High-level government officials and special invited guests attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony on October 18 commemorating the construction and commissioning of an oxy-fired pressurized fluidized bed combustion (oxy-PFBC) pilot test facility at CanmetENERGY-Ottawa. The event, hosted by Gas Technology Institute (GTI) and NRCan/CanmetENERGY-Ottawa, celebrates the cooperation between the U.S. and Canada on an oxy-PFBC process that can generate electricity and heat with zero emissions by economically capturing greenhouse gases created by biomass and fossil fuel combustion.
The commissioning comes quickly on the heels of the North American Leaders’ (NAL) Summit hosted in Ottawa in late June 2016, according to GTI. At that meeting, U.S. President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada and President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico announced initiatives to enhance North America’s economic competitiveness and expand efforts on climate change, clean energy and the environment. Development of the pilot test facility exemplifies the rapid response of the energy cooperative to take action in implementing sustainability commitments made in Paris to combat climate change, according to GTI.
GTI is leading the initiative in collaboration with CanmetENERGY-Ottawa, Linde, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), GE and Penn State University with support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), the Canadian Clean Power Coalition (CCPC) and Alberta Innovates - Energy and Environment Solutions (AI-EES).
Researchers previously completed a feasibility study, and efforts are now focusing on component development and pilot-plant testing, according to GTI. The pressurized combustion in oxygen and recycling of carbon dioxide gas reportedly eliminates the presence of nitrogen and other constituents of air, minimizing the generation of pollutants and enabling more economical CO2 capture. In a complementary project, GTI is also designing, fabricating, and testing a supercritical CO2 power cycle heat exchanger for the Oxy-PFBC pilot plant to achieve even greater power cycle efficiencies.
For more information, visit: www.gastechnology.org
