POWER October 2013 - 64

Emissions
Adaptive Brush
Seal Solutions for
Air Preheaters
The vast majority of workload addressing GHG emissions has
been executed by state and local permitting agencies. The current
workload for state/local agencies through the middle of 2013 was 172
permits. The bulk of the EPA's GHG workload came from Region 6
EPA, which had a workload of 67 permits, while the combined other
regions had a workload of 21 permits through the middle of 2013.
Almost half (46% to be exact) of the GHG permits being reviewed
and issued are coming from the power generation sector. The next closest
industries with permits addressing GHG emissions are oil and gas (18%),
chemicals (16%), and mining/metals (9%). An analysis of the permits
being issued show the Best Available Control Technology method, which
was being designed to streamline the review process for GHG control
technologies, has overwhelmingly chosen energy efficiency as the preferred
method for GHG control. This is evident as 92% of permits issued
have required energy efficiency, while 6% require add-on controls unrelated
to CO2
, and 2% require add-on controls for CO2
control.
The Carbon Pollution Standard Is Quickly Tightening
On Apr. 13, 2012, the EPA proposed the first CAA regulation that
was intended to regulate carbon pollution from new power plants. The
proposed regulation would limit emissions to 1,000 pounds CO2
megawatt-hour of electricity produced. Holding CO2
emissions to this
High performance. Long life.
Sealeze's patented brush-based
sealing system delivers reliability and
extended functional service life.
Replace seals less often
       
standard seals.
       
under deformation; reducing drag, wear and sudden
failures.
More effective than other seal
    
        
sizes and surface irregularities for a continuous seal.
      
creating a high integrity seal. Under pressure these
   
level would allow 95%+ of new combined cycle power plants to readily
overcome the hurdle but would stifle any new solid fuel power
generation. Supercritical pulverized coal and integrated gasification
combined cycle power plants, the most energy-efficient of the coal
power generation options, operate at around 1,800 pounds CO2
/MWh,
thus creating the need for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).
This quickly became a controversial move by the EPA, and the agency
has been overwhelmed by more than two million comments from industry
and the general public. Due to the quantity and content of these comments,
the EPA indicated it would issue a new proposed Carbon Pollution Standard;
however, it has taken longer than expected to release this information.
To further expedite action, the president issued orders for the EPA to
propose a new regulation by Sept. 20, 2013, for public comment.
The president, in his June 25 memo, took the regulation of CO2
step further and ordered the EPA to expand from limiting CO2
one
emissions
from just new power plants to also including modified, reconstructed,
and existing power plants. The president requested that the
EPA, under Section 111 of the CAA, " issue standards, regulations, or
guidelines, as appropriate, that address carbon pollution . . . and build
on State efforts to move toward a cleaner power sector. " Along with
this statement came a timeline for when the EPA is to implement this
new rule. The timeline is as follows:
■ Issue proposed regulations no later than June 1, 2014.
■ Finalize carbon regulations by no later than June 1, 2015.
■ Require updated State Implementation Plans (SIPs) to include carbon
dioxide regulations under Section 111(d) of the CAA by no
later than June 30, 2016.
It's one thing to require SIPs in less than three years. It's quite
another to develop workable, economic compliance strategies within
that timeframe.
For more than 25 years, Sealeze has helped design and manufacturing
engineers design solutions.
800.787.7325
64
e-mail: industrial@sealeze.com
www.sealeze.com
ISO 9001 Certified
circle 36 on reader service card
www.powermag.com
POWER | October 2013
Compliance Strategies: Just Demos and R&D
In the U.S., very few power generation facilities have implemented a
CCS project. The two major challenges any CCS project faces are the
limited technologies available for capturing CO2
and limited options
for storing or utilizing the sequestered gas after capture. The majority
of power generation facilities that implemented CCS projects have
used a pre-combustion capture mechanism and then used the sequestered
CO2
for enhanced oil recovery (EOR).
per

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POWER October 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of POWER October 2013