Alberta's CCEMC Releases Annual Report

EDMONTON – The Alberta-based Climate Change and Emissions Management (CCEMC) Corporation released its 2012/2013 annual report that features 12 new renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. In total, the CCEMC now supports 51 clean tech projects with $212.8 million in committed funding. More

Illinois CCS Update

In an update on its carbon capture project at an ethanol plant near Decatur, Illinois, Archer Daniels Midland Co. says it has captured 685,000 metric tons of carbon emissions and stored them underground storage in the past two years. Carbon dioxide injections began in November 2011 at a rate of about 1,000 tons a month and are expected to continue through next year when the project is expected to reach the permitted level of 1 million tones. 

The project at the Decatur plant is among the largest CCS experiments in the country. The purpose is to test the storage potential of the Mount Simon Sandstone and the integrity of the overlying sealant rocks. Decatur was initially selected in October 2009 for the DOE Phase 1 research and development grants. Following successful completion of the Phase 1 activities, it was identified as one of the most promising industrial CCS projects through a competitive process and entered into Phase 2 with additional funding to begin design, construction, and operation.

Drilling began in February 2009 and a successful injection with a rate of 1000 tons per day was achieved in September 2009. 3D seismic surveys of the injection zone were completed in March 2010 in preparation for Phase 2.

Construction activities began at Decatur on August 26, 2011 with injection commencing in November 2011. As of April 2012, the project has successfully stored over 110,000 tons of CO2. In September 2012, the DOE marked 2 major milestones for the Decatur CCS project: The construction on the project’s storage facility, as well as the public opening of the National Sequestration Education Center. In November 2012 Decatur project completed its first year of CO2 injection operations with a total of 317,000 tons having been buried at a rate of 1,100 tons/day.

The target formation, the Mount Simon Sandstone, was selected as the optimum saline sink because of its widespread nature and immediately overlying Eau Claire shale seal. The Mount Simon Sandstone also underlies one of the largest concentrations of coal fired power plants in the world. This makes the Mount Simon Sandstone one of the most significant carbon storage resources in the United States.

Archer Daniels Midland (June 2010) was selected to receive an additional $99 million in federal aid to help fund a second carbon sequestration project for which the company is awaiting regulatory approval. The goal is to store 1 million tons of CO2 per year for five years. The company hopes to begin the second project in early 2015.

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Using CO2 to Produce Geothermal Energy

SAN FRANCISCO - Researchers are developing a new kind of geothermal power plant that will lock away unwanted carbon dioxide (CO2) underground and use it as a tool to boost electric power generation by at least 10 times compared to conventional geothermal power.

The technology for this design already exists in different industries, and the researchers, led by Tom Buscheck, earth scientist from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, are hopeful that their new approach to the technology will expand the use of geothermal energy in the U.S. far beyond the small handful of states that can take advantage of it now. Heat Mining Company, LLC, a startup spun off from the University of Minnesota, expects to have an operational project based on an earlier form of this new approach in 2016.

At the American Geophysical Union meeting on Friday, Dec. 13, Buscheck and his colleagues fromThe Ohio State University, the University of Minnesota and Lawrence Livermore, will debut an expanded version of the design and explain the role that this new approach to geothermal energy production and grid-scale energy storage can have in addressing climate change.

The new power plant design resembles a cross between a geothermal plant and the Large Hadron Collider: it features a network of subsurface concentric rings of horizontal wells inside which CO2, nitrogen and water circulate to draw heat from deep below ground up to the surface, where it can be used to turn turbines and generate electricity.

"This well arrangement encircles the injected fluids with a subsurface hydraulic dam, functioning much like a hydroelectric dam. The intent is to recover the maximum energy benefit from fluid injection operations, a major improvement over conventional geothermal power systems," Buscheck noted.

The design contrasts with conventional geothermal plants in a number of important ways, explained study co-principal investigator Jeffrey Bielicki, assistant professor of energy policy in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering at The Ohio State University.

"Typical geothermal power plants tap into hot water that is deep underground,pull the heat off the hot water, use that heat to generate electricity and then return the cooler water back to the deep subsurface. Here the water is partly replaced with CO2 and/or another fluid," he said.

"Tt that there are benefits to using CO2, because it mines heat from the subsurface more efficiently than water," he continued."This combined approach (originally developed by Martin Saar at the University of Minnesota) can be at least twice as efficient as conventional geothermal approaches, and expand the reach of geothermal energy in the United States to include most states west of the Mississippi River."

The research team used computer simulations to design the system. In the simulations, a system of four concentric rings of horizontal wells about three miles below ground, with the outer ring being a little more than 10 miles in diameter, produced as much as a half a gigawatt of electrical power - an amount comparable to a medium-sized coal-fired power plant, and more than 10 times bigger than the 38 megawatts produced by the average geothermal plant in the U.S.

