By IANS
Abu Dhabi : The United Arab Emirates (UAE) based alternative energy company Masdar and the Hydrogen Energy have announced they have signed an agreement to design a hydrogen based environment friendly power generation project, WAM news agency reported Thursday.
Hydrogen Energy is a joint venture between BP Alternative Energy and mining giant Rio Tinto.
The plant, which would be located in Abu Dhabi, would process natural gas to make hydrogen and carbon dioxide (CO2). The hydrogen would be used as fuel for generating low-carbon electricity.
Carbon dioxide produced would be captured, transported and injected into an oil field where it would replace the natural gas currently being injected into the field to maintain pressure.
The injection of CO2 could also increase the proportion of oil that can be recovered from the field.
“This joint project will bring together – in a single integrated scheme – a number of technologies already operating successfully around the world,” said Sultan Al Jaber, chief executive of Masdar.
The work on the project has already started and front-end engineering and design of the project is to be completed by the end of 2008, at a cost of some $45 million.
About 100 million cubic feet of natural gas would be transformed into hydrogen and CO2 per day. The hydrogen gas would be used to fuel gas turbines and generate around 420MW of electricity. This would be equivalent to more than five percent of Abu Dhabi’s current power generation capacity.
The project would limit greenhouse gas emissions by capturing some 90 percent of the CO2 generated, and permanently storing up to 1.7 million tonnes of CO2 per year – the equivalent of carbon emissions by Abu Dhabi’s entire domestic transport sector.
The project would require a total capital investment of about $2 billion. The partners plan to start construction by early 2009 and commercial operation by 2012.