GE Energy today signed a technology licensing agreement with Hydrogen Energy International for a power plant that would use “integrated gasification combined cycle” technology, known as IGCC, to produce electricity with lower emissions than conventional coal plants. The 250-megawatt facility in Bakersfield, Calif. would also be designed to capture up to 90 percent of its carbon dioxide, which would be used for oil recovery in an adjacent oil field — and then permanently stored there deep underground.


California dreaming: Hydrogen Energy is a joint venture of BP Alternative Energy and multinational mining company Rio Tinto Hydrogen. In 2007, GE and BP formed a global alliance to jointly develop and deploy technology for at least five IGCC power plants that could dramatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation. The Bakersfield project would be the first power plant built under that alliance.

The technology proposed for the plant would convert petroleum coke, which is a byproduct of the oil refining process; coal; or a combination of them into a synthesis gas. Chemical scrubbers would filter out pollutants and the CO2 would be separated and stored, leaving a hydrogen-rich fuel to power the turbines that spin to produce electricity.


Clean break: The plant is even more efficient as it uses “combined cycle” technologies that generate additional electricity with a steam turbine that runs on waste heat that’s produced.

GE was involved in the first IGCC pilot plant in Barstow, California, and the goal is for the new plant in Bakersfield to become a model for new power plants worldwide. Hydrogen Energy officials say the plant will help position the US as a leader in low carbon power generation. GE is also supplying IGCC technology for Duke Energy’s plant in Edwardsport, Indiana that is expected to be the world’s largest IGCC facility when it reaches commercial operation in 2012.

* Read today’s announcement
* Watch Hydrogen Energy’s video about how the plant will work
* Read “GE’s advanced coal technology arrives at Duke Energy” on GE Reports
* See the technical specs of an IGCC plant
* Read GE Reports’ story about capturing carbon from IGCC plants
* Read Forbes’ story about GE’s IGCC work