The simulations also revealed that a plant of this design might sequester as much as 15 million tons of CO2 per year, which is roughly equivalent to the amount produced by three medium-sized coal-fired power plants in that time.

"One of our key objectives when we began developing the CO2 plume geothermal technology was to find a way to help make CO2 storage cost effective while expanding the use of geothermal energy," said Jimmy Randolph, postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Minnesota.

During the past year,  Buscheck added another gas - nitrogen - to the mix, resulting in a design that he and his colleagues believe will enable highly efficient energy storage at an unprecedented magnitude (at least hundreds of gigawatt hours) and unprecedented duration (days to months), provide operational flexibility, and lower the cost of renewable power generation.

"Nitrogen has several advantages," Buscheck explained. "It can be separated from air at lower cost than captured CO2, it's plentiful, it's not corrosive and will not react with the geologic formation in which it is being injected. And because nitrogen is readily available, it can be injected selectively. Thus, much of the energy required to drive the hot fluids out of the deep subsurface to surface power plants can be shifted in time to coincide with minimum power demand or when there is a surplus of renewable power on the electricity grid.

The distribution of stored nitrogen in the underground geothermal reservoir system is shown after 10 years of energy storage and production operations.

"Because we are storing energy in the form of pressurized fluids, we can further improve on this concept by selectively producing hot fluids when power demand is high, as well as reduce or stop that production when power demand is low. What makes this concept transformational is that we can deliver renewable energy to customers when it is needed, rather than when the wind happens to be blowing, or when spring thaw causes the greatest runoff."

The technology could possibly be used to expand the use of geothermal energy around the country. Right now, most geothermal power plants are in California and Nevada, where an especially strong geothermal gradient heats water underground. But the new design is so much more efficient at extracting heat that even smaller-scale "hotspots" throughout the western U.S. could generate power. (The eastern U.S. is mostly devoid of even small hotspots, so geothermal power would still be limited to a few particularly active areas such as West Virginia, Bielicki said.)

Another caveat: the geothermal plant would probably have to be connected to a large CO2 source, such as a coal-fired power plant, which was scrubbing the CO2 from its own emissions. That connection would likely be made by pipeline. Buscheck added, however, that a pilot plant based on this design could initially be powered solely by nitrogen injection, in order to prove the economic viability of using CO2. The study also showed that this design can work effectively with or without CO2, broadening where this approach could be deployed. The research team is currently working on more detailed computer model simulations and economic analyses for specific geologic settings in the U.S.

Co-authors on the presentation included Mingjie Chen, Yue Hao, Yunwei Sun, all of Lawrence Livermore. Work at the University of Minnesota and The Ohio State University is funded by the National Science Foundation, while work at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. 

Source: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

EPA Issues Final Rule for CO2 Storage

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a final rule governing the geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide. Under the new rule, captured CO2 injected into wells that meet the conditions established for that purpose will not be subject to EPA's regulations for hazardous waste. In addition, the EPA will exempt CO2 injected for enhanced oil recovery from hazardous waste regulations. The rule will take effect 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register. Members of the public and interested parties have 75 days to comment on the guidance. More

Update - C02 Emissions by Large Corporations

According to a Reuters report published this week, the majority of large global corporations that regularly report their annual greenhouse gas emissions are still releasing unsustainable levels of carbon dioxide and are not setting their emissions targets and reduction policies on science-based thresholds. The report was based on a study by the U.S.-based Climate Counts, an organization that measures the role corporations play on climate. The research used data from 100 companies in ten different sectors. More

Ocean Floor CO2 Storage Sites Identified

A British research team at the University of Southampton team reportedly has investigated the properties of CO2 and created global maps of the ocean floor to determine where the greenhouse gas could be safely stored.  By estimating temperatures in the upper ocean crust, the team was able to identify where it may be possible to store large volumes of CO2 in the basalts in the stable liquid form. Among the five suitable regions are sites off the coast of Australia, Japan, Siberia, South Africa and Bermuda, ranging in size from ½ million square kilometres to almost four million square kilometres. More

SaskPower CO2 Capture Project Update

Hitachi today announced that construction has begun on a Carbon Capture Test Facility ("CCTF") designed to capture CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants. Hitachi and its partner, Saskatchewan Power Corporation ("SaskPower"), agreed to build this demonstration project in March of 2012. The construction work is expected to be completed during the fall of 2014, and the CCTF will be operational by the end of that year. The goal of the demonstration project is to determine the necessary properties required to scale up to a large, commercial-size facility, and demonstration tests will be conducted to comprehensively evaluate the facility's overall reliability and economic feasibility.
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World Energy Ministers Endorse CCS

Washington, D.C. — Energy and environment ministers from the Carbon Sequestration  Leadership Forum’s (CSLF) member nations today endorsed carbon capture and storage  technologies (CCS) as a key component of international plans to combat climate change. Their endorsement at a high-level meeting here is viewed as affirmation that carbon capture and storage must be an integral component of any international plan to combat climate change.

