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Asia Clean Energy Project

CATF believes that partnerships between companies in China and the West are crucial to accelerating the commercialization of low-carbon, coal-based energy generation. To that end, we are working in China and elsewhere in Asia to facilitate the development of joint business ventures between innovative energy companies and research institutions. The countries’ shared reliance on coal creates many challenges—along with some critically important opportunities. Energy companies in North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia have enormous experience and expertise working with coal, and are similarly motivated to develop technologies and techniques that will preserve a role for coal in a carbon-constrained world economy.

The environmental and economic benefits of transitioning to clean energy will be smaller and slower to materialize if western and Asian companies do not work together. Investments by one country reduce the cost of that technology worldwide, increasing the likelihood that CCS will be widely deployed in time to help avert the worst consequences of climate change.

In China, CATF is represented by Ming Sung, our Beijing-based Chief Representative for Asia Pacific. Our efforts in China build on that country’s current leadership in low-carbon coal technologies essential to addressing climate change and energy security. Some highlights include:

• The first commercial-scale IGCC power plant with CCS, called GreenGen, is now under construction in Tianjin and with feature technology developed by the Thermal Power Research Institute (TPRI).
• Use of TPRI technology to retrofit a Shanghai power plant with one of the world’s largest post-combustion capture systems.
• An underground coal gasification (UCG) pilot and commercial project (coal to methanol) built by ENN Group in Inner Mongolia is helping demonstrate UCG’s ability to significantly lower the cost of coal-to-power with CCS.
• Shenhua Coal is developing a large-scale geologic carbon sequestration project at a new large coal-to-liquids plant in the Ordos Basin.
• The East China University of Science & Technology has successfully licensed its gasification technology to western project developers (as has TPRI).

CATF sponsors and facilitates meetings, conferences, and briefings in the U.S. and China to familiarize key companies and institutions in the West with these kinds of projects and, more broadly, with the technological and industrial prowess found in the Chinese energy sector. CATF’s efforts provide western technology developers—especially those looking for opportunities to commercialize advanced gasification systems—with a platform for engaging potential Asian partners.

To coordinate these efforts CATF founded the Asia Clean Coal Initiative in 2007 and the Asia Clean Energy Innovation Initiative in 2009. Building strategic cross-border partnerships such as these that can reduce low-carbon coal technology costs and accelerate CCS deployment is the mission of CATF’s China Project.

Combining the extensive work CATF has done envisioning and then developing a pathway to widespread CCS deployment in the U.S. with substantial engagement with Chinese energy leaders has helped lead to a number of promising recent ventures between North American and Chinese energy companies, including:

• Atlanta-based Southern Company will deploy the KBR-developed Transport Integrated Gasification Technology (TRIG) in a commercial-scale coal gasification plant operated by Dongguan Tianming Electric Power in China. The terms of this agreement include technology licensing, engineering, and equipment to use TRIG technology at a new 120MW power plant. Operation is expected to begin in 2011.
• A September 2009 agreement between Duke Energy and ENN Group of China promotes joint technology development of a variety of technologies, from CCS-relevant systems including coal gasification to solar, biofuels, and energy efficiency.
• Zero Emission Energy Plants, Ltd. (ZEEP) and ENN Group reached an agreement in September 2009 to design and construct a commercial-scale power plant in Shandong Province featuring Connecticut-based Pratt & Whitney’s Rocketdyne gasification system.
• Houston’s Future Fuels—the exclusive North American licensee of TPRI’s coal gasification system being installed at the GreenGen IGCC project in Tianjin—plans to use the technology as its Good Spring IGCC project in Pennsylvania. This project is anticipated to deliver 270-megawatts of electricity while capturing more than 50% of the CO₂ output initially and nearly 100% by 2020.
• In August 2009 Duke Energy signed a memorandum of understanding with the China Huaneng Group that will allow technology sharing related to IGCC, CCS, and EOR development.
• Canada’s HTC PureEnergy is working with Suntracing in China to demonstrate modular technology, developed by HTC, which uses CO₂ captured from power applications to produce fire-suppressing foam that can be used to extinguish coal steam fires (common in China and a significant contributor to global CO₂ emissions).
• Finally, Duke Energy and State Grid, China’s largest electricity distributor and one of the world’s largest companies in terms of revenue generated, are reportedly pursuing a partnership to build highly efficient, high-voltage transmission lines in the United States.

Joint development of CCs technology is essential from a climate standpoint, and partnerships between companies from Asia and the West can unleash a range of enormously valuable capture and sequestration opportunities. In addition, cross-border ventures aimed at decarbonizing coal often expand to include the development of other kinds of low-carbon energy systems (see, for example, the agreement between Duke Energy and China Huaneng, which encompasses CCS, renewables, and advanced nuclear). By bringing together the most innovative companies in Asia and the west, CATF will continue to spur the deployment of a variety of promising clean energy options.