Workshop 1: Industrial Flares – Chairman: Jim Seebold
Wednesday June 13th 9:45-12:45

9:45-10:45 Flare Testing – General Overview — Scott Evans, Clean Air Engineering
Offered as a public service, this discussion may be of interest to those delegates in the European community whose companies may become afflicted with the same regulatory activism that has been ongoing in the United States. On behalf of the impacted companies, Clean Air Engineering’s Scott Evans has led the formulation and execution of the remote-measurement PFTIR (passive Fourier infrared spectroscopy) in situ field testing that has been imposed by the United States federal government over the last several years.

10:45-11:15 Highlights of IFC Experimental Program – Peter Gogolek, CANMET
Until recently the results of the International Flare Consortium’s wind-tunnel investigation were closely-held. Recently released by unanimous agreement of the sponsoring international majors, CANMET’s Principal Investigator, Peter Gogolek, will highlight the results.

11:15-11:45 Review of the Stability, Destruction and Combustion Efficiency of Hydrogen Sulfide Flare Flames – John Pohl, Energy International
John Pohl is highly regarded internationally not least because he was named “Investigator of the Year” by the United States Environmental Protection Agency for his work as Principal Investigator in the USEPA’s Investigation of the Combustion Efficiency of Industrial Flares. While John is unable to join us, his long-time colleague, the erstwhile workshop chairman, Jim Seebold, who served as technical advisor on the same program, is honored to stand-in.

11:45-12:15 Real Industrial Flares in the Field: No Evidence Whatsoever of Wind-Induced Combustion Efficiency Degradation – Scott Evans, Clean Air Engineering
In the United States, alleged wind-induced combustion efficiency (“CE”) degradation has become a big issue amongst environmental activists in consequence of which the United States Environmental Protection Agency is considering regulations related to wind effects. While it is true that wind effects have been reported in model-scale (typically ≤3”D) tests in wind tunnels, there is no evidence whatsoever in recent and extensive in situ full-scale (typically ≥24”D) remote-sensing field testing of any significant wind-induced CE-degradation. Absent hard evidence to the contrary, regulating a non-existent CE-degrading wind effect makes no sense at all for real industrial flares in the field.

12:15-12:45 Optical Monitoring of Industrial Gas Flares – Peter Gogolek, CANMET
Finally, in light of the severe difficulties and high costs associated with recently-imposed in situ remote-measurement PFTIR campaigns in the United States, the potential of other simpler optical techniques will be explored in this workshop.

Workshop 2: Oxy-coal– Chairman: Steve Wilcox
Wednesday June 13th 9:45-12:45

A number of practical issues face power industry organisations wishing to deploy a full scale oxy-coal approach to Carbon Capture and Storage CCS. In January 2012, thirteen European organisations from the power industry, research centres and academia launched a research programme on Reliable and Efficient Combustion of Oxygen/Coal/Recycled Flue Gas Mixtures (RELCOM) with cofunding from the European Commission’s FP7 Research Programme. The RELCOM programme is coordinated by the UK’s University of Glamorgan, with IFRF acting as both disseminator and research partner.

The RELCOM partnership will use oxy-coal combustion test facilities ranging from 50kW to 20MW capacity to examine some of the key issues of oxy-coal-recycled flue gas (RFG) burner design, thermal performance and scale up for retrofit and new-build applications. The Consortium also has access to specialised test facilities needed to investigate some of the technologies underpinning a move to oxy/coal/RFG. During the IFRF’s 17th Member Conference, the RELCOM partners will organise the first of a series of open workshops that will be held during the project. The theme for this first workshop will be the underpinning technologies offering challenges to oxy-coal users.
The workshop will cover:

• Fuel and combustion characterisation
• Flame radiation characterisation
• Explosion characteristics of oxy/coal/RFG mixtures
• High temperature gas side corrosion in the presence of high concentrations of CO2/H2O/SO2/HCL
• Impact of Oxy/coal/RFG on flue gas clean-up
• Mercury emissions

all under oxy/coal/RFG conditions.

In addition to introductory presentations from RELCOM partners on these six topics, the Workshop will incorporate a poster/networking session as well as a panel discussion. All MC17 participants are welcome to present posters on their own activities relating to oxy-coal in general and to these six topics in particular.

Organisations wishing to propose posters for the oxy-coal workshop are invited to get in touch with University of Glamorgan’s Neil Fricker.