In a Communiqué released following day-long discussions, CSLF member country Ministers and  Heads of Delegation affirmed that CCS is an indispensable element of any effective response to  climate change. The Ministers stressed “we are convinced that the demonstration and global deployment of carbon capture and storage must be accelerated and we are committed to taking necessary actions individually and collaboratively to make this happen.”

CCS is a group of technologies for capturing carbon dioxide (CO2), a major greenhouse gas, emitted by power plants or industrial facilities and safely injecting it deep underground into suitable, permanent geologic storage sites. It is increasingly viewed by international experts as an essential part of a portfolio of responses by the world to effective management and reduction of human-based CO2 emissions.

Forum membership spans the world's largest blocs of economic activity, including the North  America Free Trade Area, the European Union and the leading economies of Asia. Members are Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Commission, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.

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SaskPower Releases Aquistore Update

Following recent media coverage, SaskPower has today confirmed to PTRC that it remains fully committed to the Aquistore project, and the research and monitoring program managed by PTRC.

The installation of wells and other infrastructure at the Aquistore site cost approximately 15% more than predicted, owing to technical factors including the unexpected depth of the wells and complications with the cementing of the second well. The safety of the wells remained an absolute priority during site works. Consequently, the project has a current net deficit of $3m, as reported by PTRC. The Aquistore project recorded a deficit of $5.9m during the 2012/3 financial year, but this figure does not allow for committed funding that is due for future payment.

With the transfer of site infrastructure to SaskPower ahead of injection operations, and with future funding opportunities, PTRC has complete confidence that the research and monitoring program will be completed in 2017 as planned.

The Aquistore project offers PTRC another outstanding research opportunity, building on the success of the IEAGHG Weyburn-Midale project, and we are proud to support SaskPower’s ground breaking CCS project at Boundary Dam.

Source: Aquistore

Texas CCUS Project Officially Up and Running

WASHINGTON — The Energy Department’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Christopher Smith attended last week's dedication ceremony at the Air Products and Chemicals hydrogen production facilities in Port Arthur, Texas. Supported by a $284 million Energy Department investment, the company has successfully begun capturing carbon dioxide from industrial operations and is now using that carbon for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and securely storing it underground. This first-of-a-kind, breakthrough project advances carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies and demonstrates the potential to safely secure carbon dioxide pollution underground while providing an economic benefit and increasing our energy security.

At full-scale operation, more than 90 percent of the carbon dioxide from the product stream of two methane steam reformers — or approximately one million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year — will be delivered for sequestration and EOR, which will lead to an estimated annual increase in oil production of 1.6 to 3.1 million barrels from the West Hastings oil field located about 20 miles south of Houston, Texas.

“The Energy Department is investing in cutting-edge technologies that will help us safely and more sustainably develop all of America’s rich energy resources,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Christopher Smith. “This groundbreaking project demonstrates the potential to produce economic benefits and increase our energy security while greatly reducing the environmental impacts of our fossil energy use.”

The two retrofitted Air Products and Chemicals plants produce commercial bulk hydrogen primarily for use at the nearby Valero refinery. The approximately $431 million project, supported by $284 million from the Energy Department, included retrofitting the plants with an innovative system that separates carbon dioxide from the steam reformer product gas during hydrogen production, followed by compression and drying processes. The Energy Department investment also helped construct a 13.1-mile-long feeder that connects the two plants to an existing 325-mile, 24-inch carbon dioxide pipeline, Denbury’s Green Pipeline, that begins in Louisiana and ends at the West Hastings field. Careful carbon dioxide monitoring, verification, and accounting activities to ensure the injected carbon dioxide remains in the underground geologic formation will take place throughout the lifetime of the project.

The first plant has been capturing carbon dioxide since December 2012, while the second plant completed construction in February and began carbon capture operations in March.  Both units are now operating at full capacity.  Over 222,000 tons of carbon dioxide have been captured and provided for storage as of early May.

The Port Arthur project is part of the Energy Department’s broader efforts to leverage cutting-edge research to show that not only can Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology help industry make fossil energy use cleaner, safer and more sustainable, it also shows promise as a method to extract more, hard-to-access and presently untapped fossil energy resources. By putting the captured carbon dioxide to use, Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) provides an additional business and market case for companies to pursue the environmental benefits of CCS.

