Energy Shorts
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USC, UOP Collaborate to Produce Cleaner Fuels from CO2 UOP LLC (www.uop.com), a Honeywell company, will partner with the Univ. of Southern California’s (USC; Los Angeles; www.usc.edu) Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute to develop and commercialize new technology to transform carbon dioxide into cleaner-burning fuels. USC developed fundamental chemistry to transform C02 to methanol or dimethyl ether, two potentially cleaner alternatives to conventional transportation fuels, thereby reducing emissions of C02. Now UOP and USC will work jointly to develop a commercially viable process.
“The development of this technology could could have significant impact on global energy security, and on global warming by converting carbon dioxide into useful products and making new clean- fuel technologies available worldwide,” says George A. Olah, Nobel Laureate and director of USC’s Loker Institute.
New Website Helps Industry Save Energy
Created by the Superior Energy Performance initiative, an industrygovernment collaboration, www.energyquickstart.com provides a comprehensive listing of energy efficiency and conservation resources to help companies manage energy costs and identify savings opportunities. It contains technical documents, tip sheets, software tools, training, case studies, listings of experts, and calculators, as well as guidance and tools to help manufacturers develop an energy management plan, and to identify, screen and implement opportunities for improving efficiency. For example, the Save Energy Now section contains links to “Best Practices” and energy-efficient products and technologies. Most of the resources are available at no cost from government agencies, nonprofit organizations and universities.
Super Boiler Celebrates its First Birthday
The U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE; www.eere.energy.gov), in partnership with the Gas Technology Institute (www.gastechnology.org) and Cleaver-Brooks, Inc. (www.cleaver- brooks.com), has developed a unique industrial steam technology – dubbed Super Boiler – that delivers better than 94% thermal efficiency and produces fewer pollutants than conventional boiler technology. It combines innovations in combustion, heat transfer and recovery, vessel engineering, and controls in a highly efficient, interconnected steam-generation system.
Super Boiler recently completed one year of successful testing at the Specification Rubber Products, Inc. (www.specrubber.com) facility in Alabaster, AL, where it averaged gas savings of nearly 13%. DOE estimates that by 2020, the Super Boiler technology could save more than 185 trillion Btu of energy – equivalent to the natural gas consumed by more than 2 million households.
Consortium Aims to Develop Cleaner-Coal Processes for India
A university-industry alliance led by the Center for Advanced Separation Technologies (CAST) at Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Blacksburg, VA; www.vt.edu) is developing and testing advanced coal- cleaning technologies aimed at helping India increase energy production and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
At present, Indian coals are not cleaned before burning due to technical difficulties – the finely dispersed ashforming minerals are difficult to remove from the carbonaceous matrix by conventional physical separation methods – as well as the high costs associated with washing (water is a scarce resource in India) and then dewatering fine coal. Therefore, the researchers are developing low- cost dry coalcleaning technologies that can remove easy-to-reject rock or shale inadvertently added during the mining process.
“The use of beneficiated (cleaned) coals can increase thermal efficiencies and thereby reduce C02 emissions by up to 15%,” says principal investigator and CAST director RoeHoan Yoon. “By using state-of-the-art technologies relating to coal quality, boiler and generator design, instrumentation and control, and high-voltage distribution systems, India could reduce C02 emissions to 45% of their present level,” he adds, citing an International Energy Agency (IEA) report
One beneficiation process that has been tested successfully in the U.S. at the pilot scale is very efficient at cleaning relatively coarse coals with particles sizes in the 6-80 mm range, but its efficiency deteriorates at smaller particle sizes. Thus, the India project will explore a new method of dry cleaning finer coals.
In Phase 1 of the project, a pilot-scale deshaling unit, with a maximum capacity of 5 ton/h, will be built and operated at different mine sites and/or pilot plants. In Phase 2, a detailed flowsheet and engineering diagrams will be developed to construct a full-scale proof-of-concept plant in India. Upon completion of the plant, a detailed test program will be conducted to fully define the operational capabilities of the technology and to establish design protocols for future installations. “This will eliminate risks associated with scale-up and allows a proof-ofconcept plant to serve as a model for future installations in India and abroad,” Yoon remarks.
The project team consists of researchers from: three leading mining schools, Virginia Tech, Indian School of Mines, and the Univ. of Kentucky; process equipment manufacturer Eriez Manufacturing Co.; Taggart Global, an architecture and engineering firm specializing in coal plant design and construction; Indian coal producer Auroma Coke, Ltd.; Sharpe International, which has expertise in building and operating coal plants in India; and Leonardo Technologies, which is experienced in assessing the impacts of coal technologies on controlling greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. Dept. of State has provided more than $1 million in funding for the effort, which is being conducted under the auspices of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate.
EPA Updates Renewable-Fuels Standard
To meet the 2005 Energy Policy Act’s mandate that at least 5.4 billion gal of renewable fuels be blended into transportation gasoline in 2008, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (www.epa.gov) has set this year’s renewable-fuels standard (RFS) at 4.66%. Based on the standard, each refiner, importer and non- oxygenate blender determines the minimum volume of renewable fuel that must be used in its motor vehicle fuel. The standard for 2007 was 4.02%, which translates to roughly 4.7 billion gal. The EPA revises the standard each year, moving toward an overall volume target increases each year, to 7.5 billion gal in 2012.
Scott Reaves (center), project engineer at Specification Rubber Products, discusses the Super Boiler with Jim Tilley (left), director of core markets at natural gas utility Alagasco, and account representative Jeff Lowery (right). Photo courtesy of Gas Technology Institute.
Hydrogen Isotopes Identify New Geothermal Energy Sources
Most developed geothermal energy comes from regions of volcanic activity, such as The Geysers in California. Geochemists Mack Kennedy of the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (www.lbl.gov ) and Matthijs van Soest of Arizona State Univ. (www.asu.edu) have discovered a new way to identify resources that arise from the flow of surface fluids through deep fractures that penetrate the earth’s lower crust in regions far from current or recent volcanic activity.
“A good geothermal energy source has three basic requirements: a high thermal gradient – which means accessible hot rock – plus a rechargeable reservoir fluid, usually water, and finally, deep permeable pathways for the fluid to circulate through the hot rock,” says Kennedy. “We believe we have found a way to map and quantify zones of permeability deep in the lower crust that result from tectonic activity, that is, the movement of pieces of the earth’s crust.”
Kennedy and van Soest compared the ratios of helium isotopes in samples gathered from wells, surface springs, and vents across an area of the southwestern U.S. Helium-three, whose nucleus has just one neutron, is made only in stars, and the earth’s mantle retains a high proportion of primordial helium-three (compared to the minuscule amount found in air) left over from the formation of the solar system. The earth’s crust, on the other hand, is rich in radioactive elements like uranium and thorium that decay by emitting alpha particles, which are helium-four nuclei. Thus, a high ratio of helium-three to helium-four in a fluid sample indicates that much of the fluid came from the mantle.
High helium ratios are common in active volcanic regions, where mantle fluids intrude through the ductile boundary of the lower crust. But when Kennedy and van Soest found high ratios in places far from volcanism, they knew that mantle fluids must be penetrating the ductile boundary by other means.
“We have never seen such a clear correlation of surface geochemical signals with tectonic activity, nor have we ever been able to quantify deep permeability from surface measurements,” says Kennedy. The samples they collected on the surface gave the researchers a window into the structure of the rocks far below, with no need to drill.
Copyright American Institute of Chemical Engineers Jan 2008
(c) 2008 Chemical Engineering Progress. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.