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CCUS abatement needs of 0.2 to 408 million tons in 2030
2023/6/14
Can atmospheric carbon dioxide be captured and reused? This vision has now become a reality.
On June 2, the largest carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) project for thermal power plants in Asia, the National Energy Group's Taizhou Power Plant in Jiangsu Province, was officially put into operation. The project can capture 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, and the captured carbon dioxide will be widely used in industry, food industry and other fields to truly realize resource reuse.
How to capture the invisible and intangible carbon dioxide? How will these "arrested" carbon dioxide come to the downstream for reuse? The reporter went to Taizhou power plant to conduct field interviews.
"Carbon capture" is necessary
--To achieve the goal of "double carbon" need to promote the reduction of emissions in various industries, the capture and storage of carbon dioxide is an important means
When you walk into the Taizhou Power Plant, three towering operating towers come into view. Looking forward along the long blue and white pipeline, four huge silver spherical gas storage tanks are connected to it, continuously delivering compressed liquid carbon dioxide, waiting to be loaded by transport trucks and sent to various places downstream.
"This is our capture area, which covers an area of about 1,650 square meters and has the smallest unit footprint compared to other existing CCUS projects." Yang Yang, manager of the carbon capture research unit at the Carbon Neutral Center of the National Energy Group's New Energy Technology Research Institute, introduced.
CCUS, also known as Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage, is a pocket technology to achieve low-carbon utilization of fossil energy, i.e. to capture and purify carbon dioxide emitted during the production process, and then put it into a new production process for reuse and storage.
"Carbon capture" is to reduce carbon emissions. Since China proposed the "double carbon" target, energy saving and carbon reduction have become the consensus of all industries. For the thermal power industry, which has a large carbon footprint, it is important to ensure that coal power plays a fundamental role in the energy supply, but also to minimize the environmental impact caused by carbon emissions. CCUS is seen as one of the key technical tools to further reduce emissions and ensure clean and efficient use of coal.
"The carbon dioxide capture rate of the Taizhou Power Plant CCUS project is over 90%, which can capture and consume 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, and the purity of the output dry-based carbon dioxide is over 99%, which has both environmental value and commercial demonstration significance." Gong Haizhan, director of the Carbon Resource Development Special Office of Jiangsu Taizhou Power Plant of National Energy Group, said.
Carbon dioxide can not be seen and touched, how to "capture"? Yang Yang told reporters that it is the water washing tower, absorption tower, regeneration tower, the three towers in the work. "Thermal power plant combustion emissions are in line with national environmental standards of flue gas, which contains 10% to 15% of carbon dioxide. It is the flue gas emitted from unit 4 of Taizhou power plant that we use as the raw gas for carbon dioxide capture."
From the path of the flue gas, the flue gas will first enter the water washing tower through the induced draft fan for cooling, while also removing impurities such as sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and dust from it.
Immediately after, the gas comes to the bottom of the absorption tower. more than 50 meters high absorption tower, used to absorb carbon dioxide amine solution from the top of the tower down spray, and then fully react with the gas. At this point, more than 90% of the carbon dioxide in the flue gas will be absorbed by the amine solution, and the remaining gas will meet the emission standards and be discharged into the atmosphere through the flue back to the main engine stack.
The amine solution that has "eaten" enough carbon dioxide will enter the third tower - the regeneration tower. Here, the absorbed carbon dioxide amine solution undergoes a series of chemical reactions, decomposing into carbon dioxide and poor amine liquid with a purity of over 99%, and then "divided into two ways", the former is transported to the compression, drying and liquefaction system through the stainless steel pipeline, converting high-purity carbon dioxide gas into high-pressure carbon dioxide liquid, which is finally sent to the spherical storage tank; The latter is returned to the top of the absorption tower, waiting for the next round of operations.
"The residence time of the flue gas in the tower is very short, less than two minutes for the whole process. In other words, in less than two minutes, we are able to 'capture' the carbon dioxide in the flue gas and wait for subsequent utilization and sequestration." Yang Yang said.
"Using carbon is not simple
--Directed to downstream users, so that the captured carbon dioxide can give full play to commercial value
How will carbon dioxide be used after it is captured?
According to industry insiders, carbon dioxide is currently used in several fields: first, it is injected into oil reservoirs to drive oil and improve the recovery rate of oil fields to produce more crude oil; second, it is used in chemical industry, such as manufacturing inorganic chemicals like urea, silica, barium carbonate and organic chemicals like salicylic acid, methanol and ethanol. In addition, carbon dioxide can also be used in the food industry. The large number of bubbles in soda drinks is food-grade carbon dioxide.
