Gas From Coal - KBR Edition

 Left: KBR TRIG gasifier schematic. Right: TRIG gasifier demo unit, Wilsonville, AL. Source: http://www.kbr.com

A recent post was about a patent issued to Bechtel for refueling natural gas combined cycle power plants with syngas derived from coal, and how it may be caught between market forces and a regulatory environment that could limit, if not preclude, its commercialization. This time, we’ll look at an invention from another international engineering, procurement, and construction company that pertains to syngas production.

KBR

KBR  (NYSE:KBR), headquartered in Houston, TX, employs about 27,000 people worldwide in its various activities. The company, in addition to being a major defense contractor, is a major player in the energy, hydrocarbon, minerals, civil infrastructure, power and industrial markets. Started in 1901, the company claims milestones such as constructing the world’s first catalytic cracking facility in 1942 and creating a new ammonia process for fertilizer production in the 1960s, which had direct implications for improved global food and crop yields.

KBR’s intellectual property portfolio includes 170 issued US patents and applications (assigned to Kellogg Brown & Root). One of its more recent patents is US 7,955,403, issued under USPTO’s Green Technology Pilot Program.  The '403 patent is the subject of today's post.

The Invention

The ‘403 patent, ‘Systems and methods for producing substitute natural gas’, was invented by Siva Ariyapadi and Philip Shires and issued on June 7, 2011. The application was filed in May 2009, and assuming a 2–3 year lead time for R&D of the invention prior to filing, the genesis of this invention was probably in the 2005–2006 time frame - about the time that Bechtel was probably researching its refueling patent. See the Bechtel post for additional information on the natural gas market production and prices around that time and in the years since.

The inventors developed improvements to KBR’s synthetic natural gas system to provide coal gasification of low grade coal in a manner that reduces auxiliary power and process water requirements. Ariypadi and Shires teach that

[c]lean coal technology using gasification is a promising alternative to meet the global energy demand. Most existing coal gasification processes perform best on high rank (bituminous) coals and petroleum refinery waste products but are inefficient, less reliable and expensive to operate when processing low grade coal. These low grade coal reserves including low rank and high ash coal remain underutilized as energy sources despite being available in abundance. Coal gasification coupled with methanation and carbon dioxide management offers an environmentally sound energy source. Synthetic or substitute natural gas (“SNG”) can provide a reliable supply of fuel. SNG, with the right equipment, can be produced proximate to a coal source. SNG can be transported from a production location into an already existing natural gas pipeline infrastructure, which makes the production of SNG economical in areas where it would otherwise be too expensive to mine and transport low grade coal. Alternatively, in developing countries, the production and supply of clean efficient SNG to densely populated cities instead of the transport and use of low grade coal as an energy source in a multitude of inefficient and polluting facilities within the cities provides the means to effectively mitigate pollutants and carbon capture.

Their claim 1 states:

A method for producing synthetic natural gas, comprising:

gasifying a carbonaceous feedstock within a gasifier to provide a raw syngas;
cooling the raw syngas to provide a cooled raw syngas;
processing the cooled raw syngas within a purification system to provide treated syngas, wherein the purification system comprises a flash gas separator in fluid communication with the gasifier and a saturator;
converting the treated syngas to synthetic natural gas to provide steam, a methanation condensate, and a synthetic natural gas;
and introducing the methanation condensate to the flash gas separator.

The Technology and Its Use

The improvements memorialized in the ‘403 patent are a component of KBR’s TRIG™(Transport Integrated Gasification) technology which allows the gasification of inexpensive, low grade feedstock such as lignite, sub-bituminous, and high ash coal. KBR and Southern Company successfully demonstrated the system at USDOE’s Power Systems Development Facility in Wilsonville, Alabama. The companies are commercially deploying the TRIG system around the world. Major projects include two in China that will provide a retrofit to an integrated gasification combined cycle plant and a coal to chemicals facility, and an IGCC unit being installed for Mississippi Power in Kemper County, MS.

This technology, by allowing the efficient use of lower quality coal resources in a manner that reduces process energy requirements and water use, is an excellent example of truly clean technology.

Other examples may be found in other articles here on The Inkling, and in Way Better Patents’ USPTO Green Tech Pilot Program Discovery and Analysis Report.

A Bechtel Patent Based on Coal

This is a short story of a recent clean tech invention that may be caught between the grindstones of evolved market forces and prices, and looming regulations.

Bechtel

Bechtel Power Corporation, headquartered in Frederick, MD, is a subsidiary of Bechtel Corporation, a world-wide engineering, construction, and project management company with corporate offices in San Francisco and 53,000 employees. From a description of the company’s history on its home page:

One of the oldest and largest family-led corporations in the United States, Bechtel has been in the forefront of engineering and construction for more than 110 years. What began as a railroad-grading operation in the Oklahoma Territory has grown into a multinational company with hundreds of projects around the world. 

Since its founding in 1898, four generations of Bechtels have steered the company through 23,000 projects in 140 nations and seven continents. Along the way, we established a reputation for undertaking “megaprojects”– projects too big, complex, or remote for others. Many of them have become our signature projects, including Hoover Dam, the Channel Tunnel, and the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system.

