[Biofuel] Norway again to scuttle its own CCS initiatives, and partner with Dutch efforts to environmental dismay - Bellona.org
http://bellona.org/news/climate-change/2014-10-norway-scuttle-ccs-initiatives-partner-dutch-efforts-environmental-dismay Published on October 9, 2014 by Charles Digges The Norwegian government has for the second time in two years put its first large scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) project at Mongstad on ice, electing instead to direct state budget funding for CCS to a Dutch project. The decision, made clear by the publication of Norway’s state budget on Wednesday, is all the more stinging for Norwegian environmentalists in the wake of an industrial-scale CCS plant opening at SaskPower’s Boundary Dam coal plant in Saskatchewan, Canada last week. Bellona says the move, announced by Oil and Energy Minister Tord Lien upon the draft budget’s publication, means Norway in all of its oil wealth will miss critical international emissions targets set for 2020. Chief among these is Norway’s commitment to slash its CO2 emissions to 30 percent below 1990 levels. This is something of a tall order for the Scandinavian nation – Western Europe’ biggest natural gas supplier and the world seventh largest petroleum exporter – without the help of CCS technologies. The International Energy Agency has repeatedly said deploying CCS technology – which the Boundary Dam project proves to be ready out of the box – is critical to slashing climate warming carbon emissions and limiting global temperature spikes to 2 degrees Celsius within this century, and that it must be deployed across the board. Try again, fail again The government of Prime Minister Erna Solberg had hoped to move forward with resurrecting the Mongstad project, as announced by Lien in May when the 2014 Norwegian budget was rolled out, with the promise of a full-scale CCS project running in the country by 2020. With the release of the 2015 draft budget Lien said in a statement that Norway was still examining options for building a large scale CCS plant at home, but was willing to see that funding go toward a joint effort with other countries in Europe. “We have proposed to commit funding of up to 125 million Norwegian kroner ($19.3 million) to participate in such a co-operation,” Lien said a statement as quoted by Reuters. According to government sources who were quoted by VG, Norway’s largest-circulation daily newspaper, the funding will most likely go toward CCS efforts in the Netherlands and its ROAD project in Rotterdam, which is backed by utilities E.ON and GDF Suez. The shirking number of possible recipients for the money is somewhat surprising given Europe’s previous aspirations to build 15 CCS facilities by 2015. Aside from the Dutch road project, the EU is pursuing only two other CCS initiatives, the Peterhead and White Rose CCS projects, both in the UK. Will Europe see a kick-start from Canada? Jonas Helseth, director of Bellona Europa, said last week that the Boundary Dam project should be cause for envy in Europe. Boundary Dam, Helseth said “is an extremely important event for those few of us who are still trying to communicate the need for CCS in Europe […]” and added that the success of the Canadian project “comes at a time when we need to reinvigorate CCS momentum in Europe.” As far as Norway goes, though, VG reported that there simply aren’t any plants in Norway that are large enough, or where CCS can be implemented quickly enough, to meet the 2020 goal to cut 30 percent of the country’s carbon emissions. Is Norway committed to emissions cuts? With the publication of he new state budget, Bellona President Frederic Hauge called into question the Norwegian government’s commitment to sticking to international climate agreements. “The Ministry of Environment and Climate is experiencing real cuts,” Hauge said. “This shows that the government’s supposed commitment to strengthening a climate compromise are at best hanging by a thread.” In Hauge’s opinion, the Norwegian government must coalesce and define its goals, which must be based on international agreements to give them any credibility. Instead, he said that Norway’s inability to pull it together was primarily a matter of financial bickering. “[Norway’s climate goals] must cease to be based on money, and must instead focus on the number of tons of CO2 they must cut […] Norway must, among other things, cut 700,000 tons of CO2 emissions from now until 2020.” Sirin Engen, a key Bellona CCS adviser told Reuters the prospect of of sending Norwegian funding to foreign CCS projects would do nothing to clean up domestic emissions from oil exports and gas. “We don’t need more studies, we need CCS right now,`’ she said. “Otherwise, Norway is set to miss its target to reduce carbon emissions by 30 percent from 1990 levels.” What contributing to ROAD entails Oil and Energy Minister Lien told VG it was too early to comment on whether the Norwegian budget would pump money into the Dutch CCS effort, but Hauge said
[Biofuel] Sun is best nuclear fusion plant | Letters | Battlefords News Optimist