In fact, some CCUS projects have been landed in China before, but how to achieve profitability is always a common problem that plagues the industry. Wang Nianrong, deputy director of the Institute of Oil and Gas Field Surface Engineering Planning of the General Petroleum Planning Institute of China, told this reporter that China's CCUS projects are still in the early stages of commercial development, and the benefits of CCUS commercial applications are relatively low, mainly due to the low maturity of the technology and business model of some CCUS projects. "The current cost of low-concentration flue gas CO2 capture is mostly above 400 yuan per ton, the cost of 100-kilometer CO2 transportation is above 35 yuan per ton, and the cost of CO2 injection into the formation is about 20 yuan per ton, the comprehensive cost obviously exceeds the benefits generated by CO2 oil drive." Wang Nianrong said.
To break the bottleneck of CCUS project development, it is crucial to realize the commercialization of CO2 utilization and ensure profitability. Today, the Taizhou Power Plant CCUS project has made an effective attempt. "At present, the carbon dioxide captured by the CCUS project of Taizhou Power Plant is mainly used in the industrial and food industry, etc. We have four spherical CO2 storage tanks, two of which store industrial-grade CO2 and the other two store food-grade CO2." Gong Haizhan revealed that at the early stage of the project design, the team has synchronized a lot of market research in the Yangtze River Delta region, locking in users in welding manufacturing, food-grade dry ice, high-tech machinery cleaning, etc.
"There are not only oil fields near our power plant, but also some ship-making enterprises, and they all have a greater demand for carbon dioxide, which means there are stable customers for the project." Gong Haizhan said, "From the current market feedback, food grade dry ice, cold chain transportation market has more room for development, and customers have good feedback on the quality of our output carbon dioxide. With sufficient market research to ensure the commercial value of the captured CO2, our project is able to guarantee 100% consumption of captured CO2, i.e. 500,000 tons per year, with stable profitability, and also provides a sample for the long-term sustainable operation of coal power CCUS projects."
There is a market, there must also be a "good price". Gong Haiyang told reporters that through technological innovation, optimization of process routes, reasonable equipment layout and other means, the project investment costs are controlled at a relatively low level, and the unit production cost of carbon dioxide is also more desirable, to ensure the sustainable operation of the project.
Strong technical innovation
-- Strengthening scientific and technological research to achieve large-scale and sustainable development of the CCUS project
The CCUS project is new, and it is necessary to ensure the production of large amounts of high-purity carbon dioxide for the market, but also to reduce costs. The key behind this is still to rely on technological innovation.
In the Taizhou power plant, for example, to ensure comprehensive project performance and reduce equipment losses, the project team independently developed a new low-energy, high-capacity, high-stability ternary compound absorber, which reduced regeneration heat consumption by more than 35% compared to traditional absorbers.
"Although we have previous experience with CCUS projects capturing 150,000 tons of CO2 per year, going from 150,000 tons to 500,000 tons is not a simple superposition of quantity, but rather a technological innovation to create." Xu Dong, director of the Carbon Neutral Center of the National Energy Group's Institute of New Energy Technology, said, "The absorber is the 'heart' of the technical process of the CCUS project, and the indicator and scheme of the absorber are determined before the subsequent equipment selection and other work can be carried out. We did over a thousand experiments just to adjust the absorber proportioning scheme before finding the optimal solution."
The use of circulating water DC water supply cooling system, reduce investment and reduce the capture of each ton of carbon dioxide electricity consumption of about 6 kilowatt hours; the choice of variable frequency adjustable centrifugal induced draft fan, economic adjustment of the load range of up to 60% to 100%; the use of a new material plate heat exchanger, can guarantee the equipment maintenance time to shorten two or three days ...... a technical innovation Application, not only to become a strong guarantee of sustainable operation of the Taizhou power plant CCUS project, but also to provide a reference for the promotion and application of domestic CCUS.
On June 2, the largest carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) project for thermal power plants in Asia, the National Energy Group's Taizhou Power Plant in Jiangsu Province, was officially put into operation. The project can capture 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, and the captured carbon dioxide will be widely used in industry, food industry and other fields to truly realize resource reuse.
How to capture the invisible and intangible carbon dioxide? How will these "arrested" carbon dioxide come to the downstream for reuse? The reporter went to Taizhou power plant to conduct field interviews.
