Hearing of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee
Statement
HEARING OF THE ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: THE BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF PRODUCING LIQUID FUEL FROM COAL: THE ROLE FOR FEDERAL RESEARCH
CHAIRED BY: REP. NICK LAMPSON (D-TX)
WITNESSES: DR. ROBERT FREERKS, DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT, RENTECH CORP.; JOHN WARD, VICE PRESIDENT MARKETING AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, HEADWATERS, INC.; DR. JAMES BERTIS, SENIOR POLICY RESEARCHER, RAND CORPORATION; DAVID HAWKINS, DIRECTOR CLIMATE CENTER, NATIONAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL; DR. RICHARD BOARDMAN, HEAD OF THE SECURE ENERGY INITIATIVE, IDAHO NATIONAL LABORATORY; DR. JOSEPH ROMM, DIRECTOR AND FOUNDER, CENTER FOR ENERGY AND CLIMATE SOLUTIONS
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REP. JERRY MCNERNEY (D-CA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thanks to the panel members for coming this morning. This is a set of very interesting testimony. And there's a lot of disagreement I see between the panel members.
Mr. Bartis and Mr. Hawkins both mentioned what I think is the very fundamental quandary that we're facing. How do we reduce our dependence on imported oil while reducing the production of greenhouse gases? And our national security depends on this. Our economy depends on this, the environment. It's a very difficult, complicated question. So I appreciate the time and effort that you're all putting into it.
And it's important to be open-minded about CTL, but I have grave concerns, especially for surface (mode of ?) transportation. Air transportation may be a little bit more interesting, but for surface (motive ?) I think we have grave problems.
My first question is, Dr. Freerks, there are two issues I'd like you to address -- the greenhouse gas emissions, the cost and viability. In my mind, I don't see any basis for what it's going to cost to sequester greenhouse gases. And also, the technical viability of that process -- is it safe? We don't know too much about that yet. So building an industry, assuming that that's going to be a good process, is very, very risky. The other question is something that's been brought up -- water usage. How do you see that playing out in the long run? Water is going to be even more valuable than oil. It already is in some situations, so both in terms of usage and in terms of pollution when the coal is mined.
MR. FREERKS: Let's first start with carbon capture and sequestration. The coal-to-liquids process inherently captures CO2 in several places in the plant. We gasify coal, and we capture the CO2 from that gassification process. We run the synthesis gas -- carbon monoxide and hydrogen -- through a Fisher-Tropsch reactor which, in our case, produces more CO2 while shifting the carbon monoxide to hydrogen. And we capture CO2 from that part, too. So we can capture CO2 quite readily in our plants with no additional costs, because the equipment is there for other reasons.
Now, the sequestration part of that is a separate question, and we have addressed that in our Natchez plant by teaming up with Denbury pipeline who is moving CO2 from natural sources right now to oil fields for enhanced oil recovery. And the amount of CO2 that we produce is equivalent to roughly one barrel of crude oil produced for every barrel of FT produced. And although people may argue that that does not net decrease the greenhouse gas emissions because you're just trading CO2 put into the ground for fuel brought up, it does increase our energy security. And we are going to burn that fuel anyways, whether we burn it from imported crude or we make the crude here. It just changes where we're going to pay for that crude. So it's probably better to use our own domestic resources than it is to produce external resources and bring them in.
The other question you had was on what? The water use?
REP. MCNERNEY: Water usage.
MR. FREERKS: Okay. In the Natchez plant, we have Mississippi river water for cooling, so water use is not an issue in that plant. We have looked at designs for plants that are capable of being put in dry climates, like Wyoming, and they actually will not use anymore water than they produce. When you produce a barrel of crude oil with the Fisher-Tropsch process, you produce a barrel of water. And that water can be condensed and recycled through the process and you have no net usage of water. And that's an engineering design --
REP. MCNERNEY: So you're saying that you use a barrel of water in the process and then you produce a barrel of water at the end of the process. Is that what you're saying?
MR. FREERKS: You can design the plant such that you are net neutral on water.
REP. MCNERNEY: Well, yeah --
MR. FREERKS: It is an engineering issue; it is a cost issue, but it can be done.
REP. MCNERNEY: That seems far-fetched to me.
Mr. Ward, you have referred to "abundant coal resources," and if we move forward with liquid-to-coal displaced petroleum for surface transportation, what limitations do you see on the domestic coal resources? This is an issue that was brought up by one of the other panelists. What limitations are there?
MR. WARD: There have been two studies completed in the last year -- one by the Southern States Energy Board and one by the National Coal Council -- that both took a hard look at the availability of coal, and both determined that our coal resources in the United States are more than adequate to accomplish this kind of a scale-up and use the coal resources for transportation uses in addition to electricity generation.
REP. MCNERNEY: Well, we'll have to study those reports. And you also talked about CTL being a clean resource. And while the end product is clean, clearly -- it looks clean, anyway. I didn't open it up and smell it, but -- (laughter) -- I didn't want to get it on my suit, but the -- how much waste is produced in producing a barrel of liquid, and how toxic is the waste? And what do you do with it, not even considering carbon dioxide?
MR. WARD: Well, I'm going to defer to one of the -- one of the scientists with us. But the waste products from a coal-to-liquids plant are very similar to what you'd see in an oil refinery.
MR. : If you'd like the answer to that --
MR. : You've got a gasification slag product, which is a solid product, which is also very similar to the coal combustion products you have from a coal-fueled power plant -- the residual solids. They are -- they are classified non-hazardous wastes in this country.
MR. : Having been involved in intimate details of such a design and seen one, on the Baard Energy Project, I can comment to that. It is the ash product coming from the coal and the biomass that might be used. There will be some air emissions discharges. Those will be relatively clean because this process takes out all of the toxic metals in that coal -- the mercury, arsenic and other things -- as well as a lot of the unburned hydrocarbons.
So you basically may be generating some power in that plant, but it's a combined cycle power -- very clean on that discharge point. Does have some CO2 in that that is opportune to remove in the future, but apart from that the water discharges also need to be cleaned up, but conventional technology exists to do that. So on that basis it is again comparable to a pulverized coal-fired power plant, also that has to clean up its water discharges.
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