Prepared Statement of

John M. Wilson

Chief Operating Officer

Siemens Environmental Systems and Services

Siemens Power Generation

 

Before the Senate Subcommittee on

Science, Technology and Innovation

of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation

April 26, 2007

Prepared Statement of

John M. Wilson

Chief Operating Officer

Siemens Environmental Systems and Services

 

Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation

Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Innovation

April 26, 2007

Clean Coal Technology

 

Greetings, Chairman Kerry and Ranking Member Ensign and Subcommittee members.  My name is John Wilson; I am the Chief Operating Officer of Siemens’ Environmental Systems and Services business unit which was created out of a company with over 90 years of experience in air pollution control technology.  I am honored to be here today to discuss the current state of clean coal technology from an infrastructure suppliers’ perspective. 

 

Today I am speaking primarily on behalf of the power generation business at Siemens.  For the last several years, I was the vice president of strategy for the Power Generation Group, headquartered in Orlando, Florida, and Erlangen Germany, which is a 10 billion dollar segment of Siemens 100 billion dollar global infrastructure business.  

 

Before I speak specifically to clean coal issues, I’d like to direct the Subcommittee’s attention to a unique global project and recently published report entitled “Megacity Challenges” that is based upon research conducted by two independent organizations with the support of Siemens.  The goal of the project was to carry out research at the megacity level to gather data as well as perspectives from mayors, city administrators and other experts on infrastructure challenges, like energy supply and delivery systems, in which this Subcommittee takes great interest.  Over 500 public and private sector experts from 25 cities were interviewed.  The results were fascinating, including the projection that by 2030 over 60% of the world’s population will live in cities.  The key megatrends identified in this report that are guiding Siemens’ priorities are: healthcare challenges, urbanization and associated mobility challenges, scarcity of clean and reliable natural resources such as clean air and water, and reliable energy supplies.  Siemens has been investing in the technologies that address these massive shifts that are driving the current and future needs of society.  In addition to the energy infrastructure technologies that I will focus upon today, other examples of our forward-looking technologies include efficient lighting, automation and controls, intelligent traffic controls, water purification and efficient technologies for buildings and rapid transit.

Siemens’ power generation business has grown to its current size by consolidating some of the best known names in the power generation industry, such as Westinghouse, KWU, Parsons, Wheelabrator, Bonus Energy, and the Alstom industrial turbine business.  Our technology portfolio in this business sector is comprehensive, and we will invest over $600 million in research and development in the next fiscal year in technology enhancements that will improve both efficiency and overall performance. 

 

Siemens recognizes that clean coal does not have to be an oxymoron, because there are many technologies that can facilitate the safe environmental use of coal, both today, and into the future, as an integral part of a balanced energy supply portfolio.  As part of our strategy, we have been working jointly with the Department of Energy on several key efficiency and CO₂ capture technologies which will play a role in the continued use of coal.  Areas of cooperative research include:

·        Development of hydrogen fueled gas turbines for gasification plants, possibly one approach for reducing the carbon footprint of power generation  (FutureGen Alliance);

·        Ion Transport Membrane (ITM) for improved efficiency in gas separation.[1]  Efficient, low cost gas separation is a key enabling technology as part of a CO₂ mitigation strategy;

·        Oxy-Fuel Turbine: This is a new turbine design that capitalizes on advances in gas separation and hydrogen turbine design, providing a unique pathway for CO₂ separation, and ultimately, CO₂ sequestration;

·        USC (ultra-supercritical) steam turbine materials–developing better materials for more efficient, higher temperature and pressure steam turbines.

 

The continued usage of coal will be an integral part of any solution in power generation in our lifetimes, because coal currently provides 50% of the United States’ generation needs.  According to the Energy Information Agency, this usage will grow to almost 60% by 2030.  Compare this demand trend to that for renewable energy, which, excluding hydropower, makes up a little more than 2% of capacity in the United States.  For some of the world’s largest economies, coal represents the dominant domestic energy resource.  Today, Siemens’ generating equipment provides over 25% of electricity worldwide, and we also provide services to our customers to maintain and upgrade their equipment.

