Print this pageA New Energy 
System
for the Intermountain West – Built on
Domestic Primary Resources and Negative Carbon Emissions
Global energy security, anthropogenic climate change, and
high energy prices combine to harness market forces and ingenuity like never
before to design a fundamentally different energy supply and distribution
system in our nation. The Intermountain West and adjacent system because of
an abundance of coal and biomass for gasification, combined with a large number
of oil and gas fields ready for enhanced recovery and storage of CO2.
Such a new system could be built around coal gasification combined cycle
power plants (CGCC plants), combined with gasification of biomass such as the
high-yield prairie switchgrass. This system would produce methane for
conventional power generation, as in today's pulverized coal plants and at a
lower cost than current use of natural gas, and allow co-generation of
hydrogen, biofuels, dimethyl ethylene or any other ‘designer fuel'
(polygeneration), plus CO2. Separation of the CO2 from other gases would occur
at the pre-combustion stage, making the task more efficient and much cheaper
than current attempts at post-combustion separation of CO2 from power plant
flue gas.
The associated production of moderately priced CO2 would act as a stimulus
for expansion of CO2 enhanced oil recovery (and gas recovery?); an industry
that currently is supply-limited in the system.
Finally, all primary energy sources for such a system
would be domestic, a
blend of fossil and renewable, and in enormous supply throughout the region.