Pilot project for carbon capture starts up at Tampa IGCC plant

A pilot project has started up to demonstrate a warm gas cleanup carbon capture technology in a coal gasification unit at the Polk Power Plant Unit-1 in Tampa, Florida. 

The project, which is approximately $3 million under budget, included $168 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding.

More than 20 years ago

 DOE

 helped fund construction of the plant – the first coal integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant in the U.S., and one of the first in the world. 

Gas cleaning at power plants to remove contaminates like carbon dioxide, mercury, and sulfur is typically done at low temperatures. IGCC technology, or warm gas cleanup, has posed a technical challenge to scientists for more than 30 years. It has the potential to improve the energy efficiency of removing pollutants from coal power plant emissions, reducing the overall cost of capturing carbon dioxide and other contaminant emissions from power plants while also increasing reliability. The TECO project is the first to use IGCC on a large-scale.

IGCC also has the potential for local economic benefits. The technology increases the possibility that the captured carbon dioxide can be turned into a new revenue stream for operators by converting it into other uses, like fertilizer and enhanced oil recovery.