By TOM ZELLER JR.
In the endeavor to reduce greenhouse emissions, carbon capture and storage technology continues to generate a lot of interest.
F. Brian Ferguson
Carbon capture is still in its infancy, although it is unfolding in places like the AEP Mountaineer plant in New Haven, W.Va. The government is moving to jump-start research that would limit the energy costs of capture.The idea, of course, is to reduce the planet-warming capacity of heavy industries that burn fossil fuels (chiefly coal-fired power plants, at this stage) by collecting the carbon dioxide they would ordinarily spew out into the atmosphere and, well, storing it somewhere.
The storage part has all manner of potential downsides, which are a matter of lively debate.
But before society even gets that far, it needs to sort out the capture part. And among the first problems on that side of the equation is that methods currently being explored for capturing carbon dioxide use a lot of energy themselves.
So much, in fact, that adding them to existing, or even new power plants can quickly reduce efficiency and add to the cost of generating power. “These ‘penalties’ can add as much as 80 percent to the cost of electricity for a new pulverized coal plant, and about 35 percent to the cost of electricity for a new advanced gasification plant,” the Department of Energy said Wednesday in announcing a round of federal funding for 10 projects aimed at minimizing the carbon-capture toll.
The ultimate goal, according to the department’s Office of Fossil Energy, is to reduce the cost of electricity for a new pulverized coal plant to less than 30 percent, and cut the cost of electricity for a new advanced gasification plant to 10 percent.
The announcement said carbon capture and storage:
… is considered by a number of experts to be an important option – along with increased use of renewable and nuclear energy – in a portfolio strategy for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and helping mitigate possible climate change. Because coal-based power plants account for about one-third of total U.S. emissions of CO2, a major GHG resulting from fossil fuel combustion, future federal legislation and/or regulations to limit U.S. power generation emissions of CO2, are considered likely by many observers.
The Obama administration has made a goal of developing cost-effective deployment of CCS technologies within 10 years, with an objective of bringing 5 to 10 commercial demonstration projects online by 2016.
Although current technologies address the problem using separating membranes or chemical solvents at all stages of combustion — including before, during and after the fuel is burned — the money here is aimed at postcombustion projects. The government is providing about $52 million, with an additional $15 million in cost-sharing funds coming from non-federal sources.
Most of the projects are at the laboratory level, although three involve large-scale pilots.
Not everyone thinks the hunt for utility-scale carbon capture and storage technology is worth it, of course. Some opponents think that even if efforts are successful to bring something like “clean coal” to commercial scale — almost certainly decades down the line — it will have come too late to stave off the worst of global warming.
Others simply consider the technological and infrastructural hurdles to be insurmountable.
In any case, the administration clearly disagrees.
“Charting a path toward clean coal is essential to achieving our goals of providing clean energy, creating American jobs, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in the announcement. “It will also help position the United States as a leader in the global clean energy race.”
A full list of the projects receiving funding can be found at the Web site of the Office of Fossil Energy.
Thursday, 8 July 2010
New Biofuels Processing Method for Mobile Facilities
ScienceDaily (July 7, 2010) — Chemical engineers at Purdue University have developed a new method to process agricultural waste and other biomass into biofuels, and they are proposing the creation of mobile processing plants that would rove the Midwest to produce the fuels.
"What's important is that you can process all kinds of available biomass-- wood chips, switch grass, corn stover, rice husks, wheat straw …," said Rakesh Agrawal, the Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering.
The approach sidesteps a fundamental economic hurdle in biofuels: Transporting biomass is expensive because of its bulk volume, whereas liquid fuel from biomass is far more economical to transport, he said.
"Material like corn stover and wood chips has low energy density," Agrawal said. "It makes more sense to process biomass into liquid fuel with a mobile platform and then take this fuel to a central refinery for further processing before using it in internal combustion engines."
The new method, called fast-hydropyrolysis-hydrodeoxygenation, works by adding hydrogen into the biomass-processing reactor. The hydrogen for the mobile plants would be derived from natural gas or the biomass itself. However, Agrawal envisions the future use of solar power to produce the hydrogen by splitting water, making the new technology entirely renewable.
