Tag: Carbon Dioxide

Kemper County, MS — Southern Company

by Trevor Brown

UPDATED: 01/23/2018 — see Change Log

OWNER: Mississippi Power Company (Southern Company)
PROJECT: Greenfield power plant, ammonia byproduct

SUMMARY STATUS: Operational / Abandoned
The Kemper County Energy Facility, a 582 MW power plant, was one of the US DOE's flagship "clean coal" projects. It would have produced ammonia as a byproduct of its coal-to-syngas process. The plant has been producing power from natural gas since August 2014, but experienced profound delays and budget overruns with the coal portion, which now appears to have been abandoned, with layoffs at the adjacent coal mine.

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Augusta, GA — Nutrien

by Trevor Brown
Ammonia Plant: Augusta, GA - PotashCorp

UPDATED: 02/01/2018 — see Change Log

OWNER: Nutrien
PROJECT: Nitrogen plant

SUMMARY STATUS: Operational
Ammonia production began at Augusta in 1964. The present plant started up in 1977, with revamps and expansions in 1996 and 2012, and a significant ammonia expansion during turnaround in 2016. In January 2018, Nutrien was formed through a "merger of equals" between Agrium and PotashCorp that was originally announced in September 2016.

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Beulah, ND — Dakota Gas

by Trevor Brown

UPDATED: 10/01/2018 - see Change Log

OWNER: Dakota Gasification Company (Basin Electric Power Cooperative)
PROJECT: Existing plant, urea brownfield

SUMMARY STATUS: Operational
Dakota Gasification Company's new urea plant started up early in 2018, when granular urea became the 11th product made at the Great Plains Synfuels Plant (DEF became the 12th). Fertilizers now represent more than 50% of the entire plant's expected revenues. Construction on the new urea plant began in Summer 2014, and would have been completed by mid-2017 but destructive storms flattened the new urea storage building in 2016, which had to be demolished and the foundations ripped out before construction could restart. A small ammonia expansion was completed during the project.

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East Dubuque, IL — CVR Partners

by Trevor Brown
Ammonia plant: East Dubuque, IL - Rentech Nitrogen

UPDATED: 04/30/2018 — see Change Log

OWNER: East Dubuque Nitrogen Fertilizers, LLC (CVR Partners LP / CVR Energy Inc)
PROJECT: Nitrogen fertilizer plant

SUMMARY STATUS: Operational
The East Dubuque nitrogen plant started up in 1965. Rentech completed expansions of the urea line in 2013 and the ammonia line in 2014. In April 2016, Rentech and CVR Partners merged, and the plant now operates as a subsidiary of CVR. Also in 2016, CVR completed minor expansion work on its ammonia plant.

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Greeneville, TN — US Nitrogen

by Trevor Brown

UPDATED: 04/17/2018 — see Change Log

OWNER: US Nitrogen LLC (Austin Powder Company)
PROJECT: Greenfield ammonium nitrate plant

SUMMARY STATUS: Operational
US Nitrogen broke ground in February 2012, when it expected its new plant to start up in March 2014, but the project was fraught with problems. Permits were revised and reissued repeatedly, and the site had major issues with compliance, which appear to continue even today. Construction and design issues led to major delays and lawsuits. The start-up process eventually began in May 2015 but the ammonia plant didn't start up until June 2016. Within a couple months, the site was temporarily shut down under federal and state investigation of permit compliance; more emission mishaps occurred in April 2017. The company announced that the plant was fully operational in January 2017 but, since then, it's not clear whether plant has been producing much product.

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Kern County, CA — HECA

by Trevor Brown

UPDATED: 10/23/2017 — see Change Log. No further updates expected.

OWNER: Hydrogen Energy California (HECA), SCS Energy
PROJECT: Greenfield power plant, fertilizer byproduct

SUMMARY STATUS: On hold, indefinitely
Despite years of development, this "clean coal" project never came together. The local oil field backed out, leaving HECA in an existential crisis with no way to sell or sequester its CO2 and, in March 2016, the project put itself on indefinite hold, by withdrawing its application to the CEC.

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Penwell, TX — TCEP

by Trevor Brown

UPDATED: 02/16/2018 — see Change Log

OWNER: Texas Clean Energy Project (Summit Power Group LLC)
PROJECT: Greenfield plant, urea

SUMMARY STATUS: Bankrupt
The Texas Clean Energy Project was going to be a major "clean coal" power plant with significant urea byproduct but DOE effectively killed the project when it suspended funding. Initiated in 2010 and originally scheduled to be completed by 2014, the project continually failed to raise financing for such a long time that the DOE finally withdrew its support in mid-2016. In December 2016, the developers announced one last idea, ditching power generation altogether to focus on urea production but soon after, in October 2017, the company went bankrupt.

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Pryor, OK — LSB Industries

by Trevor Brown

UPDATED: 03/22/2018 — see Change Log

OWNER: Pryor Chemical Company (LSB Industries Inc)
PROJECT: Ammonia-UAN plant, expansion

SUMMARY STATUS: Operational
LSB Industries restarted the Pryor ammonia-UAN plant in 2010, after it had lain idle for a decade, and expanded it in 2013. Ammonia has been produced on this site since 1954; the current plant was commissioned in 1997. Reliability continues to be a major problem at Pryor; most recently, in September 2017, "a minor fire" put the plant out of operation for two and a half months.

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Verdigris, OK — CF Industries

by Trevor Brown

UPDATED: 03/09/2017 — see Change Log

OWNER: Terra Nitrogen Company LP (CF Industries Holdings Inc)
PROJECT: Nitrogen fertilizer plant

SUMMARY STATUS:
The Verdigris plant has been producing ammonia and UAN since 1975. Minor expansion work was completed during scheduled plant turnarounds in each of the last four years. CF Industries has owned over 75% of Terra Nitrogen since 2010.

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