GE, BP form hydrogen power alliance

Universal City, California -- GE and BP have formed a global alliance to jointly develop and deploy technology for at least five power plants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation.

The announcement, which builds on a preliminary agreement between the companies in 2006, coincides with a series of moves by BP in this area. These include the planned formation of the Hydrogen Energy venture with mining group Rio Tinto, its reported withdrawal from a hydrogen energy plant project in Peterhead, Scotland and plans for a similar project in Australia.

The new alliance, said GE, will work to develop and integrate gasification and power generation technology into hydrogen power projects, which combine power generation from fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage. The aim, it added, is to deliver commercial-scale power generation with 90% of the carbon in the fuel captured and permanently stored deep underground.

The partners also envisage that injection of captured carbon dioxide into oil reservoirs for storage also facilitate the production of otherwise unrecoverable oil, so enhancing the economically viability of the technology. However, for the proposed projects will require appropriate policy support and a regulatory environment that recognizes and encourages the low-carbon benefits they can deliver, they added.

Initially, the companies expect to work together to apply GE’s proprietary gasification and turbine technology to the development of five hydrogen power plants that would use petroleum coke or bituminous coal as feedstock.

As a first step, BP and GE would expect the petroleum coke-fuelled project being planned at Carson in California, where Edison Mission Energy is Hydrogen Energy’ partner, to use GE technology. In addition, GE Energy Financial Services will have the opportunity to invest equity in projects offered by BP.

BP’s agreement with GE is to transfer to Hydrogen Energy -- a new company being jointly formed by BP and Rio Tinto to identify, build and operate hydrogen power plants with carbon capture and storage.

GE and BP -- through Hydrogen Energy – aim to exploit their expertise in areas such as coal gasification, reforming technology, gas turbines and carbon capture to optimise the integrated design of hydrogen power projects

Each commercial-scale hydrogen power plant is expected to generate about 500 megawatts of electricity. One of these 500 megawatt power plants, fed by coal with 90% carbon capture and geological storage, would be expected to capture around four

million tons of carbon dioxide a year.

BP has already announced that it is developing plans for two hydrogen power plants. The first proposed project is a 500-megawatt hydrogen power plant at Carson in southern California. BP, and partner Edison Mission Energy, would take petroleum coke, a refinery by-product and synthetic form of coal, to create hydrogen. The plant would capture and store some four million tonnes per year of carbon dioxide.

The second project for which studies have begun would be a 500-megawatt coal-based project to be built alongside BP’s Kwinana refinery in Western Australia. About four million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide would be captured and stored in an offshore deep geological formation.