The method, which has the shortened moniker of H2Bioil -- pronounced H Two Bio Oil -- has been studied extensively through modeling, and experiments are under way at Purdue to validate the concept.
Findings are detailed in a research paper appearing online in June in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. The paper was written by former chemical engineering doctoral student Navneet R. Singh, Agrawal, chemical engineering professor Fabio H. Ribeiro and W. Nicholas Delgass, the Maxine Spencer Nichols Professor of Chemical Engineering.
Agrawal, Ribeiro and Delgass are developing reactors and catalysts to experimentally demonstrate the concept. Another paper by Agrawal and Singh addressing various biofuels processes, including fast-hydropyrolysis-hydrodeoxygenation, also appeared in June in the Annual Review of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
The Environmental Science & Technology paper outlines the process, showing how a portion of the biomass is used as a source of hydrogen to convert the remaining biomass to liquid fuel.
"Another major thrust of this research is to provide guidelines on the potential liquid-fuel yield from various self-contained processes and augmented processes, where part of the energy comes from non-biomass sources such as solar energy and fossil fuel such as natural gas," said Singh, who is now a researcher working at Bayer CropScience.
The new method would produce about twice as much biofuel as current technologies when hydrogen is derived from natural gas and 1.5 times the liquid fuel when hydrogen is derived from a portion of the biomass itself.
Biomass along with hydrogen will be fed into a high-pressure reactor and subjected to extremely fast heating, rising to as hot as 500 degrees Celsius, or more than 900 degrees Fahrenheit in less than a second. The hydrogen containing gas is to be produced by "reforming" natural gas, with the hot exhaust directly fed into the biomass reactor.
"The biomass will break down into smaller molecules in the presence of hot hydrogen and suitable catalysts," Agrawal said."The reaction products will then be subsequently condensed into liquid oil for eventual use as fuel. The uncondensed light gases such as methane, carbon monoxide, hydrogen and carbon dioxide, are separated and recycled back to the biomass reactor and the reformer."
Purdue has filed a patent application on the method.
The general concept of combining biomass and carbon-free hydrogen to increase the liquid fuel yield has been pioneered at Purdue. The researchers previously invented an approach called a "hybrid hydrogen-carbon process," or H2CAR.
Both H2CAR and H2Bioil use additional hydrogen to boost the liquid-fuel yield. However, H2Bioil is more economical and mobile than H2CAR, Singh said.
"It requires less hydrogen, making it more economical," he said. "It is also less capital intensive than conventional processes and can be built on a smaller scale, which is one of the prerequisites for the conversion of the low-energy density biomass to liquid fuel. So H2Bioil offers a solution for the interim time period, when crude oil prices might be higher but natural gas and biomass to supply hydrogen to the H2Bioil process might be economically competitive."
The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and is affiliated with the Energy Center at Purdue's Discovery Park.
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Purdue University. The original article was written by Emil Venere.
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Journal References:
1.Navneet R. Singh, W. Nicholas Delgass, Fabio H. Ribeiro, Rakesh Agrawal. Estimation of Liquid Fuel Yields from Biomass. Environmental Science & Technology, 2010; 44 (13): 5298 DOI: 10.1021/es100316z
2.Rakesh Agrawal, Navneet R. Singh. Solar Energy to Biofuels. Annual Review of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, 2010; 1 (1): 343 DOI: 10.1146/annurev-chembioeng-073009-100955
India’s Tata Planning a ‘Nano’ Wind Turbine to Boost Rural, Urban Power
by Mridul Chadha
Tata, one of the largest business groups in India is planning to launch innovative clean energy technologies in rural areas as it plans to grab the opportunity of India' rapidly expanding power sector.
The Tata Power Company, a subsidiary of the Tata group, plans to test a 2 kW wind turbine which would generate enough electricity to meet the basic demands of a small rural home. With several thousand villages still not connected with the national grid this micro turbine could prove highly beneficial.
