(47b) Cost Analysis for Retrofit of Coal-Fired Power Plants with Post-Combustion CO2 Capture Technology

The escalating level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is one of the biggest environmental challenges of our age. CO₂ capture and storage from large point sources such as coal-fired power plants is considered a viable path towards CO₂ mitigation. Among the CO₂ capture processes under investigation, post-combustion technology has the advantage that the equipment can be retrofitted to the existing infrastructures.  In addition, post combustion capture may be tuned for specific CO₂ capture targets which only require partial capture such as the NSPS proposed limit of 1,100 lbs of CO₂/MWhr for coal fired power plants.

This presentation will discuss the cost analysis for post combustion based capture processes based on the methodology of Case 11, 550 MWe supercritical coal-fired units as discussed in the report by the Department of Energy.[1] The presentation will assess the sensitivity of costs associated with capital and operational expenditures as a result of solvent properties such as energy penalty of the plant equipped with a post-combustion capture technology.  Significant current research focuses on reduction of the energy penalty associated with post combustion capture; however, the costs of CO₂ capture may not be dominated by the energy penalty of the process.  This presentation will also assess the viability of $40/tonne of CO₂capture targets for post combustion systems and predicted capital cost and energy penalty requirements to achieve DOE targets for 2025.

[1] DOE/NETL 2007, Cost and Performance Baseline for Fossil Energy Plants, Volume 1: Bituminous Coal and Natural Gas to Electricity, Rev. 2, DOE/NETL-2010/1397, November 2010.