 

The United States’ fleet of 325,000 megawatts of coal-fired generating capacity was built over generations, and cannot be replaced quickly.  Unlike commodities or consumer goods, power plants are massive in scale, take years to build, and require decades to recover their costs.  Economics and regulatory requirements demand that we efficiently extract the most energy from this installed base.  Currently, in the United States, the average age of a coal fired power plant exceeds 40 years (and is increasing).

 

Today with appropriate engineering design, we can routinely reduce criteria pollutants from these existing power plants by 90% compared to an uncontrolled power plant; for some pollutants 99% reduction is the norm.  Modern air pollution control technologies that are readily available today, with no substantial investment in research and development, can reduce emissions of criteria pollutants from any coal fired plant to levels that are projected to be achieved by Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plants.  The attached table in Appendix One compares the performance of retrofit air pollution controls to IGCC performance.  Even though the performance is basically the same at this point, Siemens recognizes the need to invest in multiple technological pathways, and so Siemens not only provides the technology for the world’s highest efficiency supercritical steam power plants, along with total emissions controls, it also has gas turbines and gasification technology for IGCC plants (to be discussed later herein).

 

Although substantial fossil fuel plant upgrades are available, in fact very little of the fleet has the emissions control that would be required for a new power plant. For example, while most units have particulate controls, about one-third of capacity has SO₂ scrubbers, most have low-NO_x burners, and only one-third of the capacity in the Eastern United States has advanced NO_x controls[2].  Our business in retrofitting SO₂ air pollution controls to existing plants has recently boomed in the US, with many states regulating existing units under consent decrees. 

 

Today, all new plants will include either wet or dry flue gas desulphurization as required by the Clean Air Act Amendments.  Trading in SO₂ credits is an incentive for the implementation of new, high efficiency flue gas desulphurization (FGD) systems.  FGD systems also efficiently recycle the sulfates extracted from the process streams.  Over 90% of the sulfates extracted from FGDs are recycled for use as wallboard in the construction industry.  The largest single-stage FGD system in the United States utilizes Siemens” technology, and was installed at the Big Bend Plant near Tampa, Florida.

 

In addition to sulfur, burning coal can generate a great deal of particulate matter, or dust.  The technology of capturing dust has been available for decades as electrostatic precipitators -- or bag houses – that have been widely applied in the power generation sector.  According to the American Coal Ash Association, nearly 71 million tons of fly ash is collected today, with over 40% of this is recycled for uses in concrete products, cement, and agriculture. 

 

More recently, small particulate matter and aerosols less than 2.5 microns in size have been identified as serious health hazards, and therefore, to meet even tighter ambient air quality standards, there has been a renewed interest in improving the performance of these emission control devices.  Siemens emissions control technology products include wet electrostatic precipitator (WESP) designs that can meet the most stringent requirements.  WESPs and bag house filtration systems can yield greater than 99% particulate capture and achieve compliance with the most stringent air quality requirements.

 

Mercury is a unique chemical element exhibiting no health benefits at any concentration (lead is another); mercury can damage the central nervous system, endocrine system, kidneys, and other organs.  In the United States, mercury has been identified as a hazardous air pollutant to be regulated.  Today, coal plants in the United States emit between 30 and 50 tons of mercury per year.  Siemens provides technology to capture mercury, incorporating some of the same design features for particulate capture.

 

NO_x, which contributes to visible smog and is a respiratory health concern, is also emitted from automobiles and is one of the more challenging pollutants to control because it is formed from the nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere at high heat.   Several technologies are now available for NO_x control, including third- and fourth-generation low NO_x burners that minimize the creation of NO_x, and selective catalytic reduction technologies, or multi-pollutant technologies, that convert NO_x back to stable nitrogen and water vapor.  Siemens offers new, advanced burner designs to reach 75% NO_x reduction compared to uncontrolled emissions, and can provide advanced catalysts, or multi-pollutant technology, to reduce NO_x by over 95%.