Bechtel’s expertise includes

• Roads and rail systems
• Airports and seaports
• Fossil and nuclear power plants
• Refineries and petrochemical facilities
• Mines and smelters
• Renewable energy
• Defense and aerospace facilities
• Environmental cleanup projects
• Communications networks
• Pipelines
• Oil and gas field development

A search of US patents shows Bechtel as the assignee on 285 – the most recent is the subject of this post, the earliest was issued in 1971.

Changed Energy Supplies & Prices

The US Energy Information Administration provides a chart showing US natural gas production from 1990 through 2035 projections. From 2000–2005 shale gas played a very minor role in the overall mix of US natural gas production and sources. After 2005, through the present, shale gas has played a linearly increasing role, and from 2012 forward, all increases in domestic natural gas production are projected to be due solely to increased shale gas. In 2012 shale gas provides 32% of US natural gas production, up from 4% in 2005. A factor of 8 increase in seven years – due to the application of hydraulic fracturing (fracing) techniques. EIA data on natural gas prices paid by utilities for electricity generation show a price of $8.47 per thousand cubic feet in 2005 declining to $4.89 per tcf in 2011 (with a peak of $9.26 per tcf in 2008). Thus, supply has significantly increased and prices paid by electric utilities have declined by 42% over the seven-year period.

An Invention Too Late?

These dramatic changes may have caught Bechtel Power Corporation inventors Harvey Wen and Rattan K. Tawney, both of Boyds, MD, by surprise. They were issued US 8,118,895, “Method and apparatus for refueling existing natural gas combined cycle plant as a non-integrated gasification combined cycle plant,” on February 21, 2012. The application was filed four years previously, in March 2008. For the sake of argument, let’s estimate that the invention was in development within Bechtel and the application being prepared by their inventors and their IP law firm for three years prior to filing. That included drafting and filing a provisional patent application  60/920,999 filed March 30, 2007, and writing the non-provisional application that was filed March 29, 2008 (one day before the provisional was going to expire.)  That takes the invention back to around 2005 (and it’s quite possible that it was earlier). This would place the development period around the time of high natural gas prices, and low production from shale gas documented by EIA. Let’s take a look at why this matters.

The invention, summarized in the patent abstract, provides:

"[a] process of generating power utilizing a low level heat from a raw syngas produced in a quench gasifier … The process includes a first stage that includes: producing raw syngas at the quench gasifier, making 150 psi saturated steam from the produced raw syngas, superheating the saturated steam, and using the superheated saturated steam in a low pressure steam turbine to generate power. The process includes a second stage that includes: providing the raw syngas and a process condensate stream to a thermal fluid vaporizer to vaporize an organic thermal fluid, and using the vaporized organic thermal fluid in an expander turbine to generate power via an organic Rankine cycle."

From the Field of Invention, we learn (patents teach their art) that “This invention related to converting existing natural gas fired combined cycle power plants with coal-derived synthesis gas (syngas). This conversion would allow the relatively expensive natural gas fired power plants to burn relatively low cost coal fuel.”

The Background of the Invention states that “Power plants built during the past decade in the US were mostly natural-gas-fired gas turbine combined cycle (GTCC) plants.

Unfortunately, the operating capacity factor of these units is less than 25 percent due to the persistent high cost of natural gas. It is unlikely that the price of natural gas will return to the $3-$4 per million Btu level that served as the basis for the economics of these plants.”

The patent drawing provides a process flow diagram. Raw syngas produced from an oxygen-blown quench type gasifier 1 is comprised of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, water vapor and a multitude of impurities including sulfur compounds and nitrogen compounds. Stream A represents the raw syngas flow path. After it is quenched in a water pool to 455 °F at about 865 psia, it is cooled in a reboiler 2 to produce a saturated steam at 150 psia. Stream B represents the steam/water condensate flow path. In addition to provide superheating, the HRSG 7 also generates additional steam required to meet auxiliary power requirement of coal gasification plant operation and for startup. The superheated steam from HRSG 7 is used to drive a steam turbine 8 for power generation. The steam turbine exhaust is condensed in a water-cooled condenser 9 and water condensate is returned by pump 10 to the reboiler via condensate preheaters 6 and 4.
Returning to USEIA data, we find that the average spot price of natural gas was $3.73 per million Btu on October 31, 2012.

In addition to changed market conditions for natural gas supplies, there are significant indications that the USEPA is planning to release a myriad of regulations that have been postponed thus far by the Obama Administration. Now that the President has been re-elected, and Democrat control of the US Senate retained, it is quite likely that these regulations will come to fruition. Their net effect will impose greater than $500 billion per year in additional fees, penalties, and compliance costs on the US energy sector. The coal industry will continue to be especially hard-hit. It is quite possible that there will not be any syngas production from coal, knocking the bottom out of the ’895 patent.

A Lesson

Bechtel could have requested accelerated examination under USPTO’s Green Tech Pilot Program for this invention – they did not. Ultimately, had they been granted the patent more quickly (it took 4 years; the Green Tech Program cut pendency by about half for those patents that were successfully prosecuted under the program), they could have brought it to market that much sooner.

Timing matters, but intervening market and regulatory conditions might matter more.