Gasification: Gasification has been practiced for many decades. Uses range from gasification of coal for chemicals production and synthetic fuels through to power generation. Leading technology providers for the gasification of solid fossil fuels include GE, ConocoPhillips, and Shell. Examples of power generation from gasification include the 260MW Wabash plant in Indiana, the 250 MW Tampa Electric/Polk plant in Florida and the 300MW Puertollano plant in Spain.
Gas separation: Gas separation (and in this case CO2 capture) is widely used and is a standard technology across the oil & gas industry. As examples, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plants commonly have CO2 capture facilities to extract CO2 from the gas stream before liquefaction. Refineries are another big user of CO2 extraction/capture technology (in manufacture of H2 for use in the refining process).
CO2 transport and reinjection for enhanced oil recovery (EOR): is a widespread practice and Occidental is one of the most experienced companies in this activity. It is common in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, where it has been used since the 1970s. CO2 is produced from naturally occurring fields of the gas, such as Sheep Mountain and Bravo Dome in Colorado. Large volumes of CO2 are safely transported by pipeline (over 200 miles) and injected into Permian Basin oil and gas fields for EOR. Another example is the Weyburn project in North Dakota which captures CO2 from a coal based synthetic natural gas and chemical production facility and transports the CO2 by pipeline to the Weyburn fields in Canada.
CO2 sequestration without EOR: As concern grows about the effect of CO2 as a greenhouse gas, reinjection of CO2 as a climate change mitigation measure has been adopted in a number of projects. For example, the Sleipner gas field in the Norwegian North Sea has been injecting about a million tonnes per year of CO2 for the last 12 years into a saline formation 800 to 1,000 meters below the seabed. In Algeria, a naturally occurring high level of CO2 in the natural gas produced at the In Salah field is separated out and re-injected into the rock surrounding the field at the rate of 1million tonnes per annum.
H2-fired turbines: Although not as widely established as natural gas fired turbine generation, all the major equipment vendors have experience with hydrogen rich fuel. GE alone have over 20 applications running worldwide with examples such as the Valero refinery in New Jersey (with up to 60% H2) and a more experimental turbine in Daesun, Korea (running with 95% H2). Pure hydrogen burns at a very high temperature so it is mixed with a diluent such as nitrogen so that the combustion temperature is manageable.