Tenaska's Trailblazer Energy Center and Clean Coal Technology

Dr. Kunkel: The project in Texas is actually not IGCC,
it’s a pulverized coal plant.
Steve: Oh, it’s pulverized coal? Okay.
Dr. Kunkel: Yeah. So you can think of it,
it would burn Powder River Basin coal.
It’s commercial scale, 800 megawatt boiler,
600 megawatts net, to the grid. It would service
the Electric Reliability Council of Texas,
and it would have a post-combustion capture system,
basically a scrubber for carbon dioxide,
that would capture up to 90% of the carbon dioxide
from the facility. We are designing around 85% to 90% of capture.
Steve: Through scrubber technology.
Dr. Kunkel: This would be far and away the largest
proposal for a post-combustion capture system anywhere
in the United States.
It’s located in Texas because of proximity
to the world’s largest market for carbon dioxide
for use in enhanced oil recovery.
So, you introduce carbon dioxide, the oil comes up.
Some of the carbon dioxide comes up with the oil,
but it’s easily captured and then reinjected back
into the oil formation.
So, at the end of the day,
carbon dioxide remains in the ground
and in oil reservoirs that have been stable
geologically for millions of years.
So, there’s every reason to believe that