The Kemper Project, also called the Kemper County energy facility or Plant Ratcliffe, was an attempt at a gas-fired electrical generating station in Kemper County, Mississippi. Mississippi Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, began construction of the plant in 2010. The initial, coal-fired project was central to President Obama's Climate Plan, as it was to be based on "clean coal"Ian Urbina. Piles of dirty secrets behind model "clean coal" project, The New York Times, July 5, 2016. and was being considered for more support from the Congress and the incoming Trump Administration in late 2016.Smith, Rebecca, "Troubled Coal-Fired Plant Could Get New Lifeline" (subscription), Wall Street Journal, December 21, 2016. Retrieved December 21, 2016. If it had become operational with coal, the Kemper Project would have been a first-of-its-kind electricity plant to employ gasification and carbon capture technologies at this scale.
Project management problems had been noted at the Kemper Project. The plant was supposed to be in service by May 2014, at a cost of $2.4 billion. As of June 2017, the project was still not in service, and the cost had increased to $7.5 billion. According to a Sierra Club analysis, Kemper is the most expensive power plant ever built, based on its generating capacity. In June 2017, Southern Company and Mississippi Power announced that the Kemper project would switch to burning only natural gas in an effort to manage costs. Some of the gasification infrastructure was demolished in 2021.
Background Kemper County is a small county in eastern Mississippi, roughly 30 miles north of Meridian."Kemper County", maps.google.com. Kemper County was chosen as the site for the plant to take advantage of local brown coal (lignite), an untapped natural resource, while providing geographic diversity to help balance the electric demand and strengthen electric reliability in Mississippi. Mississippi Power is a large energy company based in Gulfport, providing energy for Gulfport, Biloxi, Hattiesburg, Meridian, Pascagoula, Columbia, Laurel, Waveland, Lucedale and Picayune."Companies join forces on Kemper County IGCC project", meridianstar.com, September 15, 2009.
Mississippi Power intended the Kemper Project to produce cleaner energy through the use of integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) and carbon capture technologies, eliminating the majority of emissions normally emitted by a traditional coal plant."Environmental Benefits", mississippipower.com. A study conducted by Southern Company (parent of Mississippi Power) stated that the Kemper Project would have been "a large undertaking with high visibility and ... help set the stage for future coal-based power generation.
On June 3, 2010, the Mississippi Public Service Commission certified the project and the ground-breaking ceremony took place. Governor Haley Barbour was present."Gov. Barbour Celebrates Clean Coal Plant in Kemper County" (press release), gulfcoastnews.com via web.archive.org, December 16, 2010.
Timeline
2008: Conceptual design initiated 2010: Mississippi Public Service Commission approves project 2010: Construction begins 2011: Building foundation begins 2012: Above ground construction started 2013 August: Connection of the site's 230 kilovolt transmission lines September: First firing of the plant's combustion turbine (CTs) achieved"Construction milestones reached at Kemper, first fire of CT complete" (news release) , southerncompany.mediaroom.com, October: Combined cycle unit originally synchronized to the grid December: Final transmission line that will carry electricity was energized 2014 July: Pneumatic tests on gasifiers used to convert lignite to synthetic gas successfully tested July: Combined cycle unit responsible for generating electricity successfully tested August: Combined cycle unit in commercial operation and available to serve customers. Mississippi Power identified this milestone as the most significant to date. October: Delays postpone in-service date to first half of 2016, and increase estimated cost to $6.1 billion. December: 48 "steam blows" successfully completed. Steam blow is the process of blowing steam through pipes to ensure that they are clean, tight, and leak free. 2015 March: First fire of gasifiers successfully completed. The gasifiers, the centerpiece of the project, are designed to convert lignite coal to synthetic gas, or syngas, for use in power generation. May: The South Mississippi Electric Power Association decided not to purchase a 15 percent interest in the Kemper Project. September: Mississippi Power adjusted scheduled completion to a date after April 19, 2016. Because of this delay, the company will be required to pay back $234 million in investment tax credits to the Internal Revenue Service. 2016 March: Southern Co. reported to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that the cost of the Kemper Project had increased due to "repairs and modifications". The updated cost of the project was $6.6 billion. July: First of two gasifiers produces syngas. September: Second of two gasifiers produces syngas. October: Plant produces electricity using syngas in first of two gasifiers. 2017 March: Southern Co. discovered leaks that will cause it to miss scheduled mid-March completion of the project. June: Kemper power plant suspends coal gasification. 2021, October: the gasification structure was demolished
Lignite Lignite is a soft, brownish-black coal that has the lowest energy content of any type of coal. It is also very dirty when burned."Fossil Energy Study Guide: Coal", energy.gov.