To learn more about CCUS, watch the short video HERE

Source: NETL

CO2 Emissions from U.S. Energy Sources Decline

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration

 

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review
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Energy-related carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in 2012 were the lowest in the United States since 1994, at 5.3 billion metric tons of CO₂ (see figure above). With the exception of 2010, emissions have declined every year since 2007.

The largest drop in emissions in 2012 came from coal, which is used almost exclusively for electricity generation (see figure below). During 2012, particularly in the spring and early summer, low natural gas prices led to competition between natural gas- and coal-fired electric power generators. Lower natural gas prices resulted in reduced levels of coal generation, and increased natural gas generation—a less carbon-intensive fuel for power generation, which shifted power generation from the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel (coal) to the least carbon-intensive fossil fuel (natural gas).

Other factors contributing to the lower emissions include decreased demand for transportation fuels and mild winter temperatures that reduced demand for heating. The warm winter months during 2012 (particularly in the first quarter) more than offset a slight increase in cooling degree days during the summer months. EIA recently published preliminary data for January-December 2012 in the March 2013 edition of the Monthly Energy Review, which includes statistics covering all aspects of energy. EIA will publish a full analysis of 2012 energy-related CO₂ emissions later this year.

 

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review
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NETL Releases Data on Methane Hydrate Test

Washington, D.C. —Data from an innovative test conducted last year that used carbon dioxide (CO₂) and nitrogen (N₂) injection to release natural gas from methane hydrates at a well on the Alaska North Slope is now available to researchers and the public on the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) website.

Methane hydrate - essentially molecules of natural gas trapped in ice crystals - represents a potentially enormous energy resource, possibly exceeding the combined energy content of all other fossil fuels. Hydrate resources in arctic sandstone reservoirs contain an in-place gas volume estimated to be in the 100’s of trillions of cubic feet (TCF), while hydrate in marine sands is estimated to contain 1,000’s to 10,000’s of TCF, and hydrate dispersed through marine mud is estimated to contain 100,000’s of TCF. In addition to the immense resource, CO₂ injection into methane hydrate deposits is a technology that can potentially both release an energy resource while permanently storing carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), in partnership with other nations and industry, has played a leading role in developing technologies to evaluate how to safely recover these methane hydrate energy resources in order to provide new supplies of clean-burning natural gas.  These resources occur in a variety of forms in sediments within and below thick permafrost in Arctic regions, and in the subsurface of continental waters with a depth of 1,500 feet or greater.  The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has estimated a potentially recoverable resource of 85 trillion cubic feet of gas in favorable hydrate accumulations on the Alaska North Slope alone. 

NETL, the research laboratory of DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy (FE), participated in gas hydrate field production trials in early 2012 in partnership with ConocoPhillips and the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp. (JOGMEC). This test well (known as Iġnik Sikumi, Inupiat for “Fire in the Ice”) represented the first test of a CO₂ exchange technology that was developed by ConocoPhillips and the University of Bergen, Norway.  In the test, a small volume of CO₂ and nitrogen was injected into the well and then the well was produced back to demonstrate that this mixture of injected gases could promote production of natural gas.

The large volumes of raw data from the test are currently under evaluation.  The data now available from the test program include the rates and composition of gases both injected and produced, and information on changes in the reservoir pressure and temperature during the test. ConocoPhillips has further augmented the raw data through extensive quality control checks and integration of the various measurements to a standard time framework.  The data are now fully available to all researchers and the public for analysis and evaluation. 

Both the U.S. and Japan have committed to utilizing Arctic gas hydrate research opportunities as an important step in assessing the potential for gas hydrate production in deepwater marine settings, the location of the vast majority of global resources.  DOE and JOGMEC have also collaborated on the development of specialized core sampling devices through the Gulf of Mexico Gas Hydrates Joint Industry Project (an industry consortium managed by Chevron) conducting research on deepwater gas hydrate characterization technology.

In addition to the U.S./Japan collaboration, FE scientists have worked actively with researchers in Korea, India, China, Canada and other nations, as well as with USGS, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), and other federal agencies, to advance methane hydrate technology.  The Methane Hydrate Research and Development Act of 2000 established DOE (through the efforts of FE and NETL) as the lead U.S. agency for methane hydrate research and development.