The 2 kW turbine which can be mounted on rooftops would be enough to power multiple ceiling fans (rated 60 W) and bulbs/lights (rated 40 W). Even more appliances if battery systems are coupled with the wind turbines.
The Tata's have been investing heavily in clean energy technologies and distributed power generation. Another of its subsidiaries, Tata BP Solar has setup pilot projects to test and demonstrate power evacuation technology to main grid from rooftop solar panels.
Need for (Clean) Distributed Power Generation
India needs tremendous amounts of energy resources not only for rural electrification but also to meet the rising demands in the big cities. Coal reserves are in short supply, with limited domestic gas reserves India is heavily dependent on imports which are mostly entangled with strategic tug-of-wars be it the case of losing oil & gas blocks to China or ditching plans for energy partnership with Iran under pressure from the US. Nuclear energy expansion, too, has many roadblocks – concerns about safety, waste disposal & civil liability and fuel shortages.
Although dwindling, indigenous coal reserves are still the backbone of India's power generation sector with more than 70 percent of power generated by coal-fired power plants. The Indian government has been opposing mandatory emission reduction targets arguing that it needs to provide cheap, coal-fired power to its millions of villages.
Now India already has a voluntary goal to reduce its carbon intensity by 20 to 25 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels and it will have to agree to mandatory and absolute emission reduction. Therefore, it is India's own interests that it seriously considers renewable energy technologies which can take up a substantial burden of the power generated in the country in the medium to long term.
Advantages of Distributed Power Generation
Distributed power generation has several other advantages in the case of India. Being a large country it is difficult to expand transmission lines to the remote places. Distributed power generation makes redundant the various parameters that an independent power system needs to match with the central grid for efficient power evacuation. An article by Grist's David Roberts sheds light on the advantages of distributed power generation.
The effectiveness of intelligent grids will be enhanced by new ways of storing electricity at the building and neighborhood levels. It is energy storage coupled with the smart grid, Alford says, "that enables grid security, grid stability and power quality."
Shifting of power generation of centre from traditional power plants to homes and communities would ensure reduction in losses due to power theft and would also improve the stability of the grid. India lost a staggering 88,327 MW due to power theft in 2007-08.
Power generation through localized clean energy technologies would not only reduce India's carbon emission output but could also reduce power wastage as people would possibly value this resource more when them produce it 'themselves', at their homes.
One benefit of energy localism that is difficult to quantify but nonetheless significant is that it engages a city's residents in a more active civic role: People sort their trash, they manage their power consumption, they get involved.
Local involvement at the most fundamental level of the society could initiate and fuel a sustainable revolution in the power generation sector.
Lastly, the entry of one of the largest companies in the country in a dormant sector boosts confidence in the investors and opens countless avenues of employment generation for millions. Investment thrusts from the private sector, supported by government-backed incentives and international cooperation could eventually transform India's power sector into a profit-making sector that would fuel competition, accelerate clean energy revolution and bring the best quality services to the customers.
Reprinted with permission from Earth & Industry
Tata, one of the largest business groups in India is planning to launch innovative clean energy technologies in rural areas as it plans to grab the opportunity of India' rapidly expanding power sector.
The Tata Power Company, a subsidiary of the Tata group, plans to test a 2 kW wind turbine which would generate enough electricity to meet the basic demands of a small rural home. With several thousand villages still not connected with the national grid this micro turbine could prove highly beneficial.
The 2 kW turbine which can be mounted on rooftops would be enough to power multiple ceiling fans (rated 60 W) and bulbs/lights (rated 40 W). Even more appliances if battery systems are coupled with the wind turbines.
The Tata's have been investing heavily in clean energy technologies and distributed power generation. Another of its subsidiaries, Tata BP Solar has setup pilot projects to test and demonstrate power evacuation technology to main grid from rooftop solar panels.
Need for (Clean) Distributed Power Generation
India needs tremendous amounts of energy resources not only for rural electrification but also to meet the rising demands in the big cities. Coal reserves are in short supply, with limited domestic gas reserves India is heavily dependent on imports which are mostly entangled with strategic tug-of-wars be it the case of losing oil & gas blocks to China or ditching plans for energy partnership with Iran under pressure from the US. Nuclear energy expansion, too, has many roadblocks – concerns about safety, waste disposal & civil liability and fuel shortages.
