The Conceptual Process Arrangement of a Steam–Gas Power Plant with Fully Capturing Carbon Dioxide from Combustion Products

Аннотация

The article proposes a new concept for designing power plants operating on natural gas and involving means for fully removing carbon dioxide from the cycle in the liquid phase form in order to subsequently bind or bury it for reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In contrast to means used in the conventional power plant process arrangements for capturing CO₂ from the combustion products, the proposed concept involves the need to develop fundamentally new power engineering technologies, in which the CO₂ utilization system is intrinsically built into the cycle structure already at the initial stage of power plant design and optimization of its parameters. As an example, the process flow diagram of a natural gas fired power plant generating electricity and heat is considered. The integral indicators characterizing the thermal efficiency of such a power plant are given and compared with the similar indicators of the operating or newly designed plants fitted with CO₂ capturing systems, the process arrangement of which implies direct emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The comparison is carried out for the average ratio between the generated electricity and heat that has historically been established in the climatic zone of central Russia. It is shown that the proposed cycle features high thermodynamic efficiency and competitiveness with respect to the same indicators of alternative systems for combined generation of electricity and heat. The article suggests versions of the CO₂ capturing system configuration that allows, with the modern technological level of equipment, the carbon dioxide emissions to be reduced down to 0.5–5.0% of the total amount produced in firing natural gas.