Evaluation of LNG Cold Energy Utilization Technology for the Application to CDM

Since Kyoto protocol has been enter into force 16 Feb, 2005 Many countries are developed national strategy for the reduction of greenhouse gas(GHG). Korea imports LNG to satisfy 1/5th of energy demand so that utilization of LNG cold energy is one of the scenario to reduce greenhouse gas. Especially, in Korea, fossil fuel based electricity production is more than 50% so that CO2 emission from power plant rendered societal issue these days. Therefore, development of alternative electricity generating technology is very important for the conservation of energy, reduction of GHG and preservation of comfort environment. Natural gas is liquefied at the gas well of production site for the purpose of transport, and then evaporated at the field where natural gas is utilized. About 380 kWh of electricity per ton of natural gas is required for the liquefaction and sea water is used as heat transfer medium for vaporization of LNG by heat exchanger in most of LNG terminals in Korea. However, wasted liquefaction energy of natural gas in the sea water can be recovered through the electricity generation with various cycle concepts. The main advantage of cold energy power generation is environmental friendly without GHG emission, recover the waste energy. In the present investigation, possible installation cold energy power facility is evaluated for the Inchon LNG terminal. Furthermore, discussion will be made in concerning the reduction of CO2 by changing power generation through NG combined cycle to cold energy power generation. Simulation technique with 3MW cold energy power generation system is applied to investigate the substitution effect of NGCC with cold energy power production and calculate the reduction of CO2 emission. Preliminary results demonstrated that 3,715 ton of CO2 per year will be mitigated when 3MW cold energy power generation system is installed. Various LNG cold energy utilization scenarios will also investigated to evaluate CO2 reduction as well as applicability to CDM project.