Although dwindling, indigenous coal reserves are still the backbone of India's power generation sector with more than 70 percent of power generated by coal-fired power plants. The Indian government has been opposing mandatory emission reduction targets arguing that it needs to provide cheap, coal-fired power to its millions of villages.
Now India already has a voluntary goal to reduce its carbon intensity by 20 to 25 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels and it will have to agree to mandatory and absolute emission reduction. Therefore, it is India's own interests that it seriously considers renewable energy technologies which can take up a substantial burden of the power generated in the country in the medium to long term.
Advantages of Distributed Power Generation
Distributed power generation has several other advantages in the case of India. Being a large country it is difficult to expand transmission lines to the remote places. Distributed power generation makes redundant the various parameters that an independent power system needs to match with the central grid for efficient power evacuation. An article by Grist's David Roberts sheds light on the advantages of distributed power generation.
The effectiveness of intelligent grids will be enhanced by new ways of storing electricity at the building and neighborhood levels. It is energy storage coupled with the smart grid, Alford says, "that enables grid security, grid stability and power quality."
Shifting of power generation of centre from traditional power plants to homes and communities would ensure reduction in losses due to power theft and would also improve the stability of the grid. India lost a staggering 88,327 MW due to power theft in 2007-08.
Power generation through localized clean energy technologies would not only reduce India's carbon emission output but could also reduce power wastage as people would possibly value this resource more when them produce it 'themselves', at their homes.
One benefit of energy localism that is difficult to quantify but nonetheless significant is that it engages a city's residents in a more active civic role: People sort their trash, they manage their power consumption, they get involved.
Local involvement at the most fundamental level of the society could initiate and fuel a sustainable revolution in the power generation sector.
Lastly, the entry of one of the largest companies in the country in a dormant sector boosts confidence in the investors and opens countless avenues of employment generation for millions. Investment thrusts from the private sector, supported by government-backed incentives and international cooperation could eventually transform India's power sector into a profit-making sector that would fuel competition, accelerate clean energy revolution and bring the best quality services to the customers.
Reprinted with permission from Earth & Industry
How has 'Climategate' affected the battle against climate change?
The Muir Russell report has cleared the scientists of any dishonesty over data, but how did the scandal affect Copenhagen?
David Adam, environment correspondent The Guardian, Thursday 8 July 2010
The East Anglia emails were released just weeks before world leaders gathered in Copenhagen in December to continue talks on a new treaty to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Many saw this as a deliberate attempt to undermine the summit, which produced a disappointing outcome.
Today, the third and final review of the emails affair cleared the scientists involved of any dishonesty over data. But while the Muir Russell report may have exonerated the "rigour and honesty" of the scientists and the science, did the fuss over the emails contribute to the failure at Copenhagen to agree a meaningful deal? Was there a swing in public opinion that saw politicians retreat from the previously bullish positions on climate?
Ben Stewart, head of media at Greenpeace, says the emails controversy had a significant impact. "It's pretty hard to say what the impact has been but it would be hopelessly naive to say it has not had an effect. To peak and decline our emissions was always going to need us to push a large rock up a steep hill, but the rock got heavier and the hill got steeper because of the reporting of the emails."
Stewart says it is the media, not the CRU scientists, who are to blame for any extra confusion among the public. "The public haven't read a thousand emails from scientists they have never heard of. The emails didn't change the way that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere, but the media created a situation that presented a false symmetry between the various sides of the debate."
Michael Jacobs, former special adviser on climate to Gordon Brown, and a figure central to the way the climate debate has unfolded in the UK, says: "I don't think it [the release of the emails] had an impact on Copenhagen. It affected the mood but not the outcome. The emails gave a huge boost to the sceptics but we didn't see a weakening of commitments on climate at a state level anywhere. Any government that wanted to stall action could have played up the importance of the emails and called for more enquiries, but that didn't happen, so I think they had less of an impact than some people were claiming."
