(Source: Business Wire)
Emerson Process Management, a business of Emerson (NYSE:EMR), has formed a strategic relationship with Secure Energy, Inc. to help build a $800 million alternative energy plant in Decatur, Illinois, the first coal gasification-to-synthetic natural gas plant to be constructed in the United States in two decades.
According to this strategic relationship, Emerson will serve as the main automation contractor (MAC), responsible for managing and digitally automating the Secure Energy plant that will convert 1.4 million tons/year of Illinois coal into 21 billion cubic feet of pipeline quality natural gas. The modular facility is a template for four additional clean coal plants that Secure Energy intends to construct in other parts of the United States. Emerson will establish automation and process control protocols that can be modified as necessary to create plants that are coal-to-diesel, coal-to-gasoline, coal-to-fertilizer or other clean coal processes.
Emerson has committed significant resources and expertise to help alternative energy companies translate their technologies into large-scale commercial production of eco-friendly fuels. In addition to Secure Energy, Emerson is working with nearly a dozen other alternative fuel companies.
Secure Energy will rely upon Emerson's engineering expertise and digital automation technology to integrate the plant's five process "islands" air separation, gasification, CO shift/hydrolysis, acid gas removal, and methanation within the clean coal plant.
"Emerson provides the glue to confidently engineer and start up this modular project," said Jack Kenny, Secure Energy Co-Founder. "We have five major engineering firms delivering the various processes of our plant, so we need Emerson's expertise to make sure all the process automation is correct and unified."
Secure Energy chose Emerson as its main automation contractor (MAC) because of the company's proven success in digitally automating coal gasification plants and multi-plant projects worldwide.
"We needed to minimize risk through consistent control and communication in the control room," Kenny said. "Emerson's experience with coal gasification in Canada and China made them a tremendous candidate for this strategic partnership.
"Our MAC relationship will help provide certainty and predictability during commercial pursuit and during the project phase," commented Steve Sonnenberg, president of Emerson Process Management.