[Another view on the Boundary Dam CCS project.] http://www.newsoptimist.ca/article/20141009/BATTLEFORD0303/310099989/-1/battleford03/sun-is-best-nuclear-fusion-plant Sun is best nuclear fusion plant October 9, 2014 Dear Editor I watched Premier Wall’s recent speech as he opened the carbon capture and storage facility for a small portion of the Boundary Dam coal-fired electricity plant. He said that this was a great step forward, that this would help reduce global warming and enable coal fired plants to produce clean, inexpensive energy and was only possible because the people of Saskatchewan are innovative. Unfortunately almost everything he said was incorrect. The premier acknowledged that this project was not possible without big bucks from the taxpayers. Over a billion dollars to “capture” 90 per cent of the carbon from less than 20 per cent of this one plant. Even the 90 per cent figure is misleading. The carbon produced by building and operating a 66 km CO2 pipeline will not be captured. The carbon produced by mining the dirty brown coal will not be captured. The carbon produced from hundreds of associated plant emissions will not be captured and the carbon produced by 80 per cent of the plant will not be captured. The premier seems to be unaware that the least expensive electrical power is now wind power at four cents per kWh. Just the carbon capture part of this plant's operation will cost over four cents per ‘clean’ kWh produced. The next inexpensive electrical energy is utility solar. Either the premier doesn't know this or he doesn't know that the sun shines in Saskatchewan. In order for CO2 to be a liquid it must be pressurized or cooled. Creating that liquid and keeping it in a liquid state takes energy and producing energy in a brown coal plant produces carbon. The premier even indicated that pumping this liquid into an oil field so that more oil was forced to the surface and then burned would somehow reduce global warming. It appears that Premier Wall does not really believe that global warming is the massive problem that virtually every peer-reviewed scientist says it is. It appears that he thinks that this so-called carbon capture is setting a good example and that this multi-billion dollar technology will be adopted by poorer countries that can hardly afford dirty coal plants. This is not going to happen and this is not setting a good example. If premier Wall was really “innovative” he would realize that the days of dirty coal are over and there are far less damaging and less expensive ways to produce electricity. The way forward is to utilize a free, clean nuclear fusion plant that is safely located 150 million kms away. This plant produces and delivers to us thousands of times the energy we require and it will last for billions of years. It is time for politicians like Premier Wall to do their homework and provide truthful leadership. Bob Fearn British Columbia ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Cement Plant in Norway Captures Carbon Dioxide | MIT Technology Review
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/531451/norwegian-factory-aims-to-solve-cements-carbon-problem/ Norwegian Factory Aims to Solve Cement’s Carbon Problem The waste heat in cement production can drive technologies that can grab at least 30 percent of a plant’s carbon dioxide emissions. By David Talbot on October 9, 2014 A Norwegian cement factory has shown that it’s able to capture much of its own carbon dioxide. If the approach were to become widespread, it could have a significant impact, since cement production is responsible for more than 5 percent of all man-made carbon dioxide emissions. The Norcem Brevik cement works, tucked into a scenic harbor south of Oslo, has used waste heat to drive a process called amine scrubbing that, at test scales, removed between 30 and 40 percent of the total emissions from the plant’s flue gases. “We think we are the first project that is testing technology in real cement-plant conditions,” said Liv-Margrethe Bjerge, project manager for the test at Norcem, which owns the Brevik plant. “It’s the only cement project doing post-combustion capture.” Bjerge spoke in Austin, Texas, at the largest international conference on carbon capture and sequestration technologies. The plant expects to begin full-scale operation with carbon capture next summer. It could serve as a model for many plants in Europe and around the world, she said. The company is demonstrating only carbon capture right now. Ultimately the carbon dioxide would probably get shipped to an offshore well for injection, which is the method available in Norway. The plant is testing a few different technologies. In the one that’s yielded results so far, chemicals called amines pick up carbon dioxide and then release it when heated. Results are still pending for two other methods, Bjerge said. In one, calcium oxide combines with carbon dioxide to form calcium carbonate. The other uses membranes to capture the carbon dioxide. While these carbon-capture processes have previously been tested in power plants, cement plants differ because their emissions include much higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, plus more dust and other contaminants. Some more far-out ideas for capturing carbon from cement making include using concentrated sunlight to drive the production process (see “New Cement-Making Method Could Slash Carbon Emissions”). And some groups are working on adding materials to concrete that can later absorb carbon dioxide (see “TR10: Green Concrete”). In the United States, a startup called Skyonic is running a pilot plant at a cement mill to reuse carbon dioxide in sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Biodiesel Magazine - The Latest News and Data About Biodiesel Production