"Carbon capture" is necessary
--To achieve the goal of "double carbon" need to promote the reduction of emissions in various industries, the capture and storage of carbon dioxide is an important means
When you walk into the Taizhou Power Plant, three towering operating towers come into view. Looking forward along the long blue and white pipeline, four huge silver spherical gas storage tanks are connected to it, continuously delivering compressed liquid carbon dioxide, waiting to be loaded by transport trucks and sent to various places downstream.
"This is our capture area, which covers an area of about 1,650 square meters and has the smallest unit footprint compared to other existing CCUS projects." Yang Yang, manager of the carbon capture research unit at the Carbon Neutral Center of the National Energy Group's New Energy Technology Research Institute, introduced.
CCUS, also known as Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage, is a pocket technology to achieve low-carbon utilization of fossil energy, i.e. to capture and purify carbon dioxide emitted during the production process, and then put it into a new production process for reuse and storage.
"Carbon capture" is to reduce carbon emissions. Since China proposed the "double carbon" target, energy saving and carbon reduction have become the consensus of all industries. For the thermal power industry, which has a large carbon footprint, it is important to ensure that coal power plays a fundamental role in the energy supply, but also to minimize the environmental impact caused by carbon emissions. CCUS is seen as one of the key technical tools to further reduce emissions and ensure clean and efficient use of coal.
"The carbon dioxide capture rate of the Taizhou Power Plant CCUS project is over 90%, which can capture and consume 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, and the purity of the output dry-based carbon dioxide is over 99%, which has both environmental value and commercial demonstration significance." Gong Haizhan, director of the Carbon Resource Development Special Office of Jiangsu Taizhou Power Plant of National Energy Group, said.
Carbon dioxide can not be seen and touched, how to "capture"? Yang Yang told reporters that it is the water washing tower, absorption tower, regeneration tower, the three towers in the work. "Thermal power plant combustion emissions are in line with national environmental standards of flue gas, which contains 10% to 15% of carbon dioxide. It is the flue gas emitted from unit 4 of Taizhou power plant that we use as the raw gas for carbon dioxide capture."
From the path of the flue gas, the flue gas will first enter the water washing tower through the induced draft fan for cooling, while also removing impurities such as sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and dust from it.
Immediately after, the gas comes to the bottom of the absorption tower. more than 50 meters high absorption tower, used to absorb carbon dioxide amine solution from the top of the tower down spray, and then fully react with the gas. At this point, more than 90% of the carbon dioxide in the flue gas will be absorbed by the amine solution, and the remaining gas will meet the emission standards and be discharged into the atmosphere through the flue back to the main engine stack.
The amine solution that has "eaten" enough carbon dioxide will enter the third tower - the regeneration tower. Here, the absorbed carbon dioxide amine solution undergoes a series of chemical reactions, decomposing into carbon dioxide and poor amine liquid with a purity of over 99%, and then "divided into two ways", the former is transported to the compression, drying and liquefaction system through the stainless steel pipeline, converting high-purity carbon dioxide gas into high-pressure carbon dioxide liquid, which is finally sent to the spherical storage tank; The latter is returned to the top of the absorption tower, waiting for the next round of operations.
"The residence time of the flue gas in the tower is very short, less than two minutes for the whole process. In other words, in less than two minutes, we are able to 'capture' the carbon dioxide in the flue gas and wait for subsequent utilization and sequestration." Yang Yang said.
"Using carbon is not simple
--Directed to downstream users, so that the captured carbon dioxide can give full play to commercial value
How will carbon dioxide be used after it is captured?
According to industry insiders, carbon dioxide is currently used in several fields: first, it is injected into oil reservoirs to drive oil and improve the recovery rate of oil fields to produce more crude oil; second, it is used in chemical industry, such as manufacturing inorganic chemicals like urea, silica, barium carbonate and organic chemicals like salicylic acid, methanol and ethanol. In addition, carbon dioxide can also be used in the food industry. The large number of bubbles in soda drinks is food-grade carbon dioxide.
In fact, some CCUS projects have been landed in China before, but how to achieve profitability is always a common problem that plagues the industry. Wang Nianrong, deputy director of the Institute of Oil and Gas Field Surface Engineering Planning of the General Petroleum Planning Institute of China, told this reporter that China's CCUS projects are still in the early stages of commercial development, and the benefits of CCUS commercial applications are relatively low, mainly due to the low maturity of the technology and business model of some CCUS projects. "The current cost of low-concentration flue gas CO2 capture is mostly above 400 yuan per ton, the cost of 100-kilometer CO2 transportation is above 35 yuan per ton, and the cost of CO2 injection into the formation is about 20 yuan per ton, the comprehensive cost obviously exceeds the benefits generated by CO2 oil drive." Wang Nianrong said.
