BP to build clean-burning power plant

Anchorage Daily News ^ | February 10, 2006 | PAULA DOBBYN

[thackney]

Oil giant BP is expected to announce today the construction of a second, clean-burning power plant, this time in the United States, a BP executive told an Anchorage audience this week.

BP and some partners moved forward last year with a similar but smaller plant in Scotland. In all, BP plans to spend $8 billion to build a total of 10 plants worldwide that generate "carbon-free" power, the executive said.

Charles Christopher, BP's CO2 program manager, spoke Wednesday at the Alaska Forum on the Environment about the oil company's efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and make money doing it.

BP has spent $200 million over the last four years on projects to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which cause global warming, by improving energy efficiency and reducing flaring of natural gas during oil production. By taking these steps, the company made $600 million in revenue, he said.

In 2002, BP achieved its goal of reducing total company emissions by 10 percent from 1990 levels, he said. "And we made money doing it," Christopher added.

Its current goal is to maintain the 10 percent reduction until 2012.

...

The latest $1 billion, 500-megawatt plant will be built at a BP refinery in Carson, Calif., according to The Wall Street Journal. Like the 250-megawatt plant in Scotland, it will produce electricity from hydrogen, which releases water, not greenhouse gases, when burned.

Unlike the Scottish plant, which converts natural gas into carbon dioxide and hydrogen and then pumps the gas underground, the California plant will use petroleum coke as a fuel source, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Petroleum coke is a byproduct of oil refining.

"It's the bottom of the barrel," Christopher said. "The refineries in the U.S. produce a lot of it, and it's not worth anything."

[thackney]

Another project by those "evil" oil companies < /sarcasm>

[SIDENET]

carbon dioxide emissions, which cause global warming

< groan>

[farlander]

Honestly, nuclear power plants are very difficult to destroy through a terror attack as is. The best chance is to drive a large airplane into the building. That's been done already, and isn't happening again.

I'm not very worried about a nuclear power plant accident at all. The new ones, especially the new "pebble bed" reactors are designed to be impossible to melt down. As far as I'm concerned, we could replace all of our electricity generation with those within few years. And, you really wouldn't need to really "fortify" them. The security they already have should be more than enough.

[oyez]

Enviromenalist Wacko response: It is to little to late. It does nothing to help with the dependency of fossil fuel. If they're making money off this plant, it just means they have found another way to exploit the masses.

[Uncledave]

It does nothing to help with the dependency of fossil fuel. If they're making money off this plant, it just means they have found another way to exploit the masses.

Well, it seems like the input fuel is a waste product from refining so there's a strong economic basis. Nothing to be upset about here as far as I can tell.

[thackney]

I don't get this. If there is clean fossil fuel power and such, why is it new now?

From BP Announcement:

The proposed Carson project would combine a number of existing industrial processes to provide a new option for generating electricity without significant CO2 emissions. Petroleum coke produced at California refineries would first be converted to hydrogen and CO2 gases and around 90 percent of the CO2 captured and separated.

The hydrogen gas stream would be used to fuel a gas turbine to generate electricity. The captured CO2 would be transported by pipeline to an oilfield and injected into reservoir rock formations thousands of feet underground, both stimulating additional oil production and permanently trapping the CO2.

But the detail is probably found later in the article:

The costs of hydrogen power are higher than those of traditional power plant fuels. As a result, the project will depend, in part, on incentives provided in the Federal Energy Policy Act of 2005 for advanced gasification technologies. In addition, continued progress on the California Public Utilities Commission's electricity "resource adequacy" procurement policies will encourage this first-of-its-kind facility.

[Toby06]

BP to build clean-burning power plant

Nuclear?

[Carry_Okie]

I'd like to see them build thousands of these. They're small, easily secured, intrinsically safe, and a distributed source. Bulletproof solution and very difficult to interrupt.

[thackney]

Then just go about taking down every single oil

Very little crude oil is used in making electrical power.

Most oil goes to transportation and industrial use.

[Richard-SIA]

I seem to recall that the "Garbage into Oil" plant is able to convert this oil coke into a form of normal oil that can be refined into heating fuel.

If that is correct, along with this use, "Oil Coke" is not so much without value as it is under utilized.

Turning waste products into energy, this is the sort of intelligent use of existing resources that needs to expand.

[Old Professer]

By starting with methane CH4, and then stripping the C to combine it with O2, freeing the H4 for combustion, the process gives up over 50% of the mole energy; this means a lot of wasted energy by anyone's standards.

The manufactured CO2 will be pumped underground to "sink" it; out of sight, out of mind.

[Little Bill]

I think Nuke is the way to go for base load power plants, in New England. Pipe line restrictions and the better use of Natural Gas as a chemical feed stock should restrict it to peaking.

ISO NE is concerned about the lack of oil fired generation, with a good turn down in this area, but with the commie Governments in this region I am not going to hold my breath.

[oyez]

You know how it is, the enviro's are never happy.

[sausageseller]

PAULA DOBBYN you should cease your carbon dioxide emissions, which cause global warming.

[Steveone]

Why are they building anything here ???? What we are some third world country now ?

They need to leave quickly as possible.

[thackney]

What are you talking about?

[thackney]

In 2005, BP invested more than $6 billion in capital expenditures and employed about 37,000 people in the United States.