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The Gasification Systems program and its forerunners played an important role in development of efficient power technologies in the United States. Notably, these included highly efficient and low-polluting integrated gasification combined cycle power plants (IGCC), among the best-performing fossil fuel-based plants of their era when they were commissioned in the late 20th century. In the past 25 years, the program continued with development of multiple syngas technologies for efficiency and operational improvements in gasification-based process systems. Notable examples include the now industry-standard Aurex® 95P gasifier refractory, the highly efficient commercially ready warm syngas cleanup technology, the TRIG™ transport integrated gasification technology for low-rank fuel utilization, and NETL’s MFiX modeling software successfully used in varied fossil energy, bio, nuclear, solar energy processing and nuclear waste treatment simulations of solid/liquids/gas flow reactors including syngas-producing gasifiers.
The chief limitations or barriers to conventional gasification tend not to be technical in nature, but market-based, as was made clear through later experiences with implementing large gasification plants. A good example to consider is the Edwardsport Station in Knox County, Indiana, where a 618-MW IGCC plant began operations in 2013. Cost overruns at this plant resulted in excessively high capital investment liability. Several factors worked against this plant, including unexpectedly high materials costs, schedule delays, etc.; but fundamentally, the plant needed to be large to take advantage of economy-of-scale factors that apply to most of the major plant systems. Large turbines, large gasifiers, large oxygen plant, etc., are needed for acceptable performance and unit cost efficiencies. This directly translates into the huge cost and investment risk, impracticable to justify to utilities, customers and financial institutions. Realizing the advantages of smaller/distributed gasification systems that would limit cost and risk, DOE-NETL endorsed development of gasification systems of more tractable size range of perhaps 70-200 MWth equivalent. Systems sized in this range may also more realistically take advantage of local sources of biomass and wastes as fuel, conveying synergistic benefits of waste dispositioning and sustainability.
Syngas versatility is a strong advantage of the gasification technological approach, enabling syngas-based plants to be configured with flexibility to produce the most valuable product given market opportunities. As opposed to the past where IGCC power generation was market-viable, future applications may well hinge on location-favorable targeted/distributed production of high-value hydrogen, fuels or chemicals. Hydrogen could be used as turbine fuel, as a fuel for industrial sectors such as the steel industry, or as feedstock for production of fuels of current market interest (e.g. sustainable aviation fuel) and chemicals such as ammonia. Syngas continues to be a versatile feedstock for myriad chemical syntheses and energy systems. Gasification-based syngas systems should be featured in the suite of affordable, reliable and secure energy technologies that will help strengthen American energy dominance for years to come.