http://www.biodieselmagazine.com/articles/208149/nora-research-shows-20-percent-biodiesel-ok-for-home-heating NORA research shows 20 percent biodiesel OK for home heating By The National Oilheat Research Alliance | October 10, 2014 Field experience with Bioheat fuel (blended heating oil and biodiesel) has been overwhelmingly positive. A recent service organization survey conducted by NORA and Brookhaven National Laboratory observed that some 35,000 buildings are currently using Bioheat containing more than 5 percent biodiesel with no issues. It is important to note that biodiesel is a specific product that meets ASTM D6751 specifications and has well-established product characteristics designed to ensure that it can be safely and efficiently blended into heating oil and diesel. Biodiesel meets detailed fuel property specifications within ASTM D6751. ASTM consists of experts from petroleum companies, equipment manufacturers and research organizations. It has defined biodiesel and blends to be fit for use in home heating systems and diesel engines. In-spec biodiesel has undergone rigorous material compatibility, combustion, lubricity, field testing, and stability studies as part of the long ASTM approval process. Unlike biodiesel, the term biofuel is general and refers to any fuel derived from a plant or tree. Olive oil, lard, or restaurant grease are all potential biofuels. None are suitable for use in a heating system. For a heating oil marketer to be ready for the next generation of fuel, the product must be a blend of heating oil and ASTM 6751 biodiesel. Winter operability is essential in serving oilheat's customers. Biodiesel blends can have a significant impact as the feedstock affects its winter characteristics. Wholesale suppliers and retail marketers need to be sure the product they sell is right for the temperatures at which it will be stored at and used. An outside tank in Maine may need a different product than an indoor tank. Currently, fuel marketers manage their respective pour point requirements independently through collaboration with competent fuel additive organizations by introducing pour point depressants at the time of blending or sale. This allows the fuel to perform at the lowest ambient temperatures associated with the marketer's footprint. This collaboration has been the basis of how fuel marketers keep their liquid fuels balanced and flowing, ensuring optimal winter performance. Being mindful of the operability specification when purchasing fuel and optimizing it to meet the temperatures in which it will operate is the marketer's responsibility—with or without biodiesel blends. If these characteristics are handled appropriately, trucks, tanks and lines do not need to be heated. Free water and microbial contamination in the fuel is an issue that the industry has wrestled for decades. If tanks are left to collect water, the water will respond to temperatures within the tank. Vigilance in managing your tanks and those of your customers is of paramount importance. With water in fuel of any type (gasoline, diesel, heating oil, biodiesel and biodiesel blends), the fuel may fall victim to microbial contamination. Exercising a well thought-out tank management program is essential. To prevent fuel marketers from buying and selling biofuels that do not meet ASTM specifications (e.g., straight cooking oil), the National Biodiesel Board and Oilheating industry state leadership groups have worked exhaustively over the past decade to help train the marketplace about the difference between raw vegetable oil or generic biofuels and ASTM D6751 biodiesel. There may be financial incentives for blending raw vegetable oils or non-ASTM specified fuels. Unfortunately, there is a small percentage (hopefully a very small percentage) of these individuals willing trade-off the risk of selling off-spec product for a pricing advantage. The NBB, NORA and the state association can only inform those who wish to know the facts. With these facts, we hope that the industry understands the negative fallout associated with being buyers and sellers of anything less than ASTM grade fuels. Our home heating systems are well-designed and robust. However, they cannot operate reliably if attempts are made to operate these systems with bad fuels. The biodiesel industry recognizes that their reputation can be damaged by the marketing of low quality, off-spec fuels and they have put great effort into developing programs such as the BQ-9000 Quality Assurance program to address this. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] A massive cloud of methane is hovering over the Southwest, and it’s bigger than anyone expected - Salon.com
http://www.salon.com/2014/10/10/a_massive_cloud_of_methane_is_hovering_over_the_southwest_and_its_bigger_than_anyone_expected/ [image and links in on-line article] Friday, Oct 10, 2014 11:13 AM EST A massive cloud of methane is hovering over the Southwest, and it’s bigger than anyone expected Should we be concerned? Lindsay Abrams Well, this isn’t good: Researchers have discovered a massive “hot spot” of methane emissions above the southwestern U.S. As pictured above, it stretches 2,500 square miles over New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona. It’s the size of Delaware, and more than triple the size of previous estimates. Methane, a greenhouse gas, is some 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a century and even more damaging to the climate in the short term. Over the seven-year period measured, the hot spot produced about 10 percent the EPA’s estimation of all U.S. methane emissions. It’s currently producing the rough equivalent of all the methane being produced by the U.K.’s entire oil, gas and coal industry. The methane cloud, detailed in a study by NASA and University of Michigan scientists, was actually discovered years ago, but researchers assumed it must have been a mistake. ”We didn’t focus on it because we weren’t sure if it was a true signal or an instrument error,” Christian Frankenberg of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory explained in a statement. Using satellite data, the team calculated that the area released about 0.59 million metric tons of methane into the atmosphere each year from 2003 to 2009. It’s important to note that this isn’t a fraccident: the emissions were measured before fracking took off in the region. Eric Kort, the study’s lead author, said they should instead be attributed to leaks from production sites in New Mexico’s natural-gas rich San Juan Basin. “The results are indicative that emissions from established fossil fuel harvesting techniques are greater than inventoried,” Kort explained. “There’s been so much attention on high-volume hydraulic fracturing, but we need to consider the industry as a whole.” It’s a good reminder that it’s not just “unconventional” drilling techniques like fracking that are bad news. Plain old-fashioned oil and gas extraction has significant problems too — even before we start talking about the pollution that comes from burning the stuff. What these new findings show is that we’ve significantly underestimated the methane emissions from our energy infrastructure as a whole. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Canada falling woefully short of emissions reduction targets - Canadian Manufacturing
