Clean energy firm aims to eliminate smokestacks, make coal plants emission-free

A North Carolina-based clean energy company says it may soon be possible to eliminate smokestacks at coal-fired power plants, using new technology that produces zero emissions.

Damian Beauchamp, president and chief development officer of decarbonization company 8 Rivers, said his team is developing a process that burns hydrogen and carbon monoxide derived from coal using pure oxygen. This method produces a stream of pure carbon dioxide, which can be recirculated through a turbine and removes the need for traditional smokestack emissions.

“Whenever you have a gas turbine or steam turbine, you need molecules to flow past the blades,” Beauchamp said, according to Cowboy State Daily. “If you burn any fossil fuel with pure oxygen, all you get is CO2 and water. And so, the innovation was to take the CO2 from the exhaust and continually recycle it in the system.”

The company is working on implementing the technology at the Dave Johnston Power Plant near Glenrock, Wyoming. Under the plan, recycled carbon dioxide would help power the turbine and eliminate emissions.

“I think that it will be a silver bullet,” Beauchamp said. “There's kind of a tangential benefit that you’ll be able to utilize coal, have no particulate emission and now eliminate the CO2.”

The captured CO2 would then be piped out of the plant and sequestered underground. Beauchamp explained, “In the state of Wyoming, when you think about economic development and energy development beyond sequestration, you could also look at enhanced oil recovery as a solution to use the CO2, to stimulate and produce additional low-carbon oil revenue and jobs for the state.”

Peter Rice, the Siemens Energy account manager collaborating with 8 Rivers, said the new system could permanently eliminate smokestacks at the Dave Johnston Plant.

“Those will be a monument,” Rice told Cowboy State Daily. “The power that will be produced from coal and coal blends will be emission free.” 

“It definitely is revolutionary,” he added. “I would give credit to 8 Rivers for developing that. It would be the first of its kind at this scale.” A team of engineers is currently working on the turbine that would generate “dispatchable clean energy” using coal.