://www.energy.siemens.com/us/en/fossil-power-generation/gas-turbines/sgt-500.htm 

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