Toshiba Corp. (www.toshiba.co.jp), Mizuho Information & Research Institute, Inc. (MHIR; both Tokyo, Japan; www.mizuho-ir.co.jp) and 11 other industrial and academic partners have been selected to carry out a five-year project, “Demonstration of Sustainable CCS Technology Project,” sponsored by Japan’s Ministry of the Environment (Tokyo; www.env.go.jp).
Toshiba will construct a carbon capture facility (diagram), a $120-million investment designed to capture more than 500 ton/d of CO2 — about half of its daily emissions — from the 48-MW Mikawa Power Plant, which is operated by Toshiba subsidiary Sigma Power Ariake Co. in Omuta, Fukuoka prefecture. The Mikawa Power Plant is now being retrofitted to accommodate both coal- and biomass-fired power generation. When the demonstration facility is completed in 2020, it will become the world’s first biomass-fired power plant equipped with large-scale carbon capture, according to Toshiba.
The consortium will evaluate the technology’s performance, cost and environmental impacts.
