Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Dr. David H. Archer
Father of coal-based IGCC

1928-2010


Dave Archer, IGCC Pioneer - Westinghouse R&D
Adjunct Professor - Carnegie Mellon University


I guess that it's a personal thing with me, but the way I see it was Westinghouse's Dave Archer ("Dr. Dave") who should be considered as the father of the IGCC power plant concept.

And I'm saddened by the passing this past Thursday of an old friend, a nice guy and a technology pioneer.

Coal in gas turbines?
It was fall, 1973, when I joined the Westinghouse Gas Turbine Systems Division, and the Arab Oil Embargo was just taking effect. My first assignment, I soon learned, was to join the marketing effort that was going to save our business.

The days of cheap oil were over, and the buzz was all about "alternative fuels" for gas turbines.
I was told to call Dr. David Archer at our R&D Center and learn all about the one idea that was going to save us. I soon learned that he was working on new ways to use coal in gas turbines!

Coal in gas turbines? Of course. What else? Cheap and plentiful domestic coal.



Combined cycles just taking hold
Ironically, the nascent concept of combined cycle power generation using large oil- or gas-fired gas turbines was just beginning to take hold. Record levels of orders were rolling in from all over the country. But almost all of these orders were now being canceled due to uncertainties in the global fuels market.

At the same time, the Clean Air Act of 1972 had just been passed, and the pressure was on the industry to find a way to cleanly use high sulfur coals. The use of scrubbers on exhaust stacks was seen as technically unsound, and much too expensive.


Were these parallel major developments to mean the end for both large coal-fired steam plants and for combined cycle plants at the same time?


Was nuclear power really the only answer? (Anyone remember "Power too Cheap to Meter"?)

Was my career in gas turbines going to be a short one?

Luckily, there were believers
Luckily for Westinghouse gas turbines (and for Siemens some 25 years later?) there were at least a few in upper management who strongly believed in the future of the combined cycle power plant. Even if traditional fuel sources were now in question, they saw ways for the concept to survive and grow. (Remember, this was even before the word "cogeneration" was invented.)

At the same time, these foresighted people saw how the combined cycle power plant could even provide an alternative way - through the use of gasification - to use high sulfur coal and still meet the tough new emission standards that were about to be promulgated under the Clean Air Act.


Enter Dr. David Archer - and IGCC

At the time Dave Archer, a manager at the Westinghouse R&D Center, was heading a group of mostly chemical engineers working on advanced concepts of integrating both fluidized bed coal combustion and air-blown fluidized bed coal gasification with combined cycle power generation.


When I called him to learn about the alternative fuels path for survival I felt that I was talking with the guru - and the creator of a great new concept that was not only going to save Westinghouse gas turbines but also give my new job a whole new meaning.


Although this all happened well before the coining of the term Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle, and the acronym "IGCC" (by EPRI? GE? both?), we were there - almost 40 years ago - at the beginning of a great idea.

Westinghouse was already testing low-BTU syngas fuel in modified W501B combustors, with DOE support, and we really thought that we were onto something very special.

A marketing strategy was developed to convince customers to stick to their plans to install our new PACE combined cycle plants. Our theme (sound familiar, even for today?):

  • Gas or Oil - Now
  • Syngas from Coal - Later

An idea that has come and gone - and come again
Well, a lot of water has flowed over the dam since then - and the idea of IGCC has come and gone and come again as the greatest thing since who-knows-what for improving the technology of coal-based power generation.


Entire careers in IGCC development and commercialization have also come and gone since I was first introduced to the idea by Dave Archer.

My own career with Westinghouse gas turbines lasted some 30 years. Unexpectedly, and thanks to Gas Turbine World, it returned to the promotion of IGCC about 5 years ago, shortly after I retired from Siemens-Westinghouse
.

Happily, I heard again from Dave Archer when he saw the series of articles that we were publishing in support of gasification and IGCC.
He was still working as adjunct professor at CMU teaching advanced power generation to graduate students.

In fact, it was only a few months ago that I last heard from him.

