Sunday, 6 March 2011
Friday, 4 March 2011
Ukraine to Seek EU Financing for $10 Billion Heating Upgrade
Mar 3, 2011 1:04 PM GMT
Ukraine wants the European Union to help finance a planned $10 billion upgrade of heating companies aimed at reducing emissions.
“We need to reach European standards by 2018,” Deputy Energy and Coal Industry Minister Mykyta Konstantinov said today at an Adam Smith Conference in Kiev. After presenting the emissions reduction plan, “we hope Ukraine will be able to tap the EU’s financial resources.”
Ukraine also needs $1.5 billion to improve safety at its nuclear power plants and plans to seek funding from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and European Atomic Energy Community, Konstantinov said. The former Soviet state has already upgraded two reactors, he said.
Ukraine operates 15 reactors at four nuclear power plants. A reactor at Chernobyl, the fifth plant, exploded in April 1986, spewing radiation across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and northernEurope. The government shut down Chernobyl’s other reactors completely in 2000.
Ukraine wants to prolong the life of the working reactors by 20 years, Konstantinov said, without giving details.
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Vitol Ranked Ahead of JPMorgan as Developer of Tradable Emission Credits
By - Mar 3, 2011 12:00 AM GMT
Vitol Group, the world’s largest independent oil trader, was ranked as 2010’s most productive developer of projects yielding tradable emission credits, according to a survey by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Vitol Group’s Carbon Resource Management sought credits last year for projects that may yield 11.1 million metric tons of United Nations-overseen emission credits through 2020, according to the ranking. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s EcoSecurities unit ranked second, with projects that may yield 8.6 million tons of credits in the period.
New Energy Finance, the London research firm owned by Bloomberg LP, used public data to assess the performance of companies seeking credits last year under the Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation programs. The CDM is the second-biggest greenhouse gas market by traded volume after the EU cap-and-trade program.
Third in the ranking was Eco Asset Inc., with 7.2 million tons, while Barclays Plc (BARC)’s Tricorona Carbon Asset Management unit was fourth, with 6.5 million tons, according to a report e- mailed by New Energy Finance. Noble Carbon Credits, a unit of Singapore-basedNoble Group Ltd. (NOBL), was fifth, with 5.1 million tons expected.
Vitol, based in Geneva, said last month it increased its stake to 100 percent in Carbon Resource Management as part of a strategy to develop emission-reduction projects after 2012. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
Carbon Resource Management didn’t make last year’s rankings by New Energy Finance. Barclays’ Tricorona unit was ranked third last year, while JPMorgan’s EcoSecurities was fifth.
US$500m ADB funding expected for Indonesian geothermal projects
News March 3rd, 2011
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is set to grant Indonesia a US$500m loan to help it build three geothermal power plants, according to the local newspaper Jakarta Post.
The three plants will add 185MW to the country’s power grid and will be built in Sungaipenuh in Jambi, Karaha in West Java and Mataloko in East Nusa Tenggara.
Djajang Sukarna of the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry told the newspaper: “We’ll sign the deal in late 2011 and start construction of the power plants next year.”
He said Pertamina Geothermal Energy (PGE), part of state oil and gas company Pertamina, would be responsible for the upstream operation at the Sungaipenuh power plant, while state electricity company PT PLN would take care of the downstream operation. At Karaha, PGE will take full control while Mataloko will fall under PLN’s remit.
Indonesia has traditionally been an oil exporter but is now aiming to exploit its abundant geothermal resources. The ADB is currently considering a number of proposals to assist Indonesia in expanding its geothermal production base.
Last August, the ADB approved US$1.5m to fund a project to review the steam resource assessments and preliminary steam field and power plant designs, developed by PLN and to evaluate the feasibility of the sub-projects.
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Magma Power for Geothermal Energy?
By Andy Fell, UC Davis | February 23, 2011 | 1 Comment
California, USA -- When a team of scientists drilling near an Icelandic volcano hit magma in 2009, they had to abandon their planned experiments on geothermal energy. But the mishap could point the way to an alternative source of geothermal power.
"Because we drilled into magma, this borehole could now be a really high-quality geothermal well," said Peter Schiffman, professor of geology at UC Davis and a member of the research team along with fellow UC Davis geology professor Robert Zierenberg and UC Davis graduate student Naomi Marks. The project was led by Wilfred Elders, a geology professor at UC Riverside.
A paper describing geological results from the well was published this month in the journal Geology.
When tested, the magma well produced dry steam at 750 degrees Fahrenheit (400 degrees Celsius). The team estimated that this steam could be harnessed in a 25 MW capacity plant.
That compares to 5 to 8 MW produced by a typical geothermal well, Elders said. Iceland already gets about one-third of its electricity and almost all of its home heating from geothermal sources.
The team was drilling into the Krafla caldera as part of the Iceland Deep Drilling Project, an industry-government consortium, to test whether "supercritical" water -- very hot water under very high pressure -- could be exploited as a source of power.