Any fossil fuel used in any application will have CO₂ emissions associated with the process.  Because of CO₂’s potential role in global warming, reducing or mitigating emissions is a central strategy for Siemens.  Siemens offer the tools to manage all the emissions from power plants.  And while emissions of CO₂ are linked to climate change, other emissions including methane and particulates are also factors of concern for climate change_.  The technology to address emissions of criteria pollutants that impact climate change (NO_x, CH₄, particulates) are available as described above.

 

Carbon dioxide, however, is radically different.  None of the current capture technologies that are used for the priority pollutants can be directly applied to CO₂ capture.  The best way today to address the reduction of CO₂ in the power generation fleet is the same as for automobiles, by essentially increasing the output of the fleet without increasing the fuel used.  The current United States fossil fleet operates at approximately 33% efficiency (with the remainder of that energy lost as heat to the environment).  If we could improve that fleet efficiency by even just one percentage point, we could reduce CO₂ emissions by 50 million tons per year, with no loss in net generation.  The most efficient coal plants today can reach well over 40% efficiency, and if the entire United States fleet were operating at that efficiency, nearly one-quarter of the CO₂ emissions from power generation would be eliminated.[3] Siemens offers advanced technology to improve the efficiency of any power plant, thus indirectly reducing the CO₂ generated for each unit of electricity produced.

 

As an alternative to the discussed technologies to capture emissions post-combustion, some of the next generation of clean coal power plants are proposing pre-combustion coal gasification to capture these same pollutants during the fuel processing steps.  The most desirable part of the fuel is the energy content in the form of CO and hydrogen, which is extracted in gasification, leaving behind most of the pollutants.  Siemens offers gasification for applications such as power generation (IGCC) as well as for production of synthetic fuels.

 

Siemens has demonstrated 320,000 hours of gas turbine operation with gasification processes at scales ranging from 8 MW to over 300 MW.  Our current product strategy is to provide a 630 MW IGCC plant here in the United States.  To broaden its portfolio in this sector, Siemens recently acquired one of the longest demonstrated and commercially offered technologies for gasification for the production of petrochemical liquids or for conversion to synthetic natural gas, and for power generation applications.

 

The DOE clean coal initiative has focused on pre-combustion capture of emissions, along with CO₂ capture.  The debate on pre-combustion versus post-combustion capture has now fully developed, with the industry planning demonstration projects for both technologies underway.  One feature of gasification is that carbon can be effectively extracted from the concentrated high pressure gas stream leaving the gasifier, resulting in reduced energy losses and less adverse impact on the cost of electricity.  Post-combustion capture operates similarly using solvents, like an amine, or ammonia, to capture the CO₂ from the exhaust gases at much lower pressures, after they have had all the other pollutants removed.  Neither of these processes has been commercially demonstrated on a full-scale power generation facility, however we are working to demonstrate this application on existing power plants.

 

Nearly every scenario we have explored reveals that all CO₂ recovery comes at a cost of energy, sometimes substantial amounts of energy.  Increased research, along with demonstration projects are needed to find ways to reduce the energy intensity of CO₂ capture and removal for both pre -combustion and post-combustion capture.  Equally important, we must also resolve the issue of carbon storage, because if there is no long-term storage for the carbon, then CO₂ capture and recovery is moot.  We agree with the MIT study, The Future of Coal, that CO₂ Capture and Storage (CCS) is “the critical enabling technology that would reduce CO₂ emissions significantly while also allowing coal to meet the world’s pressing energy needs”.

 

As an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), we are also aware that our customers and end-users are sometimes reluctant to upgrade or repair facilities to improve plant efficiency which may trigger new reviews.  Output-based efficiency standards could be used as a tool to encourage upgrades and to improve environmental and output performance.  Such an approach has been used for gas turbine emission regulations in the recent New Source Performance Standards updated in February 2005.

 

To close, Siemens believes that there are currently many technologies to provide the nation with cleaner coal power generation, and that what is needed is a meaningful commitment from the Government to encourage greater efficiencies. We urge increased support for research, development and deployment of more efficient end-use technologies, low or zero-emitting technologies, and cost effective carbon capture and storage technologies.  We also urge support for incentives to encourage private sector risk taking for the development and deployment of these technologies.

 

 

 

 

 

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