News

Black & Veatch and Uhde Announce Alliance to Pursue Clean Coal Projects (12/01/04)

Black & Veatch Corporation and Uhde GmbH today announced the formation of an alliance between the two companies to further pursue and address the growing demands for coal gasification in the United States. The alliance will facilitate commercial offerings for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of gasification and integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) projects that have selected the Shell coal gasification technology for solid fuels such as coal and petroleum coke. See the attached press release for more information

Cinergy/PSI, GE, Bechtel to Explore Building Cleaner Coal Power Plant (10/26/04)

Cinergy/PSI, General Electric Company and Bechtel Corporation have signed a letter of intent to study the feasibility of construction a commercial, integrated gasification combined cycle generating station. This is the first place of its kind announced under the recently proposed GE-Bechtel alliance. See the attached press release for more information.

Excelsior Energy, ConocoPhillips Announce Selection for Funding under CCPI (10/26/04)

Excelsior Energy Inc. and ConocoPhillips announced that the Department of Energy's Clean Coal Power Initiative has awarded funding to the Mesaba Energy Project. Excelsior's Mesaba Energy Project will be located on the Iron Range of northeastern Minnesota and will serve as a template for a new generation of commercial coal-to-power IGCC plants. See the attached press release for more information.

DOE Awards $235 Million to Florida CCPI Project (10/26/04)

The U.S. Department of Energy announced it has selected the Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC) - along with Southern Company - to build a $557 million, advanced coal gasification facility in Central Florida as part of the department's Clean Coal Power Initiative.

The 285-megawatt plant will be built at OUC's Stanton Energy Center near Orlando and will use the transport reactor technology developed by Southern Company at its Wilsonville, AL, Power Systems Development Facility.

The expected date for commercial operation is early 2010 and groundbreaking sometime in 2007. See linked OUC press release.

GE Energy, Bechtel Announce Alliance for Cleaner Coal Projects (10/11/04)

GE Energy and Bechtel Corporation have announced the intent to establish an alliance to develop a standard commercial offering for optimized integrated combined-cycle gasification (IGCC) projects in North America. See the attached press release for more information.

Booz Allen Hamilton Report Analyzes Gasification Scenarios (9/29/04)

A recently completed report by the firm of Booz Allen Hamilton for the Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory analyzes future market prospects for U.S. coal gasification-based power generation under a number of scenarios. The report finds that integrated gasification combined cycle power generation (IGCC) will capture a significant market share under a variety of scenarios including a regulatory and environmental regulation regimes, technology improvement and continued strong natural gas prices. The report, "Coal-Based Integrated Coal Gasification Combined Cycle: Market Penetration Recommendations and Strategies" and its appendices may be downloaded from this site.

AEP Announces Plans for 1,000 Megawatt Coal-based IGCC (8/31/04)

American Electric Power, the largest electric utility in the U.S. announced plans today to build a 1,000 megawatt coal-based integrated gasification combined cycle power plant within the next 5-6 years. The announcement follows a report by an independent subcommittee of the AEP Board of Directors addressing the position of AEP in addressing ".the right steps going forward to ensure that we can continue to burn coal economically while reducing our emissions."

The report also noted that AEP, after assessing the costs and benefits of IGCC, "has committed to emerging as a leader and first-mover in advancing IGCC into the mainstream of power generation."

The AEP press release announcing the decision can be found here . Follow this link to the AEP web site where the entire report is available in pdf format.

DOE Announces Proposals for New CCPI Projects (7/27/04)

The Department of Energy today announced it has received proposals for projects in a new generation of clean coal projects, valued at nearly $6 billion, in the latest phase of the President's Clean Coal Power Initiative. Follow this link for more information.

ConocoPhillips and Excelsior Energy Announce Agreement for Coal Gasification Facility (6/11/04)

ConocoPhillips and Excelsior Energy Inc. announced today that the companies have signed a development and technology licensing agreement for an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) facility featuring ConocoPhillips' E-Gas Technology. The first unit of the project will be capable of producing a net output of approximately 532 megawatts (MW) of electricity and is expected to be operational in 2010. See attached press release for more information.

Presentations from Gasification Workshop for State Regulators Available (6/10/04)

The fifth gasification workshop for State economic and environmental regulators was held in Indianapolis, IN June 8-9, 2004. The event attracted more than 80 state, federal, and industry participants. The presentations for the workshop are available through the links below.

Participants toured Global Energy's Wabash River Repowering IGCC Plant in Terre Haute, IN. Co-sponsors for the workshop were the Gasification Technologies Council, Department of Energy, National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and the Southern States Energy Board. The next workshop is tentatively scheduled for April, 2005 in Knoxville, TN. U.S. & World Gasification Industry: Status & Trends Status & Trends Jim Childress, Gasification Technologies Council Fundamentals of Gasification Ross Fava, Shell Global Solutions IGCC's Environmental and Operational Capabilities Today David Denton, Eastman Gasification Services Company The BACT Analysis: Does The BACT Analysis: Does IGCC Meet the Test? IGCC Meet the Test? John Thompson, Clean Air Task Force The Light at the End of the Tunnel David Hawkins, National Resources Defense Council Wabash River Coal Gasification Repowering Project: Overview Phil Amick, ConocoPhillips Cost & Performance of Current IGCC Offering Phil Amick, ConocoPhillips Can a Coal-Based IGCC be Commercially Financed? Herb Kosstrin, R.W. Beck IGCC Near-Term U.S. Deployment Opportunity Bill Rosenberg, Harvard University Exploring Project Finance Options Building on European IGCC Experience Luke O'Keefe, O'Keefe Consulting, LLC

ConocoPhillips, Fluor Announce Gasification Alliance (5/24/04)

ConocoPhillips and Fluor Corporation have announced the signing of a worldwide alliance agreement to facilitate the development, design, and construction of new projects utilizing ConocoPhillips' E-Gas Technology. Under the agreement, Fluor and ConocoPhillips will cooperate to provide comprehensive offerings for the licensing, development, engineering, procurement, construction and operations and maintenance of integrated gasification facilities for production of a wide range of energy and chemical products. For more details, see the attached press release or go to www.coptechnologysolutions.com .

