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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