Source: NETL

Granada Scientists Announce New Carbon Gel

Scientists at the University of Granada (UGR) claim they have invented a carbon gel that enables CO2 to be turned into hydrocarbons by electro-catalytic transformation. The doped carbon gel made up of 90% carbon and a small quantity of heavy metals acts as a highly-dispersed and effective electro-catalyst, which means it enables CO2 to be turned into hydrocarbons at a low cost, according to a university press release. The new material was developed entirely at the UGR following more than 10 years of research into carbon gels and has recently been patented by the Institution’s Office for the Transfer of Research Results. Read more

CPI to Host Webinar on Emissions Tracking

National governments use a wide range of institutions and processes to measure, report, and verify (MRV) emissions and mitigation outcomes. These tracking systems are a critical component of policy effectiveness — they help countries meet their domestic policy objectives by tracking achievement of domestic policy targets and informing future policy decisions. Effective domestic MRV processes can also build trust among nations, provide confidence in the effectiveness of international agreements, and inform the design of such agreements.

The Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) has engaged in an effort to characterize, evaluate, and draw insights from domestic MRV systems in four of the major emitters — China, Germany, Italy, and the United States. In a webinar planned for March 12, CPI will highlight the institutional processes these countries use to track emissions and mitigation actions, assess how well they’re currently performing, and point out where systems need to be strengthened in order to meet emerging needs.

NETL Updates Membrane CO2 Capture Research

Membranes offer a potential low-maintenance and economical method for gas separations from power plant flue gas streams. Polymer membranes and supported liquid membranes show great promise to solve problems in the area of clean energy production. Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is a principal by-product of energy production from fossil fuels. Capturing CO₂ from power plant flue gas streams is critical to the goal of reducing the nation’s carbon footprint and preserving the environment. Currently, there is no technology that can meet the goals for carbon capture as set forth by the U.S. Department of Energy. These goals are 90% capture of the CO₂with a less than 35% increase in the cost of energy.

The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) is pursuing the development of both polymeric and supported ionic liquid membranes for CO₂ capture. Development of adequate membrane technology requires equipment capable of rapidly measuring membrane performance. Typical membrane testing equipment operates under either constant pressure or constant volume conditions. Constant pressure instruments pass feed gas over one side of the membrane and a sweep gas over the other side of the membrane.

The feed gas is comprised of the gases which are to be separated while the sweep gas is inert and serves the purpose of carrying away the gas that passes through the membrane (i.e. , the separated gas). By carrying away the separated gas, the sweep gas allows for increased efficiency of the separation. Constant volume instruments are set up with a membrane separating a pressurized vessel and an evacuated vessel. The pressurized vessel contains the gases which are being separated. As the gases permeate through the membrane, the pressure in the evacuated vessel will increase. The rate of pressure increase permits a determination of the ability of the membrane to separate the gases.

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Australian Scientists Report New CCS Technology

In a study published recently in Angewandte Chemie, Australian scientists from Monash University and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation report the discovery of a photosensitive metal organic framework (MOF) – a class of materials known for its exceptional capacity to store gases. The authors say this has created a powerful and cost-effective new tool to capture and store, or potentially recycle, carbon dioxide. By using sunlight to release the stored carbon, the new material reportedly overcomes the problems of expense and inefficiency associated with current, energy-intensive methods of carbon capture. Current technologies use liquid capture materials that are then heated in a prolonged process to release the carbon dioxide for storage. Read more  Read more

New Natural Gas Power Plants to Use CO2 Capture

Summit Power Group,  a Seattle-based developer of low-carbon power projects, and the technology company The Linde Group have announced they have teamed up to develop commercial-scale natural gas fired power plants that will capture up to ninety percent (90%) of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that would otherwise have been emitted. According to a Summit press release, the new power plants will combine well-established and commercially proven natural gas-fired power plant technology with proven carbon capture technology.

Both Summit and Linde are already active in developing power projects with CO2 capture where the  CO2 can be either geologically sequestered in depleted gas fields and deep saline formations, or  injected into depleting oilfields. Summit is currently developing two major coal gasification projects  that will capture 90% of the CO2 they produce, namely the Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP) in the United States and the Captain Clean Energy Project (CCEP) in the United Kingdom. Linde is a major technology provider, engineering and construction contractor, and long-term operations and  maintenance provider to TCEP.

Summit and Linde have identified several suitable U.S. locations for this new type of power plant.  Key locations are those where the ultra-low carbon electric power can be sold to utilities and large consumers, and suitable geological sequestration sites are available for the injection of CO2 underground.  The companies believe revenue earned from the productive use of captured CO2, for example in oilfields, will reduce and in some cases may eliminate any environmental cost premium that CO2 capture imposes on power plants.

The two companies plan to announce their first such project in the coming months.

Source: Summit Power Group

More Woe for Coal?

