Happy Wednesday!
The Department of Energy (DOE) and a
group of engineers and scientists think so!
Did anyone read The Houston
Chronicle’s Business Section on June 3, 2024, their article
titled, “SwRI tests a turbine powered by CO2 – The plant generated electricity
for the first time in May”? This article
is in regard to a joint project at the Southwest Research Institute’s (SwRI) called Supercritical Transformational
Electric Power (STEP) Demo which is a demonstration power plant which uses
supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO₂) to run a turbine to make electricity,
and it has produced power for the first time in May. The STEP program is heavily funded from the DOE and their goal of finding
lower cost power while having a smaller footprint. The STEP project is being headed by Gas Technology Institute with a collaboration with General Electric and SwRI.
What is supercritical carbon dioxide?
sCO₂ is carbon dioxide in a fluid state
due to it is at its critical temperature and critical pressure or the midway
point between its gas and solid states, so in a way it is a liquid acting like
a gas. The value of sCO₂ is it may be able to use the carbon captured from industry
or carbon capture storage in a closed loop system; in this project they are
using heated natural gas to get it to the supercritical state nonetheless they believe
they may be able to use any heat source to attain this state. Carbon dioxide may be our next green technology.
The demo power plant cost $169
million to build in San Antonio, and the project is expected to run until next
summer with the goal of producing 10 MW by the expiration of the project. In May, the demo power plant’s turbine which
is much smaller than existing steam turbine worked at temperature of 500⁰ and made 27,000 rotations in a minute, and by the end of the
Texas summer it is expected to work at temperature of 932⁰ and produce 5 MW of electricity. STEP project’s power plant is much
smaller than current power plants and hold the promise to use existing industry
for its exhaust heat to heat the carbon dioxide which should mean no need for a
boiler like is used now to make steam this should reduce the size of power plant. We wish the STEP program much success with
this promising project and use of carbon dioxide. If you would like to read more of the article from The
Houston Chronicle on PressReader.com, please click the link: PressReader.com - Digital Newspaper & Magazine
Subscriptions.
If you would like help in looking into how to transport your liquid
product from your terminal and reduce your emissions to spearhead your
company’s goal of becoming carbon neutral, contact us via the email in the blog
and check out our ESC's website!
We hope you have a great and productive week!
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