Texas Vies for $1 Billion Coal Energy Project

By Dan Wallach, The Beaumont Enterprise, Texas

Nov. 2–Texas is competing for a $1 billion Department of Energy project to use coal to generate electricity and use the resulting carbon dioxide to enhance oil recovery.

The state, one of a handful looking at the proposal, sent an outline of the project to each of its 24 regional councils of government Tuesday to gauge possible interest.

The state eventually would nominate one site as the most appropriate to compete with other states mounting serious efforts.

The project is called FutureGen and it envisions a 275-megawatt electric generating plant, fueled at first by coal, which is plentiful across a strip reaching from Central Texas toward the northeastern section of the state.

Such a plant also could use other fossil fuels, such as petroleum coke, a byproduct of oil refining.

State leaders for the project are Michael Williams, the elected chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas extraction, and Scott Tinker, director of the Bureau of Economic Geology, based at the University of Texas.

Every state has something similar to the bureau, which is particularly active in Texas because of oil and gas, said project spokesman Chuck McDonald.

The FutureGen plant’s emissions would be near zero, and the carbon dioxide would be stored in appropriate geologic formations such as salt domes, which dot the subterranean Southeast Texas landscape. The greenhouse gas could be used to enhance oil recovery from otherwise depleted fields.

“Two of three parameters are in the Beaumont area,” he said. “You have appropriate geologic formations. Oilfields are appropriate for enhanced recovery. And you have markets for the company’s products. Coal is not present, but it’s near enough.” And coal is near enough to not make its local absence a problem, McDonald said.

Oil well operators in the Permian Basin have used carbon dioxide extraction methods for decades, according to FutureGen news releases sent out Tuesday to the various regional government councils.

McDonald said the FutureGen project had wanted to schedule a public information meeting in Beaumont, but Hurricane Rita intervened on Sept. 24.

Project managers still intend to visit Southeast Texas to gauge interest.

Chester Jourdan, director of the South East Texas Regional Planning Commission, said he is going to discuss the project with Jim Rich, president of the Greater Beaumont Chamber of Commerce, and Steve Buser, president of the Partnership of Southeast Texas, as well as the commission’s officers, who are elected officials in various local governments in Hardin, Jefferson, and Orange counties.

FutureGen needs a response by Nov. 16 on whether there is regional interest in pursuing the project further.

“I don’t think the state has decided what areas are in or out,” Jourdan said. “They’re also looking for community support.” Jourdan said he wants a consensus from the region’s industrial leaders as well.

“Do we want to put resources into this? We’re still trying to recover from the hurricane. We don’t want to divert attention from that if we don’t have a realistic shot at it,” Jourdan said.

Walter Diggles, director of the Deep East Texas Council of Governments, based in Jasper, also said his council intends to signal interest in the project.

“It’s kind of a research project, too,” Diggles said. “And getting an alternative power source in the wake of Rita — the timing couldn’t be better.” McDonald said the project would help Texas in recovering 5.5 billion barrels of oil that lie outside the Permian Basin and are unrecoverable because the crude is trapped in porous rock.

The carbon dioxide could be injected into the dormant field, helping to push the oil into existing wells.

FutureGen also would produce hydrogen as one of its byproducts, which is a needed commodity in petrochemical production in Southeast Texas, McDonald said.

McDonald said at most, he expects half of the state’s councils of government to submit a letter of interest.

FutureGen will select one site in the country for its project. McDonald said he thinks there aren’t more than a dozen serious contenders.

“Illinois, Ohio and Texas are mounting the most serious efforts,” he said.

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