Fizzy Logic: Unique New Power Plant Scrubs Emissions and Sells Greenhouse Gas to Revive Old Oil Wells

By General Electric Company

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Oil companies pumping crude the old-fashioned way used to leave some two thirds of their reserves stranded down the well, depending on geology, and still make money. But the old pumpjack doesn?t cut it anymore. As supply tightened and prices rose, ?enhanced oil recovery is now a priority for every major oil company in the world,? says GE Energy?s Dean Athans. ?A lot of oil fields can benefit from it and start producing again.?

Got Gas?: The LMS 100 turbine helps Sargas?s carbon capture technology scrub as much as 90 percent of carbon dioxide from the power plant?s exhaust. Oil companies will buy the gas and pump it underground to revive old oil wells.

For the last three decades, smart producers used to goose oil out of older wells and ?enhance? production by pumping back in natural gas and carbon dioxide naturally occurring underground. Now GE and its Norwegian partner Sargas came up a new twist on the old idea. They built an innovative power station that links the world?s most efficient gas-fired turbine, GE?s ecomagination-qualified LMS 100, with a breakthrough carbon capture and power generation technology from Sargas. The system scrubs as much as 90 percent of CO2 from the plant?s exhaust gas and then sells it to the oil industry for well injections. As a bonus, the plant also generates 250 megawatts of lower-emission electricity from natural gas.

The GE turbine will not generate power in this system, but provide steady exhaust gas flow, pressure, and temperature required for Sargas?s carbon capture system to work properly. ?The lynchpin of Sargas?s unique technology is that it captures carbon at high temperature and pressure,? says Athans, who serves as a general manager for GE?s LMS 100 technology. ?That makes it much more efficient.?

Athans estimates that in the U.S., where many older wells can benefit from enhanced oil recovery, there could be a demand for 80 to 100 such plants right next to the oil fields. The plants could also pump carbon dioxide to CO2 pipelines and sell it to more distant markets.

SOURCE

Source: http://www.rdmag.com/News/Feeds/2012/07/manufacturing-fizzy-logic-unique-new-power-plant-scrubs-emissio/

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