According to an article in today's Wall Street Journal, President Obama is expected to announce a plan to curb emissions from existing power plants when he delivers the State of the Union address next week. The president, the article stated,  is likely to urge the addition of existing coal-fired plants to the proposed Environmental Protection Agency rules on greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants. In spring 2012, the EPA proposed strict emissions limits for new power plants of 1,000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour of electricity, which, according to the WSJ, would make the construction of new coal-fired plants cost-prohibitive. The rule for new plants is set to be completed later this year, but the agency reportedly has made little progress on new policies for existing plants.  Read more

EPA Releases Emissions Data

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has posted the second year of greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions data on its website, which provides public access to emissions data by sector, by greenhouse gas, and by geographic region such as county or state.

For facilities that are direct emitters of GHGs the data show that in 2011:

• Power plants remain the largest stationary source of GHG emissions, with 2,221 million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent (mmtCO2e), roughly one-third of total U.S. emissions. 2011 emissions from this source were approximately 4.6 percent below 2010 emissions, reflecting an ongoing increase in power generation from natural gas and renewable sources.

• Petroleum and natural gas systems were the second largest sector, with emissions of 225 mmtCO2e in 2011, the first year of reporting for this group. 

• Refineries were the third-largest emitting source, with 182 mmtCO2e, a half of a percent increase over 2010. 

EPA now has two years of greenhouse gas data for 29 source categories. Some industrial sectors, such as metals production and chemicals production, reported overall increases in emissions, while others, such as power plants, reported decreases. Overall emissions reported from these 29 sources were 3 percent lower in 2011 than in 2010. In the future the data collected through the program will provide the public with the opportunity to compare emissions and developing trends for all 41 industry types –by facility and sector. 

This data is accessible through the Facility Level Information on Green House gases Tool (FLIGHT) – a web-based data publication tool. EPA has also expanded accessibility of this data through EPA’s online database EnviroFacts that allows a user to search for information by zip code. 

The data collection program is required by Congress in the FY2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act, which requires facilities to report data from large emission sources across a range of industry sectors, as well as suppliers of certain greenhouse gases, and products that would emit GHGs if released or combusted. EPA’s GHG Reporting Program includes information from more than 8,000 sources and represents 85-90 percent of total U.S. GHG emissions. This data only includes large facilities and does not include small sources, agriculture, or land use, which can also be significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions. 

Source: EPA

FutureGen Moves Forward in Illinois

WASHINGTON – Following the successful completion of the first phase, the Energy Department today announced the beginning of Phase II of project development with a new cooperative agreement between the FutureGen Industrial Alliance and the Department of Energy for an innovative carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in Illinois.

In cooperation with the FutureGen project partners, the Department of Energy is investing in the upgrade of a coal-fired power plant in Meredosia, Ill. with oxy-combustion technology to capture more than 1 million tons of CO2 each year—more than 90 percent of the plant’s carbon emissions. Other emissions will also be reduced to near-zero levels. Instead of capturing CO2 in the presence of a large amount of nitrogen, the oxy-combustion approach extracts the oxygen from air before combustion, greatly reducing the cost of carbon capture at the exhaust stack. This project will test oxygen separation technology and exhaust processing technology after combustion at power plant scales. Using proven pipeline technology, the CO2 will then be safely transported and securely stored underground at a nearby storage site. This groundbreaking project will help pave the way for other cleaner and more sustainable advanced coal-burning power plants.

The completion of the FutureGen 2.0 project’s first phase included important technical and financial milestones like the identification of a sequestration site in Morgan County, preliminary characterization and test drilling, and a commitment from the Illinois Commerce Commission to cover the FutureGen 2.0 project’s output under its power purchasing plans. The cooperative agreement announced today with the FutureGen Industrial Alliance will build on these successes to begin preliminary design, pre-construction and engineering for the retrofitted, near-zero emission coal-fired power plant.

Source: DOE

IEA Launches Mobile Energy Stats App

The latest digital version of Key World Energy Statistics from the International Energy Agency (IEA) is now available free for use on an iPhone or iPad, allowing quick and easy electronic access to key energy data – country by country and from production to consumption – for every major form of energy plus  greenhouse gas emissions, all in the most recognised and accepted international measurements.

This one-of-a-kind app provides policy makers, business people, students and journalists with the critical data available in the 2012 print edition, from annual Canadian coal production to Thai per capita electricity consumption. But beyond offering that wealth of information on the go and in the palm of your hand, the app’s Favorites function is customisable to allow personalised, fast access to your most relevant and frequently consulted energy topics.

The 2013 app also lets users use multiple indicators and then rank countries by ascending and descending order for those data. Other updates include a new search feature and the ability to personalise tables by country and data.

Source: IEA

Ohio State CCS Project Update

Washington, D.C. — Researchers at The Ohio State University (OSU) have successfully completed more than 200 hours of continuous operation of their patented Coal-Direct Chemical Looping (CDCL) technology - a one-step process to produce both electric power and high-purity carbon dioxide (CO2). The test, led by OSU Professor Liang-Shih Fan, represents the longest integrated operation of chemical looping technology anywhere in the world to date.

