Bellevue firm puts stimulus money to work against climate change

A small local company has caught the attention of the country's top energy leaders for its technology that could help fight climate change.

Ramgen Power Systems in Bellevue will receive $20 million in federal stimulus money to continue developing a machine that would compress carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants and other sources so it could be pumped into the earth, reducing emissions of the greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.

Capturing carbon and pumping it into the earth aren't new concepts. But using these tools to fight global warming has prompted recent research and testing.

For decades, carbon dioxide has been injected through pipes deep beneath the surface to help push out the remaining oil in oil fields.

The challenge now is to capture and store carbon on the scale required to deal with the enormous volumes of emissions from power plants, said George Muntean, chief engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland.

"The technology is quite old, but what's changed now is our desire to use carbon capture for global-warming concerns," Muntean said. "What that means is, now the scale of the issue is huge."

Key to carbon capture and storage is being able to compress the carbon dioxide to have a liquid's density while still behaving like a gas. Compressing the gas to liquid form shrinks its volume and makes it more manageable to work with, experts says.

Technology already exists to compress carbon dioxide, but Ramgen's design seeks to manipulate the heavy gas using a smaller machine at a lower cost, said Doug Jewett, Ramgen's CEO.

The gas usually is compressed by sending it through a series of spinning compressor blades.

It emerges from each stage with a smaller volume, but its compression is limited, because if the compressor-blade tips go faster than the speed of sound, they generate shock waves.

Ramgen's technology actually creates shock waves to compress the gas much more quickly.

"It's a clever approach," Muntean said. "I think the concept has merit in reducing overall carbon capture and sequestration costs."

The federal money will help Ramgen finish its technology sooner so it can work with other companies dealing with the carbon capture and injection processes.

"There's a broad consensus in the middle saying we need an answer to whether it's safe and feasible and affordable," said Jewett, a former Seattle city attorney. "What the Obama administration has done is increased support for getting those answers as quickly as possible."

The U.S. Department of Energy expressed interest in Ramgen's compression technology in 2002, and the company later received a $12 million contract from the department to develop its machine, known as the Rampressor, for carbon capture and sequestration.

The stimulus money is an extension of that contract, Jewett said.

Dresser-Rand, an international air-compressor manufacturer, has agreed to provide an additional $25 million for the project to match the stimulus funding.

The company will work with Ramgen to develop a full-scale compressor within two to three years, Jewett said.

Ramgen tested a prototype of its compressor at Boeing Field two years ago.

The added funding will allow the company to build its industrial-size version more quickly, probably beginning next year in the Seattle area, Jewett said.

"The technology that Ramgen Power Systems is developing will help factories and power plants across the country reduce their emissions, and I am pleased this funding will be used to further their work," said U.S. Sen. Patty Murray.

Ramgen was founded in 1992 and employs 27 full-time workers.

Michelle Ma: 206-464-2303 or mma@seattletimes.com