B&W, Kiewit to develop major BECCS project in Louisiana

Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) has partnered with Kiewit Industrial to deliver Fidelis New Energy’s planned biomass plant and carbon capture project in Louisiana, US.

The net-negative carbon impact biomass plant will be built at the Port of Greater Baton Rouge. At 200 MW, it will be the largest plant of its kind in the world. The facility will use wood chips, wood waste, bagasse or ‘other opportunity fuels’.

The planned facility, called Project Cyclus, will provide power for Fidelis’s state-of-the-art, 73,000 barrel-per-day Gron Fuels facility, which will produce sustainable aviation fuel, renewable diesel, green hydrogen, and bio-plastic feedstock.

Fidelis will sequester the biogenic CO₂ in a carbon sink developed and secured by its subsidiary, Capio Sequestration, according to a previously announced operating agreement between Capio and the State of Louisiana.

B&W will provide engineering, design, equipment and technology services to support the development of the biomass-fuelled plant. The company’s B&W Renewable business segment will design and supply a 200 MW electric, biomass-fuelled bubbling fluidised bed boiler. Its B&W Environmental segment will provide its OxyBright™ oxy-combustion technology to isolate and capture CO₂ for long-term sequestration, as well as a full suite of environmental technologies to control other emissions, including nitrogen oxides and sulphur oxides, particulate and volatile organic compounds.

The plant will use these technologies to produce clean energy with a net-negative carbon impact of over 2 million tons per year.

“We are excited to partner with Fidelis to provide our advanced technologies to assist in the development of green fuels that have a negative net-carbon impact in the US,” said Kenny Young, B&W chairman and CEO.

“We are also in discussions with Fidelis on the creation of green hydrogen from biomass utilising our Brightloop™ chemical looping process, which will revolutionise hydrogen production globally. We look forward to continuing our joint efforts with Fidelis to create green fuels for use around the world.”

Fidelis’s CEO and co-founder, Dan Shapiro, commented: “To design, develop, and deliver our climate impact infrastructure systems at scale, Fidelis requires best-in-class strategic partners, and after significant work and diligence, we are excited to have selected and joined forces with B&W and Kiewit as our technology and execution partners.”

Bryon Best, senior vice-president and chief engineer at Fidelis, said BECCS is a “transformative approach” to greenhouse gas reduction through carbon negativity.