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Bad case of the flue to be treated with ammonia
Friday 6 June, 2008 12:01am
MUNMORAH power station is to be the guinea pig for a revolutionary clean air project.
Delta Electricity and CSIRO are developing a $5 million research pilot plant at the station to capture up to 3000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.
In a few weeks engineers will begin using ammonia to wash emissions from the coal-fired power station to dissolve greenhouse gases and other pollutants, preventing them from entering the atmosphere.
The pilot project is just one of a portfolio of clean coal technologies being developed that aim to reduce the greenhouse intensity of Australia's biggest commodity export.
The trial will capture greenhouse emissions as they leave the power station by fitting 10m high towers to the flue gases coming out of the power station's boilers.
The emissions are forced up these packed towers while ammonia is pushed down, dissolving about 85 per cent of the carbon dioxide as well as oxides of sulphur and nitrogen.
Munmorah is the first power station to be fitted using ammonia-based post-combustion capture technology and the second, after Loy Yang in Victoria, to experiment with retro-fitting to capture emissions.
Delta sustainability manager Peter Coombes said chemical-capture technology was better suited to this type of retrofit because it could target specific gases, bypassing the 90 per cent of harmless flue gases.
"We have structured a development program from pilot to demonstration to commercial," Mr Coombes said.
"If you miss out one of those steps then the risks of getting it wrong are higher and the risks of going back and doing it again are higher."
NSW Mineral Resources Minister Ian Macdonald said the trial's success, combined with exploration for storage sites, would pave the way for a $150 million demonstration-scale carbon capture and storage project in NSW by 2013.
He said there was also the potential of exporting the technology.
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