The synfuels plant will now form the heart of Bakken’s planned US hydrogen hub, which has a redevelopment budget of $2 billion.
US clean infrastructure firm Bakken Energy has bought the assets of the Dakota Gasification Company (Dakota Gas), including the Great Plains synfuels Plant in North Dakota, US, from Basin Electric.
Bakken and Mitsubishi Power Americas formed a strategic partnership in June 2021 to create the hub in North Dakota.
Bakken Energy CEO Mike Hopkins said: “The North Dakota Hydrogen Hub will create a foundation for economic growth and technical innovation extending throughout the upper Midwest.
“Driven by our commitment to achieve rapid and large-scale clean hydrogen production, Bakken Energy and our partner Mitsubishi Power have reimagined what is possible and identified the optimal path to leap from blueprint to clean hydrogen production in the shortest time possible. The North Dakota Hydrogen Hub will become a critically important, centrally located hydrogen complex and part of a nationwide, interconnected collection of hubs spanning the country.”
The synfuels plant will be converted to produce 310,000 tpa of blue hydrogen from locally sourced natural gas. It will use advanced autothermal reforming (ATR) hydrogen production technology. The plant will capture 95 percent of the carbon emissions, which will then be stored.
ATR was selected over the more common steam methane reformation (SMR) technology to maximise carbon capture rates and make best use of the existing infrastructure at the synfuels plant. To develop a similar-sized world-scale hydrogen plant would usually take around 10 years, but by repurposing the existing plant, Bakken expects to cut the development time in half.
Bakken said the North Dakota Hydrogen Hub, which will make the company the largest clean hydrogen producer in the US, wi be operational in late 2026. Under the agreement with Basin Electric, the plant will continue to make synfuels until 2025.
For more information visit www.bakken-er.com