According to the Lignite Energy Council about 79 percent of lignite coal is used to generate electricity, 13.5 percent to generate synthetic natural gas, and 7.5 percent to produce fertilizer products. Mississippi has an estimated five billion tons of coal reserves, consisting almost entirely of eocene lignite. The typical lignite beds that can be economically mined range from two to nine feet thick. Mississippi's lignite resources equal about 13 percent of total U.S. lignite reserves.
The Kemper plant was expected to use about 375,000 tons of locally mined lignite per month or almost 185 million tons over the plant's expected 40-year life. TRIG technology can utilize lignite, which is also a driving factor of the technology.
Technology Mississippi Power's Kemper plant was intended to be an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) facility, utilizing a technology known as "transport integrated gasification" (TRIG) to convert lignite coal—mined on the Kemper site—into syngas. The natural gas would then have been used to power turbines to generate electricity.
Mississippi Power stated that, by adding coal to its sources of power, it wished to add balance to its fuel-source choices, and be less reliant on any one form of energy. There is an estimated four billion tons of lignite available to be used.
If successful, the Kemper Project would have been the second TRIG facility in the United States. Producing electricity from coal in this way produces tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide, and Mississippi Power hoped that 65 percent of the carbon dioxide would be captured and utilized in Enhanced Oil Recovery at neighboring oil fields.
Transport integrated gasification technology TRIG was developed by the Department of Energy, Southern Company and KBR at the Power Systems Development Facility in Wilsonville, Alabama.
Southern Company stated that TRIG is a superior coal-gasification method with low impacts to the environment. TRIG technology can utilize lignite, which accounts for more than half of the world's coal reserves and drove global interest in the plant.
Power Magazine posted an article in April 2013, walking through the technology in technical detail. They say, "Commercial TRIG units can be designed to achieve high environmental standards for , NOx, dust emissions, mercury, and . Cost analysis based on extensive design has shown that the economic benefits offered by the air-blown transport gasifier relative to other systems are preserved even when capture and sequestration are incorporated into the design."
Clean coal If the carbon, capture and sequestration technology used at the Kemper Project had been successful, it would have been the United States’ first clean coal plant. The need for this type of technology has come from decades of debate among energy leaders on how to minimize carbon dioxide emissions into the Earth's atmosphere. In 2013, the United States' coal use was 40%, dominating all other energy sources. Realizing the demand for coal was not decreasing, Mississippi Power, Southern Company, KBR, and the Department of Energy invested in technology to capture emissions from burning fossil fuels. The investing bodies argued the type of clean coal technology they claim are found at the Kemper Project will be adopted worldwide; bringing profits back to Mississippi customers.
Environmentalists state that clean coal is not a possibility, as some emissions will still be emitted into the atmosphere.
Carbon capture and sequestration Carbon capture and sequestration, also referred to as carbon capture and storage (CCS), is a technology that can capture up to 90% of the carbon dioxide () emissions. CCS uses a combination of technologies to capture the released in the combustion process, transport it to a suitable storage location and finally store it (typically deep underground) where it cannot enter the atmosphere and thus contribute to climate change. sequestration options include saline formations and oil wells, where captured can be utilized in enhanced oil recovery.
Due to rising global demand for energy, the consumption of fossil fuels is expected to rise until 2035, leading to greater emissions.
Carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery Carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery or -EOR increases the amount of oil recovered from an underground oil reservoir. By pumping into an oil reservoir, previously unrecoverable oil is pushed up to where the oil can be reached. The US Department of Energy states that this can produce an additional 30 to 60 percent of the original amount of recoverable oil. Once all of the recoverable oil has been reached, the depleted reservoir can act as a storage site for the .
The Kemper Plant was planned to have 60 miles of pipeline to carry its captured to neighboring oil reserves for enhanced oil recovery. Each year, the plant will capture 3 million tons of . In March 2014, The Guardian published that the diverted will be pumped into two Mississippi companies for use in enhanced oil recovery.
Research and development The Department of Energy, the Southern Company, and construction management firm KBR (Kellogg, Brown & Root) joined at the Power Systems Development Facility (PSDF) in Wilsonville, Alabama to develop a process known as Transport Integrated Gasification (TRIG). This development started in 1996, and the gasifier design of Southern Company's Kemper Coal Plant is based on this specific research and development. The technology is most cost-effective when using low-heat content, high moisture, or high-ash content coals, including lignite.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, coal gasification offers one of the most versatile and clean ways to convert coal into electricity, hydrogen, and other valuable energy products. Rather than burning coal directly, gasification (a thermo-chemical process) breaks down coal into its basic chemical constituents.
The technology of processing coal to gas on a commercial scale has been in development since the 1970s, and it has been in use since the mid-1980s.