Preliminary Assessment of Potential Water Supply Sources for the Proposed West Texas FutureGen Site, Ector and Midland Counties, Texas
A. Joseph Reed, Hugh B. Robotham, and Steven P. Tischer, ARCADIS G&M, Inc., 1004 N. Big Spring St., Suite 300, Midland, Texas 79701, phone: 432-687-5400, fax: 432-687-5401
FutureGen is a federal initiative of the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) to build a power
facility that is capable of
producing hydrogen and sequestering carbon dioxide (CO2). The $1
billion research project is intended to create the world’s first
near-zero-emissions fossil-fuel
power
plant. The project has two major
components: (1) to build an energy facility that will create
power
and hydrogen
and capture CO2 and (2) to locate a host site that will store the CO2
permanently. The prototype facility will be designed to allow testing of various
components and fuel types in all phases of the process, as well as full
measurement, monitoring, and verification of CO2 sequestration.
The parameters required for a successful project are: (1)
coals varying in quality; (2) economic use of hydrogen and CO2 (3)
other co-products of gasification; (4) access to regulated and deregulated power
markets; (5) infrastructure for transporting CO2 and hydrogen; (6)
water; (7) significant permanent storage for CO2, and, (8) a legacy
of leading the world in energy and an inventive spirit are all found in Texas.
The focus of this presentation will be on locating and providing water to cool
the
power
-generating facility. The total volume of water required to cool the
proposed
power
-generating facility is 2,500 gallons per minute, which is an
equivalent to 3,600,000 gallons per day. Sources capable of providing this
volume of water to the proposed FutureGen site(s) in west Texas will be
discussed.