Publications
Cooling alternatives evaluation for a new pulverized coal power plant with carbon capture
1st August 2011
Topic(s): Carbon capture use and storage (CCUS), CO2 capture
The Tenaska Trailblazer Energy Center is expected to be the first new-build coal plant in the United States to incorporate a commercial-scale carbon dioxide capture plant into the initial design. The project is designed to capture 85 to 90 per cent of the CO2 that otherwise would be emitted into the atmosphere.
The CO2 captured from the project will be sold into the Permian Basin CO2 market in West Texas, where it will be used in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) and ultimately stored permanently underground. The Trailblazer project will consist of both a state-of-the-art pulverized coal facility (PC Plant) and a carbon capture facility (CC Plant).
The project is located in a semi-arid area, with annual rainfall averaging about 22 inches (56 centimeters). As such, very early in the project’s development Tenaska explored several cooling options, including air cooling, full wet cooling and partial wet cooling (hybrid cooling). Through this high-level analysis and due to water rights restrictions -- and for other strategic reasons -- Tenaska assumed that Trailblazer would need to employ air cooling in order to reduce the PC Plant’s water usage. This report describes the process used to determine the best alternative for the project’s cooling systems.
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