General Electric Energy signed a letter of intent today with the University of Wyoming, to build a $100 million advanced coal gasification research and technology center in Wyoming.

   The letter of intent was signed by Governor Dave Freudenthal, UW President Tom Buchanan and GE Energy President John Lavelle.

 

   “I don’t want it to be a ‘one shot wonder,’” said the governor. “If you think about it, this question about managing carbon, and the utilization of coal is an issue that this country has begun to struggle with and I suspect that in one form or another, research institutions, utilities and the private sector are going to be confronting this for at least a decade.”
He said the federal government’s recent withdrawal from clean coal research makes the partnership even more significant. Last month, the federal Energy Department walked away from a FutureGen plant in Illinois.

 

   The announcement of the UW/GE deal was made in a crowded hearing room at the state capitol, where over half of Wyoming’s senators and representatives crowded into the standing-room-only space.

   The proposed UW/GE center would consist of a small-scale gasification system that would enable UW and GE researchers to develop advanced gasification technology solutions for Powder River Basin (PRB) and other Wyoming coals.

 

   John Lavelle, the general manager of the GE gasification division, said the goal is to build the research center so as to “develop a comfort level so we can go to the commercial level.”

 

   The proposed research center would be built on a 1:100 scale to a commercial power plant, processing 30 tons of coal into synthetic natural gas. Lavelle said that under the best-case scenario, the 50-50 joint project could be up and running by 2010. He said GE engineers anticipate three-to-five years of intense research focused on working out all the system bugs and challenges in converting PRB coal to synthetic natural gas.

 

   Senate President John Schiffer said the state’s share in the project would have to come from federal Abandoned Mine Land funds for 10-15 years. He noted that while growing up in Sheridan County, there were many coal mines that are now vanished. “With this partnership, Wyoming coal will never be passed by again,” he said.

 

   Monte Atwell, the team leader for GE’s gasification research program, said he struggled to find and hire the 50 engineers GE will put to work on the PRB research center. Atwell said China, India and Australia all have keen interest in coal gasification research, so the competition for top talent is stiff.

 

   GE is a leader in cleaner coal integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) and gasification technology, which has been operating for more than a decade at the 230-megawatt TECO Polk 1 Station near Tampa, Florida. Atwell said the technology will produce less pollutants, 40 percent less particulate matter, capture 90 percent more mercury and use 30 percent less water than a pulverized coal plant.

 

   GE is familiar with converting bituminous coals to synthetic natural gas, said Lavell, and wants to expand its gasification technology to PRB and other Wyoming coals.

   Lavelle said that it will cost energy to convert the coal to gas, but that GE power turbines are so extremely efficient that a gas-burning power plant is comparable in efficiency to coal-burning plants, but are much cleaner.

   He said GE already knows how to strip out carbon dioxide from the synthetic natural gas, leaving a valuable stock feed of hydrogen and carbon that can be put to a wide array of uses.

 

   Wyoming’s coal industry produced 420 million tons of coal in 2006, fueling more than 30 percent of the nation’s electrical power generation needs.

Hgher ed

 

   Already, said Mark Northam, Director of Energy Resources at UW, the GE/UW partnership has prompted calls from the University of Queensland in Australia, which is also interested in coal gasification research.

 

   UW President Tom Buchanan said this partnership is exactly what was envisioned for the School of Energy Resources. “This project will give us a unique platform to demonstrate new technology and processes, and provide career avenues for our students,” he said.

 

   Still be to be crafted in negotiations is a memorandum of understanding between GE and UW. The MOU would include:
      Identification of a location for the research center;
      A draft configuration of the facility and its components;
      An estimated schedule and budget for the design and construction of the facility;
      An ownership structure for the facility;
      A financial plan reflecting financial and in-kind contributions;
      Principles for ownership and use of the intellectual property created through the operation of the facility.
  

   Buchanan said the state’s attorney general has assigned an attorney experienced in intellectual property issues, to help UW in negotiations with GE.
-30-