Plans Announced for GE Energy to Acquire ChevronTexaco's Gasification Technology Business (5/12/04)

GE Energy, a division of General Electric Company, and ChevronTexaco Worldwide Gasification Technology Inc., a subsidiary of ChevronTexaco Corporation, today announced plans for GE Energy to acquire ChevronTexaco's gasification technology business. See press release on the acquisition

Coffeyville Resources Purchases Farmland Refinery & Gasification-Based Fertilizer Plant (3/5/04)

Coffeyville Resources, LLC, and Farmland Industries Inc., have announced Coffeyville Resources' purchase of Farmland Industries' petroleum and fertilizer assets centered in Coffeyville, KS. The fertilizer plant uses the Texaco Gasification Process to convert approximately 1,100 tons per day of petroleum coke into 700,000 tons per year of ammonia and fertilizer products. See the press release and paper from the 2003 Gasification Technologies Conference for additional details.

CCPI Round II Solicitation Released (2/17/04)

The U.S. Department of Energy has issued the solicitation for the second round of the Clean Coal Power Initiative. A total of $280 million has been set aside for the competition which will require a minimum 50% cost sharing. The solicitation closes June 15, 2004. A copy of the solicitation is available on this site and on the DOE fossil energy site .

New Energy Bill with Gasification Incentives Introduced in U.S. Senate (2/13/04)

In an effort to break up an impasse over the comprehensive energy bill now in the Congress the Senate Energy Committee has introduced a new bill, S.2095, The Energy Policy Act of 2003. The new bill cut overall funding by 55% compared to the prior version and removed some controversial provisions in an attempt to find sufficient votes to pass the Senate. If passed by the Senate the measure would have to be passed by the House of Representatives and then sent to a conference committee where differences would have to be resolved. Gasification/IGCC related portions of the bill are available on this site. (S.2095.pdf) The bill in its entirety is available on the web site of the U.S. Senate Energy Committee .

Cinergy Expresses Interest in Indiana IGCC Project (2/11/04)

Cinergy Corp. Chairman James Rogers has expressed the company's interest in building an integrated coal gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) generating station to replace one of its older coal-fired power plants at Edwardsport, Indiana. The Cinergy press release provides additional information about the Rogers speech. Cinergy's largest operating companies serve 1.5 million electric customers in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, and 500,000 gas customers, primarily in Ohio. ( see map )

Additional Paper from 2003 Conference Now Available (2/10/04)

The paper "Evaluation of Options for Adding CO ₂ Capture to ChevronTexaco IGCC" ( visuals ) presented at the 2003 Gasification Technologies Conference has been added to the conference library on this site. Technical issues had prevented the paper from being posted earlier

DOE Gasification Budget Set for Cuts in Fiscal 2005 (2/03/04)

The budget submitted to Congress for Fiscal Year 2005 fossil energy R&D funding for the Department of Energy proposes a 32% cut in funding for the integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) program from $50.4 million in the current fiscal year to $34.5 million in the coming year. The turbine program, an important element in IGCC-related R&D, faces a 7% budget cut from $12.8 million to $12 million.

The gasification-related program facing the largest cut is the Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI). The budget table aggregates CCPI and FutureGen at a level of $287 million. However, explanatory text in the budget report proposes allocating $237 million to FutureGen and only $50 million to the CCPI. President Bush has proposed funding for CCPI at a level of $200 million for ten years.

The House appropriations subcommittee responsible for the DOE fossil energy R&D program will be accepting written comments on the budget proposal until April 2, 2004. The Senate appropriations committee has not announced its schedule.

Pittsburgh Coal Conference Issues Call for Papers (2/02/04)

The second call for papers and proposed technical topics for the 2004 International Pittsburgh Coal Conference has been issued. The conference will be held in Osaka, Japan, September 13-17. The call for papers and other conference information are available on the conference web site .

GTC Elects Officers for 2004-2005 (1/29/04)

The Board of Directors of the Gasification Technologies Council elected officers for the 2004-2005 term at its winter meeting on January 29. The incoming Chairman of the Board is David Heaven of Fluor Corporation, who succeeds outgoing Chairman Charles McConnell of Praxair. Other officers include Robert Horton of ChevronTexaco (Vice-Chairman), Phil Amick of ConocoPhillips (Treasurer), Raymond Batla of Hogan & Hartson (Secretary) and James Childress of Childress Associates (Executive Director)

New Officers (left to right): Robert Horton (Vice-Chairman), David Heaven (Chairman), Phil Amick (Treasurer)

IChemE European Gasification Conference set for Brighton (1/22/04)

The 6 ^th European Gasification Conference is scheduled for May 10-12, 2004 at the De Vere Grand Hotel in Brighton, UK. The event is being organized by the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE). Program, sponsorship and registration information are available on the IChemE web site . Top of the page