OCR Text |
Show challenge and registry (VCR) program to reduce greenhouse gases with active industry participation. An application that can offer secondary economic benefits with the underground storage of C02 emissions from coal-fired power generation plants involves its use in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations. The potential market for C 0 2 use in E O R in the western Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan has been estimated to be in the range of 277 million tonnes over a 15 year period. The estimated C 0 2 capacity in this 15 year time frame could reduce up to 5 % of the annual Canadian C 0 2 emission. In a more medium term time frame, C 0 2 recovered from power plants can also be utilised for coal bed methane recovery while at the same time permitting the utilisation of this fossil fuel resource without a net emission of C 0 2 into the atmosphere. In the longer term, other environmentally sound albeit more costly methods of gas disposal such as aquifers and disused gas and oil wells in the western Canadian sedimentary basin can be used for the permanent storage of C 0 2 removed from coal-fired power generation plants. Overall, for the commercial appeal of these various options for C 0 2 mitigation, it would be wise to undertake early research to identify more energy and cost effective methods for C 0 2 capture or recovery from flue gases produced from power generation plants. In this paper, preliminary work undertaken by the CANMET Energy Technology Centre (CETC), Natural Resources Canada to evaluate a novel flue gas recycling process for coal combustion is described. The combustion process evaluated has the advantage of producing a highly enriched C 0 2 stream for removal and disposal from a variety of new or retrofit power generation applications involving conventional steam boilers, gas turbine combined cycles and advanced molten carbonate fuel cells (1). In the present instance, the results obtained in the tests using Highvale coal from Alberta are aimed at providing data for a retrofit application of the process in a conventional coal-fired steam boiler. 2. Pilot plant equipment and operation for 02/C02 recycle combustion This section provides details of the pilot-scale process used to undertake work on 02/C02 recycle combustion at C A N M E T Energy Technology Centre's, Bells Comers Complex in Ottawa, Ontario. A cylindrical, down-fired vertical combustor is used for fuel combustion. The combustion reactor permits the establishment of axisymmetric flames that can be analysed by water cooled instruments and probes inserted through ports along its length to measure the radial and axial profiles of in-flame gaseous and particulate species, temperatures and radiant and convective heat transfer properties. Knowledge of these parameters generally contribute to a better understanding of the fundamentals of a combustion process and the validation of fluid dynamic combustion models and codes that can be applied to the design and scale-up of larger scale process combustors and boilers. Specific design details of the overall pilot-scale operation, process flow sheet, process control and data acquisition system are described below. 2 |