We had just posted the news item on the EPA putting pressure on the developers of the Kemper County (KY) IGCC project to consider natural gas as the primary fuel for their power plant, and their announcement that their IGCC plant was going "hybrid" - that is, separating the coal-to-gas plant from the gas-fired combined cycle plant.

Dave's comment - some 40 years after he fathered the concept as an answer to the Clean Air Act:

"It seems that EPA really wants to strangle IGCC before it takes a real breath.
Keep the faith?"

Fondly remembering Dr. Dave.

Harry Jaeger
Gasification Editor
Gas Turbine World Magazine



The following is reprinted from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:


ARCHER DR. DAVID H.

On Thursday, June 24, 2010, age 82 of Ross Township formerly of West View.

Beloved husband of the late Justine (Garnic) Archer. Loving father of Catherine Archer, Miriam (Mac) McCann, Amy Archer & Marsi (Lance) Thrash; brother of Miriam Jeske, proud grandfather of Charles, Andy, Justine & Vivian McCann, and Jordan David, Tim & Bailey Thrash; also survived by 6 great-grandchildren; longtime friend & companion of Myrna Rombach.


Family will welcome friends Monday 2-4 & 6-8 p.m. at the SCHELLHAAS FUNERAL HOME, INC., 388 Center Ave., West View 15229. Service will be in Emanuel's Ev. Lutheran Church, 10 N. Fremont Ave., Bellevue 15202 on Tuesday at 11:00 a.m.


Dr. Archer was retired, Westinghouse Electric Corp.; Adjunct Professor, Carnegie Mellon University; Organist and Music Director, Emanuel's Ev. Lutheran Church; Member, National Academy of Engineers; Member, American Guild of Organists.


If desired memorials may be made in Dr. Archer's name to the Intelligent Workplace Program, Carnegie Mellon University, P.O. Box 371525, Pgh., PA 15251-7525 or Emanuel's Ev. Lutheran Church.

Saturday, June 12, 2010


Memorable Memorial Day for

Kemper County IGCC Project


Mississippi Power announces that it will move forward to construct a 582MW IGCC power plant as Public Service Commission relaxes financial restrictions on the project.

May 28, 2010


Mississippi Power, a wholly owned subsidiary of Southern Company, said that it will formally accept the terms of the revised order of the state regulators allowing for the construction of an advanced design IGCC power plant, which is expected to come online by 2014.

The utility said that the proposed plant would use Mississippi lignite. This locally available and relatively low-cost energy source will be added to its existing fuel mix of natural gas and coal, and will allow the company to mitigate the volatility and growing costs associated with other fuels.

Mississippi Power had asked the Mississippi Public Service Commission to reconsider conditions it had previously placed on the utility's plan to build the 582MW plant, including a recoverable cost cap of $2.4 billion.

The utility had claimed that the $2.4 billion price cap along with other conditions "created unacceptable risks to the company, our customers, our lenders and our investors."

After rehearing the case, the commission voted 2-1 to raise a price cap it placed by nearly $500 million to $2.88 billion and to allow the utility to begin charging customers for some plant costs starting in 2012, at least 2 years before it is expected to begin producing electricity.

Commission Chairman Brandon Presley, who opposed the plant in April as too risky for ratepayers, voted against the revised order. In a dissenting opinion, Presley criticized the action by the other two commissioners in acquiescing to the utility's objections.

Other project critics -- owners of merchant power plants in the region and at least one environmental organization -- said the utility was counting on high natural gas prices to justify the plant's economics at a time when the US natural gas supply is climbing with new production that should keep costs in check.

The Kemper County plant will employ an advanced air-blown circulating fluidized bed "transport" gasifier (the "TRIG" system) developed by Southern Company and KBR, in conjunction with the US Department of Energy. It will be the first commercial-scale application of the technology in the US.

An earlier attempt by Southern, KBR and the DOE to develop a commercial-scale demonstration plant in Orlando, Florida had failed to materialize.

In September 2009, KBR announced that it had been awarded a license and services contract in China with Beijing Guoneng Yinghui Clean Energy Engineering Co., Ltd that is expected to result in the first commercial scale installation of the TRIG system.