The test was conducted at OSU’s 25 kilowatt thermal (kWt) CDCL combustion sub-pilot unit under the auspices of DOE’s Carbon Capture Program, which is developing innovative environmental control technologies to foster the use of the nation’s vast coal reserves. Managed by the Office of Fossil Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, the program’s specific goal is to develop CO2 capture and compression technologies that can reduce the capital cost and energy penalty of CO2 capture by more than half—equivalent to CO2 capture at less than $40 per metric ton—when integrated into a new or existing coal fired power plant. The successful test moves chemical-looping a step closer to full scale.

Chemical looping is an advanced technology that offers several advantages over traditional combustion. In a chemical-looping system, a metal oxide, such as an iron oxide, provides the oxygen for combustion. The metal oxide releases its oxygen in a fuel reactor with a reducing atmosphere, and the oxygen reacts with the fuel. The reduced metal cycles back to an oxidation chamber where the metal oxide is regenerated by contact with air. The metal oxide is then reintroduced into the fuel reactor, thus completing the loop. Since CO2 separation occurs simultaneously with coal conversion, chemical looping offers a low-cost scheme for carbon capture. The process can produce power, synthesis gas, or hydrogen in addition to high-purity CO2.

OSU reports that the CDCL plant’s 200+ hours of operation, using metallurgical coke and subbituminous and lignite coals, shows the robustness of its novel moving-bed design and non-mechanical valve operation. The combination resulted in nearly 100 percent solid fuel conversion and a CO2 stream more than 99 percent pure, making it applicable to CO2 enhanced oil recovery operations.

The OSU project is expected to benefit the DOE Carbon Capture Program by identifying oxygen carriers and a chemical looping process having the potential to control multiple pollutants, including sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx), along with CO2. OSU research aims to identify potential barriers and optimize the CDCL technology and provide realistic data for future technological and economic analysis.

In addition to DOE, OSU is partnering on the project with the Ohio Department of Development, Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group, Inc., CONSOL Energy Inc., and Clear Skies Consulting LLC.

In a related project, DOE’s National Carbon Capture Center in Wilsonville, Ala., will serve as the host site for the construction and operation of a fully integrated 250 kWt pressurized syngas chemical looping pilot unit starting this year. The facility will be used to further prove the operability and economic feasibility of OSU’s advanced chemical looping technologies.

Source: NETL

SaskPower CCUS Project Update

According to a Reuters report yesterday, the carbon capture facility being constructed by Saskatchewan's SaskPower at the Boundary Dam power station will be ready to launch by April 2014.  SaskPower is doing a $1.24 billion retrofit of the 45-year-old plant to capture one million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide as well as sulphur dioxide. When completed, Boundary Dam will be the world's first coal-fired power plant with a commercial scale carbon capture component. SaskPower officials believe the addition of carbon capture will reduce the total power output of the plant by approximately 25 percent, according to Reuters. Officials also stated that the cost of retrofitting the plant, which will reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 90 percent, were approximately the same as constructing a comparable plant powered by natural gas. SaskPower announced last month that it has agreed to sell the captured CO2 to Canadian oil company Cenovus Energy for use in enhaced oil recovery. Read more

CCUS/EOR Project Begins in Texas

Washington, D.C. — A breakthrough carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) project in Texas has begun capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) and piping it to an oilfield for use in enhanced oil recovery (EOR). 

The project at Air Products and Chemicals hydrogen production facility in Port Arthur, Texas, is significant for demonstrating both the effectiveness and commercial viability of CCUS technology as an option in helping mitigate atmospheric CO2 emissions. Funded in part through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the project is managed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory. DOE is collaborating with industry in cost-sharing arrangements to demonstrate these next-generation technologies.  

This event marks a milestone in DOE’s Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage (ICCS) program: progressing beyond research and development to a demonstration scale that can be readily replicated and deployed into commercial practice within the industry. Goals of the ICCS program are to mitigate climate change through CCUS; create jobs; and position the United States as a world leader in carbon capture technologies.  

In the Air Products project, CO2 that would ordinarily be released to the atmosphere is separated from the gas stream of one of the company’s steam methane reformers using a gas-separation technology called "vacuum swing adsorption." After compression and drying, the CO2 purity is greater than 97 percent, concentrated from an initial 10–20 percent. The CO2 is then transported through Denbury Green Pipeline – Texas, LLC’s pipeline for injection into the Denbury Onshore operated West Hastings Unit, an EOR project in Texas.