To break the bottleneck of CCUS project development, it is crucial to realize the commercialization of CO2 utilization and ensure profitability. Today, the Taizhou Power Plant CCUS project has made an effective attempt. "At present, the carbon dioxide captured by the CCUS project of Taizhou Power Plant is mainly used in the industrial and food industry, etc. We have four spherical CO2 storage tanks, two of which store industrial-grade CO2 and the other two store food-grade CO2." Gong Haizhan revealed that at the early stage of the project design, the team has synchronized a lot of market research in the Yangtze River Delta region, locking in users in welding manufacturing, food-grade dry ice, high-tech machinery cleaning, etc.
"There are not only oil fields near our power plant, but also some ship-making enterprises, and they all have a greater demand for carbon dioxide, which means there are stable customers for the project." Gong Haizhan said, "From the current market feedback, food grade dry ice, cold chain transportation market has more room for development, and customers have good feedback on the quality of our output carbon dioxide. With sufficient market research to ensure the commercial value of the captured CO2, our project is able to guarantee 100% consumption of captured CO2, i.e. 500,000 tons per year, with stable profitability, and also provides a sample for the long-term sustainable operation of coal power CCUS projects."
There is a market, there must also be a "good price". Gong Haiyang told reporters that through technological innovation, optimization of process routes, reasonable equipment layout and other means, the project investment costs are controlled at a relatively low level, and the unit production cost of carbon dioxide is also more desirable, to ensure the sustainable operation of the project.
Strong technical innovation
-- Strengthening scientific and technological research to achieve large-scale and sustainable development of the CCUS project
The CCUS project is new, and it is necessary to ensure the production of large amounts of high-purity carbon dioxide for the market, but also to reduce costs. The key behind this is still to rely on technological innovation.
In the Taizhou power plant, for example, to ensure comprehensive project performance and reduce equipment losses, the project team independently developed a new low-energy, high-capacity, high-stability ternary compound absorber, which reduced regeneration heat consumption by more than 35% compared to traditional absorbers.
"Although we have previous experience with CCUS projects capturing 150,000 tons of CO2 per year, going from 150,000 tons to 500,000 tons is not a simple superposition of quantity, but rather a technological innovation to create." Xu Dong, director of the Carbon Neutral Center of the National Energy Group's Institute of New Energy Technology, said, "The absorber is the 'heart' of the technical process of the CCUS project, and the indicator and scheme of the absorber are determined before the subsequent equipment selection and other work can be carried out. We did over a thousand experiments just to adjust the absorber proportioning scheme before finding the optimal solution."
The use of circulating water DC water supply cooling system, reduce investment and reduce the capture of each ton of carbon dioxide electricity consumption of about 6 kilowatt hours; the choice of variable frequency adjustable centrifugal induced draft fan, economic adjustment of the load range of up to 60% to 100%; the use of a new material plate heat exchanger, can guarantee the equipment maintenance time to shorten two or three days ...... a technical innovation Application, not only to become a strong guarantee of sustainable operation of the Taizhou power plant CCUS project, but also to provide a reference for the promotion and application of domestic CCUS.
Industry analysts say that the CCUS industry in China has a wide space for development under the guidance of the "double carbon" goal. The Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the State Council on the Complete and Accurate Implementation of the New Development Concept for Carbon Neutralization and Carbon Dumping proposed to "promote the R&D, demonstration and industrial application of large-scale carbon capture and utilization and storage technologies". The China Carbon Dioxide Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) Annual Report (2021) estimates that the demand for CCUS emission reduction will range from 0.2 to 408 million tons in 2030, and the output value of CCUS is expected to be over 330 billion yuan by 2050.
"Coal and coal power as the energy supply 'ballast' underwriting guarantee role remains prominent, CCUS is the coal industry low carbon utilization of economic and feasible options, but also to ensure the flexibility of the power system is an important technical means. In the future, we should continue to increase technical research, promote the commercial use of CCUS, and promote the establishment of a perfect carbon asset trading system, which in turn will provide a more friendly development space for domestic CCUS promotion and application, and provide strong technical guarantee for achieving the 'double carbon' goal."
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