N.D. gas plant could make fuel of the future
By LAUREN DONOVAN, Bismarck Tribune
The same plant built to demonstrate America's energy independence two decades ago also makes a product that's viewed as the new way to independence.
The Dakota Gasification Co. near Beulah was built after the '70s energy crisis as an offensive strike against the stranglehold of the Saudi oil cartel. As a concept, the idea of using lignite coal to make synthetic natural gas never went much beyond the Beulah plant, but things never change except to change.
Now, the new wave of energy independence is pointing toward hydrogen-based fuel cells, funded in President Bush's Freedom Fuel Initiative and announced in last week's State of the Union address.
It turns out that DGC also makes hydrogen, the poster child of the energy future, as it breaks down soft lignite into a steady stream of natural gas. If the tide were to ever turn to hydrogen as a fuel source to run automobiles and keep the lights burning and computers humming, like it does inside the space shuttles and space station, DGC is already in the future.
DGC spokesman Floyd Robb said the company has looked at the potential for marketing hydrogen.
Hydrogen is the most common substance on earth -- it's two-thirds of every speck of water on the planet. Trouble is, it only exists in combination with something else, like oxygen or carbon.
DGC puts coal into gasifiers and ends up with a hydrogen-rich gas. It goes through another step before it becomes natural gas, the end product.
Floyd said DGC's initial look at the hydrogen market found the economics aren't yet there to make the necessary alterations to the plant's process to create a stream of pure hydrogen. If the economics do come -- if the cars, homes and factories of tomorrow are powered with environmentally clean fuel cells -- DGC could have an interesting opportunity.
Today, hydrogen commands a price three to 10 times higher than natural gas, said Doug Herman, a program manager at the California-based Electric Power Research Institute. This at a time when natural gas itself gets a premium price.
And DGC could make a lot of hydrogen. Its capacity would be something less than the 160 million cubic feet of natural gas it makes daily, but still impressive. Plus, it's easier to make hydrogen out of coal than it is to take another step in the process and make natural gas out of coal.
"There's no question it can be made from coal and probably pretty reasonably," said Herman. "The cost is in getting it delivered." That's a particular challenge for a product made in North Dakota, a good distance from big population centers.
Just like the natural gas made at DGC, the compressed hydrogen would get transported by pipeline, only at three times the flow volume to get the same energy equivalent...
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Hydride trucks would also work.
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