When an oil well begins "playing out," not enough oil is pumped to make it worthwhile to continue using the well, and the well is closed or "shut in," even though much of the original oil in the field remains in the formation. Several methods of enhanced oil recovery have been developed to recover this remaining oil, including pumping CO2 down to the oil reservoir. In the Port Arthur project, a monitoring, verification, and accounting program will ensure that the injected CO2 remains underground, safely and permanently trapped in the same geologic formation that confined the oil brought to the surface in the demonstration. 

In 2009, during the first phase of DOE’s ICCS program, 12 projects were chosen to receive ARRA funding to expedite or carry out large-scale CCUS from industrial sources. After 7 months, a competitive evaluation was undertaken, and in 2010, Air Products was selected as one of three companies to enter Phase 2 and continue receiving funding for a commercial demonstration project.  

Specific advantages of the Air Products demonstration project include:

• Capturing approximately 1 million metric tons of CO2 per year that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere; and 

• Recovering 1.6-3.1 million additional barrels of domestic oil annually. 

When other companies join with Air Products and begin CO2 capture and utilization, these numbers will increase. Air Products plans to begin CO2 capture at a second steam methane reformer within its Port Arthur facility in the next several months. 

Source: NETL

Canadian Government Invests in CCS Company

Quebec-based CO2 Solutions Inc. today announced that the Canadian government has made a $4.7 million investment to support the development of the company's enzyme-enabled carbon capture technology in the Alberta oil sands.  CO2 Solutions is developing carbon capture technology for use in oil sands production, including in-situ methods and bitumen upgrading. According to a company press release, results from the project will also support the broader application of CO2 Solutions' technology in other natural gas combustion sources, such as gas-fired power plants. CO2 Solutions’ management anticipates the overall cost of the project to be $7.5 million. The company announced earlier this month that it will receive $348,000 in nonreimbursable funding from Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program. The funding will be used to support the ongoing development of CO2 Solutions’ technology, including enzyme evolution and enzyme management process optimization work and will be disbursed over the next twelve months.

Source: CO2 Solutions

U.S. Gov't Releases National Climate Assessment

A 60-person Federal Advisory Committee (The "National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee" or NCADAC) has overseen the development of this draft climate report.

The NCADAC, whose members are available here (and in the report), was established under the Department of Commerce in December 2010 and is supported through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It is a federal advisory committee established as per the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972. The Committee serves to oversee the activities of the National Climate Assessment. Its members are diverse in background, expertise, geography and sector of employment. A formal record of the committee can be found at the NOAA NCADAC website.

The NCADAC has engaged more than 240 authors in the creation of the report. The authors are acknowledged at the beginning of the chapters they co-authored.

Following extensive review by the National Academies of Sciences and by the public, this report will be revised by the NCADAC and, after additional review, will then be submitted to the Federal Government for consideration in the Third National Climate Assessment (NCA) Report.  For more information on the NCA process and background, previous assessments and other NCA information, please explore the NCA web-pages. The NCA is being conducted under the auspices of the Global Change Research Act of 1990 and is being organized and administered by the Global Change Research Program.

The previous Assessment produced the report Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States in 2009, and the first National Assessment report was completed in 2000.  To see these previous reports, please click here.

Ontario Continues its Curtailment of Coal

The Canadian province of Ontario has announced that it will shut down 17 of its 19 coal-powered energy plants by then end of the year and will discontinue using coal as a source of electricity production by 2014. Since 2003, Ontario has cut its use of coal by nearly 90 per cent. According to a press release from the office of Ontatrio Premier Dalton McGuinty, the closures are a result of Ontario's strong conservation efforts, smarter electricity distribution technology and a diverse supply of cleaner energy. The government estimates that shutting down the last coal plants in Southern Ontario will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save the province $95 million. Researchers also predict Ontario's electricity sector greenhouse gas emissions will decrease dramatically as a result of eliminating coal-fired power, from a high of 41.4 megatonnes in 2000 to only five megatonnes post-2020. Read more

IEA Renews Call for Action on CCS

As high cost and simultaneous lack of incentive policies delay the deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, the International Energy Agency has renewed its calls for action in 2013 and beyond on what the organization says is a critical element to limiting climate change.

An immediate priority, according to the IEA, is implementation of the organization's recommended policy and action on storage site selection and development, so that the approval process for storage sites does not impede new CCS installations. Governments must also assess what role CCS will play in their energy futures and increase their efforts in large-scale demonstration.

But perhaps the most critically important short-term issue, according to the IEA, is to develop practical incentive policies, with successful policies for renewable energy potentially serving as models for CCS deployment. The IEA provides detailed plans about development, investment and deployment in its Roadmap series as well as its technology flagship publications, Energy Technology Perspectives 2012. The IEA is revising its CCS technology roadmap, with the new version expected in spring 2013.

Source: IEA