They planned to drill to 15,000 feet -- more than two miles deep-- but at 6,900 feet, magma (molten rock from the Earth's core) flowed into the well, forcing them to stop.
The composition of magma from the borehole is also providing insight into how magmas form beneath Iceland, Schiffman said.
The team included researchers from two Icelandic power companies, HS Orka hf andLandsvirkjun Power; Iceland GeoSurvey; the U.S. Geological Survey; Stanford University; New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology; and the University of Oregon, Eugene; as well as UC Davis and UC Riverside.
The work was funded by the National Science Foundation and the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program.
Andy Fell is a science writer at UC Davis.
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Add Your Comment1 Reader CommentsWednesday, 9 February 2011
Coal fights for its share of the new energy market
The industry, under siege from deregulation, clean-air rules, and wind and solar power, looks to friendly politicians to fight for a share of the new energy market
Wednesday, February 9, 2011 02:51 AM
By Diane Mastrull
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
Laurence Kesterson | The Philadelphia Inquirer photo
Wind turbines rise on a ridge beyond the Kimberly Run Mine in Friedens, Pa. That state's coal industry complains that alternative energy is buoyed by government subsidies. Wind and solar companies counter that coal has long had a strong voice in Pennsylvania's legislature.
Mechanization means coal companies need fewer employees such as Chris Friel, who is working a longwall mining machine in the Cumberland mine in Waynesburg, Pa.
PHILADELPHIA - Nearly 6miles into a southwestern Pennsylvania coal mine, about 900 feet underground, two massive steel wheels ringed with carbide teeth chew chunks from a pitch-black wall.
A monstrous crusher smashes excavated rock - some pieces are half the size of a car - under 12-volt halogen lights strung along the mine roof. More than 200 steel shields, each able to bear 975 tons, prop up that roof as the walls below it crumble.
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High along some of the state's forested ridges, meanwhile, wind turbines churn, their sleek, 150-foot-long fiberglass blades slicing through air in a mesmerizing rhythm.And between earth and sky, atop rooftops or planted in rows on farmland, framed panels of silicon angle upward like sunning butterflies.
In the battle for energy supremacy in Pennsylvania and across the country, these forces of nature - coal, wind and solar power - are key combatants.
In January, the coal lobby gained what it considers a friend in the governor's mansion: Tom Corbett, a native of western Pennsylvania, where coal still pays the bills in thousands of households and underwrites community projects, and where a coal queen is crowned every year.
What that means for the state's fledgling alternative-energy industries is not clear. But the stakes are high: energy-market share in a new era of electricity deregulation and consumer choice and, as then-Gov. Edward G. Rendell argued for years, Pennsylvania's ability to re-engineer its economy to one more dominant in clean technology.
On one side of the debate: Pennsylvania's still-thriving coal towns, largely in the southwest. On the other: former industrial regions, such as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Allentown, that after decades of job loss see economic opportunity. At a former U.S. Steel site in Bucks County, Pa., for example, a wind-turbine manufacturer employs 265.
But deregulation of the electricity market makes the battle relevant to all Pennsylvanians. It has given them more choice over who supplies their electricity, and how much of it - if any - they want to come from alternative sources such as solar and wind power.
According to the federal Energy Information Administration, 15 states and the District of Columbia have deregulated electricity markets. Ohio is among them.
Already, the coal industry considers itself threatened by federal regulations aimed at reducing pollution and greenhouse gases suspected of causing global warming. The regulations could force utilities to shutter coal-fired power plants rather than invest in upgrades to meet stricter standards for carbon-dioxide emissions.
Coal's muscle has atrophied considerably since its heyday in the early 20th century, when demand from the U.S. steel and railroad industries seemed insatiable.
At World War I's start, Pennsylvania coal was mined at a rate of 265 million tons a year; today, it's 65.5 million tons.
Those employed in coal mining topped 370,000 when excavation tools were mostly picks and shovels, rather than the computerized machinery that produces "far more tons with far fewer workers," said Jon Wood, vice president of government and external affairs for Alpha Natural Resources, the operator of 20 mines in Pennsylvania.
Technology has reduced coal-industry jobs. Now, alternative forms of energy threaten even more.
Corbett has said his energy plan includes renewable sources, but he has not provided specifics. His office did not respond to requests for an interview for this article.
The coal lobby's political-action committee - which donated a total of $4,000 to Corbett's campaign in 2009 and 2010 and $142,796 to federal and state candidates from 2000 through 2010 - promises a renewed offensive to protect its turf.
Said George Ellis, president of the Pennsylvania Coal Association: "All we're asking for is a level playing field."
Coal's supporters argue that alternative-energy endeavors are still largely buoyed by government subsidies.
Alternative-energy advocates counter that coal has had a lopsided advantage in the state for decades, aided by a coal caucus in the legislature in the 1980s.
Energy "represents an opportunity in this region that can be bigger than the pharmaceutical sector," said Kevin P. Brown, founder of Cleantech Alliance Mid-Atlantic, which promotes innovation and investment in alternative energy.