Saudi Arabia, long-standing opponents of a global agreements to curb emissions, tried to use the emails controversy to bolster their position in Copenhagen. China cited them once, but made little headway.
Jacobs, now a research fellow at the London School of Economics, adds: "Since Copenhagen it's very difficult to tell. There's no question that climate agnosticism has increased, but I think that has more to do with a backlash to all the hype around Copenhagen. We were worried about the impact [of the emails] on public opinion but government action on climate change is not driven by public attitudes, but that it is the right thing to do. Public consent is important but not essential so long as there is not downright opposition. Governments introduce plenty of things that are less popular than action on climate."
Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said: "It hasn't in any direct way affected the political process. Governments have scientific advisers who know this is just a storm in a teacup."
There could be an indirect effect, he said, from a confused public who feel there is less need to pressure politicians to cut emissions. "But I haven't seen any evidence there has been any big change in public opinion."
David Adam, environment correspondent The Guardian, Thursday 8 July 2010
The East Anglia emails were released just weeks before world leaders gathered in Copenhagen in December to continue talks on a new treaty to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Many saw this as a deliberate attempt to undermine the summit, which produced a disappointing outcome.
Today, the third and final review of the emails affair cleared the scientists involved of any dishonesty over data. But while the Muir Russell report may have exonerated the "rigour and honesty" of the scientists and the science, did the fuss over the emails contribute to the failure at Copenhagen to agree a meaningful deal? Was there a swing in public opinion that saw politicians retreat from the previously bullish positions on climate?
Ben Stewart, head of media at Greenpeace, says the emails controversy had a significant impact. "It's pretty hard to say what the impact has been but it would be hopelessly naive to say it has not had an effect. To peak and decline our emissions was always going to need us to push a large rock up a steep hill, but the rock got heavier and the hill got steeper because of the reporting of the emails."
Stewart says it is the media, not the CRU scientists, who are to blame for any extra confusion among the public. "The public haven't read a thousand emails from scientists they have never heard of. The emails didn't change the way that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere, but the media created a situation that presented a false symmetry between the various sides of the debate."
Michael Jacobs, former special adviser on climate to Gordon Brown, and a figure central to the way the climate debate has unfolded in the UK, says: "I don't think it [the release of the emails] had an impact on Copenhagen. It affected the mood but not the outcome. The emails gave a huge boost to the sceptics but we didn't see a weakening of commitments on climate at a state level anywhere. Any government that wanted to stall action could have played up the importance of the emails and called for more enquiries, but that didn't happen, so I think they had less of an impact than some people were claiming."
Saudi Arabia, long-standing opponents of a global agreements to curb emissions, tried to use the emails controversy to bolster their position in Copenhagen. China cited them once, but made little headway.
Jacobs, now a research fellow at the London School of Economics, adds: "Since Copenhagen it's very difficult to tell. There's no question that climate agnosticism has increased, but I think that has more to do with a backlash to all the hype around Copenhagen. We were worried about the impact [of the emails] on public opinion but government action on climate change is not driven by public attitudes, but that it is the right thing to do. Public consent is important but not essential so long as there is not downright opposition. Governments introduce plenty of things that are less popular than action on climate."
Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said: "It hasn't in any direct way affected the political process. Governments have scientific advisers who know this is just a storm in a teacup."
There could be an indirect effect, he said, from a confused public who feel there is less need to pressure politicians to cut emissions. "But I haven't seen any evidence there has been any big change in public opinion."
Solar-powered plane takes off on test flight
Pilot André Borschberg leaves Swiss airfield in attempt to fly day and night without fuel
Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 July 2010 13.58 BST
An experimental solar-powered plane whose makers hope to one day circle the globe using only energy collected from the sun took off for its first 24-hour test flight today.
The plane, with its 80-metre (263ft) wingspan, left Payerne, in Switzerland, shortly before 7am after overcoming an equipment problem that delayed a previous attempt, the Solar Impulse team said.
Clear blue skies mean the prototype aircraft will be able to soak up plenty of solar energy as it flies over the Jura mountains to the west of the Swiss Alps.
