Carbon recovery

Between 100,000 and 150,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year could soon be recovered from the flue-gas emitted from a coal-fired power plant.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) is teaming up with the Southern Company, a major US electric utility, to test out the recovery technology at the James M. Barry electric generating plant, which is owned by Southern Company subsidiary Alabama Power.

The MHI carbon-capture technology will be installed on an existing unit of the plant, with the CO₂ captured in the demonstration transported by pipeline and injected underground at a site away from the plant grounds.

The US Department of Energy's (DOE) Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership will be responsible for the transport and sequestration.

The US Electric Power Research Institute and other partners are also participating in the project.

The Southern Company is approaching other electricity providers to join as well.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America, the US subsidiary of MHI, will be responsible for plant engineering, equipment supply and technical support during the demonstration phase.

MHI's CO₂ recovery process technology, called KM-CDR, uses the company's proprietary KS-1 solvent for CO₂ absorption and desorption.

The Japanese company has already demonstrated that, on a small scale, the technology can be used to recover CO₂ from coal-fired flue gas at 10 tons/day.

The carbon capture project at the James M. Barry plant should begin operating by the first quarter of 2011.