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
RAND Says Alt Fuels Out, Coal & Biomass In, for Military
Comment on this post Posted by Joanna Schroeder – January 25th, 2011
RAND National Defense Research Institute has released a study today amidst a firestorm of criticism with many claiming that the report sounds like an advertisement for the coal industry. The study, commissioned by the Department of Defense, was to conduct an examination of alternative fuels for military applications. For the past several years, the military has been testing alternative fuels, including biodiesel and algal fuels, in aviation and marine applications and has set clear goals to use alternative fuels by 2016 and beyond.
The report concludes that in the short term, “considering economics, technical readiness, greenhouse gas emissions, and general environmental concerns, FT fuels derived from a mixture of coal and biomass represent the most promising approach to producing amounts of alternative fuels that can meet military, as well as appreciable levels of civilian, needs by 2030.”
The report continues by saying, “It is highly uncertain whether appreciable amounts of hydrotreated renewable oils (biodiesel) can be affordably and cleanly produced within the United States or abroad.” The report questions whether renewable fuels can ramp up to commercial scale, be economically competitive and it questions their ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. All of these issues rule biodiesel and algae out, where too much money and resources are being spent, according to the report, as being a viable candidate to meet the military need’s over the next decade.
If these findings weren’t enough to stir up the hornet’s nest, the report also called for Congress to reconsider the military’s budget for alternative fuel-projects. This is a sure-fire way to invoke debate in Washington, especially as a Republican Congress searches for ways to cut the federal budget.
In a New York Times article, the report elicited quick criticism. “Unfortunately, we were not engaged by the authors of this report,” said Thomas W. Hicks, deputy assistant secretary of energy for the Navy. “We don’t believe they adequately engaged the market,” he said, adding, “This is not up to RAND’s standards.”
In an uncommon agreement, both biofuel groups and the environmental industry criticized the RAND report saying that it “underestimated the viability of algae and overestimated the availability and efficacy of carbon capture and storage technology.”
Paul Winters, a spokesman for the Biotechnology Industry Organization said in the article, “This would not be the first example of a military-driven research project where the civilian benefit far outweighs the military benefit. Witness the Internet.”
One area in which the report was very hung up was in the greenhouse gas reduction of the alternative fuels and cites that the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requires that any alternative and synthetic fuels bought by federal agencies for “mobility-related use” must have the same or lower greenhouse gas emissions than those of conventional fuels using 2005 levels. The RAND report argues the GHG reductions are not significant enough to continue to pursue research.
A long-standing debate has been whether biofuels, both ethanol and biodiesel, offer lower GHG emissions as compared to other fuels such as conventional gasoline. The biofuels industry argues biofuels lower GHG emissions, even when factoring in unproven theories such as indirect land use, while biofuel opponents argue that biofuels actually increase GHG emissions.
Ultimately the RAND report concludes that the most promising fuels will be produced using the Fischer-Tropsch process, and more specifically, to turn a combination of coal and biomass into liquid fuel. However, to counter GHG emissions, there will have to be substantial carbon sequestration technology attached to the process, but the authors do not feel this is a deal-breaker, regardless of the fact that no proven, commercially available technology of the sort is currently available.
Executive Director Mary Rosenthal, in a statement on the Algal Biomass Organization’s website in response to the study, stated, “The positioning of the entire US algae industry as a “research topic” is patently false. We have more than 100 companies, academic institutions and national laboratories working to develop the algae-to-fuels industry. Algae-derived fuels have already been tested and/or used in motor vehicles and commercial aircraft, and last fall’s successful test of a Navy Riverine Command boat showed that algae fuels are ready for use. It is unclear to us whether or not any actual “green” CTL fuels have been produced or tested.”
Rosenthal continued, “We believe algae commercialization is far closer than RAND suggests. A 2010 report by Greentech Media Research projected annual US production of 6 billion gallons of algae fuel by 2022. On the contrary, the RAND report calls the potential for commercial production of CTL fuels over the next decade “very limited.”
She concluded, “We will continue to work on behalf of the US algae industry to inform policymakers of the true potential of algae-based fuels as a long term, viable source of renewable fuels for the military.”
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For those that are not aware, EGS rapidly depletes the rock strata of its high temperatures, and the rock strata must be continually re-fracked to provide new high-temperature channels for the water/steam to flow through for high-heat transfer. This is because the water strips heat from the rock faster than the conduction through the rock can replace that heat.
HOWEVER, there's a problem with magma. That boils down to materials science. Liquid rock would quickly cap whatever channels for water/steam were used for the heat exchange, and any closed pipe that was sunk into 1000 K liquid would suffer such high attack combined with such drastic material weakening that there would be a very short lifespan.
Magma is the ultimate dream for EGS, but a great deal of development would be required in order to figure out how to economically tap that resource.
I wish them luck, but I would advise everyone not to expect a magma-well EGS system in their neighborhood soon.