By mid-morning the pilot, André Borschberg, was cruising at 3,000 metres, trying to avoid low-level turbulence and thermal winds, which are frequent in the mountains.
He will take the plane to an altitude of 8,500 metres by this evening, when a decision will be made on whether to continue through the night using solar power stored in its batteries.
"The goal of the project is to have a solar-powered plane flying day and night without fuel," said the team co-founder Bertrand Piccard. He added that this test flight – the third major step after a first "flea hop" and an extended flight earlier this year – would demonstrate whether the ultimate plan was feasible: to fly the plane around the world.
"This flight is crucial for the credibility of the project," said Piccard, a record-breaking balloonist whose father and grandfather accomplished pioneering feats in the air and under water.
The team had hoped to make the 24-hour test flight last week, when days in the northern hemisphere were even longer, allowing the plane's 12,000 solar cells to collect more energy before attempting to coast through the night.
But a problem with a key piece of communications equipment forced them to keep the plane on the ground while modifications were made. Every aspect of the aircraft is monitored by engineers, and much of the resulting data fed on to the team's website and Twitter page.
Borscherg, the plane's sole pilot, will decide by 8pm whether to continue through the night. If he goes ahead, the plane will slowly descend to 1,500 metres before midnight, and Borschberg will stay at that altitude until attempting a landing at dawn.
Piccard, who achieved the first nonstop circumnavigation of the globe in a balloon, the Breitling Orbiter III, in 1999, said that if he was successful the next step would be an Atlantic crossing. That flight would be done in a second, lighter prototype, and would involve new challenges and dangers.
Although the goal is to show that emissions-free air travel is possible, the team has said it does not see solar technology replacing conventional jet propulsion in the near future. Instead, the project is designed to test and promote new energy-efficient technologies.
Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 July 2010 13.58 BST
An experimental solar-powered plane whose makers hope to one day circle the globe using only energy collected from the sun took off for its first 24-hour test flight today.
The plane, with its 80-metre (263ft) wingspan, left Payerne, in Switzerland, shortly before 7am after overcoming an equipment problem that delayed a previous attempt, the Solar Impulse team said.
Clear blue skies mean the prototype aircraft will be able to soak up plenty of solar energy as it flies over the Jura mountains to the west of the Swiss Alps.
By mid-morning the pilot, André Borschberg, was cruising at 3,000 metres, trying to avoid low-level turbulence and thermal winds, which are frequent in the mountains.
He will take the plane to an altitude of 8,500 metres by this evening, when a decision will be made on whether to continue through the night using solar power stored in its batteries.
"The goal of the project is to have a solar-powered plane flying day and night without fuel," said the team co-founder Bertrand Piccard. He added that this test flight – the third major step after a first "flea hop" and an extended flight earlier this year – would demonstrate whether the ultimate plan was feasible: to fly the plane around the world.
"This flight is crucial for the credibility of the project," said Piccard, a record-breaking balloonist whose father and grandfather accomplished pioneering feats in the air and under water.
The team had hoped to make the 24-hour test flight last week, when days in the northern hemisphere were even longer, allowing the plane's 12,000 solar cells to collect more energy before attempting to coast through the night.
But a problem with a key piece of communications equipment forced them to keep the plane on the ground while modifications were made. Every aspect of the aircraft is monitored by engineers, and much of the resulting data fed on to the team's website and Twitter page.
Borscherg, the plane's sole pilot, will decide by 8pm whether to continue through the night. If he goes ahead, the plane will slowly descend to 1,500 metres before midnight, and Borschberg will stay at that altitude until attempting a landing at dawn.
Piccard, who achieved the first nonstop circumnavigation of the globe in a balloon, the Breitling Orbiter III, in 1999, said that if he was successful the next step would be an Atlantic crossing. That flight would be done in a second, lighter prototype, and would involve new challenges and dangers.
Although the goal is to show that emissions-free air travel is possible, the team has said it does not see solar technology replacing conventional jet propulsion in the near future. Instead, the project is designed to test and promote new energy-efficient technologies.