http://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/regulation/canada-falling-woefully-short-emissions-reduction-targets-141128/?utm_source=CTECHutm_medium=emailutm_campaign=CTECH-EN10082014e=30sslyW42vwv682rM2vx Canada falling woefully short of emissions reduction targets The Copenhagen Accord, which Canada signed in lieu of the Kyoto Protocol, requires greenhouse gas emissions to be 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020 OTTAWA—Canada is all but certain to miss its Copenhagen Accord target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, the country’s environmental watchdog warned October 7. And not only has the Harper government failed to introduce regulations to limit the amount carbon dioxide produced by the oil and gas sector, the fastest growing emitter, it “does not have an overall plan that maps out how Canada will achieve this target,” Julie Gelfand said in her first report as commissioner of the environment and sustainable development. Under the accord, which the government signed in lieu of participating in the Kyoto Protocol, greenhouse gas production was to be cut to 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020. Gelfand’s predecessor warned in 2012 that the government was off course and “two years later, the evidence is stronger that growth in emissions will not be reversed in time and that the target will be missed,” said the report. The government has introduced regulations to govern the automotive and transportation sector, the biggest source of emissions, as well as electricity production. But Gelfand’s report says that while regulations for coal-fired plants are in place, emissions have yet to be reduced because “performance standards take effect only in July 2015, and only apply to new plants or to existing plants when they reach the end of their useful life.” Using Environment Canada data, the commissioner estimated that by 2020, greenhouse gas production in the oil and gas sector will be 27 megatonnes higher than it was in 2012. That’s the biggest increase of any sector. Gelfand also found that detailed, proposed regulations are sitting on the environment minister’s desk, but the “federal government has consulted on them only privately, mainly using a small working group of one province and selected industry representatives.” Federal officials told the commissioner implementation has been delayed over “concern about whether regulations would make Canadian companies in the sector less able to compete with their U.S. counterparts,” the report said. Timelines to put reduction measures in place have not been met and there has been little in the way of consultation with the provinces on how to achieve the national emissions target, Gelfand said. The commissioner’s report also tore a strip off Environment Canada, Transport Canada and Fisheries and Oceans, saying mapping and icebreaking services in the Arctic are not what they should be at a time of growing marine traffic in the Far North. For almost a decade, the government has been talking up issues of sovereignty and resource development in the Arctic, but many high-traffic, high-risk areas remain inadequately surveyed and most of the available charts may not be current or reliable, the report found. “The Canadian Coast Guard cannot provide assurance to mariners that aids to navigation meet their needs for safe and efficient navigation in high-risk areas of the Arctic,” Gelfand concluded. The government did receive good marks for how it is monitoring development of Alberta’s oilsands, but Gelfand said more effort needs to be made to consult First Nations and to incorporate traditional ecological monitoring knowledge into Environment Canada’s monitoring activities. But she warned that plans to continue monitoring the project are unclear after March 2015. When it comes to deciding which projects are designated for environmental assessment, the rationale is unclear, the commissioner also noted. In addition, federal departments need to do a better job of flagging individual ministers about the environmental impact of their decisions and strategic environmental assessments are often not stapled to projects put before cabinet. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Attention deniers: Earth just had its hottest September ever recorded - Salon.com
http://www.salon.com/2014/10/13/attention_deniers_earth_just_had_its_hottest_september_ever_recorded/ [image and links in on-line article] Since climate deniers love it when NASA says something that can be deliberately skewed as suggesting that the planet isn’t warming, here’s hoping everyone pays attention to this announcement, too: according to the U.S. space agency, last September was Earth’s hottest on record. And as Slate’s Eric Holthaus points out, September’s high global temperatures mean Earth just saw its hottest-ever six month stretch, going back to an unusually warm April. Every month from then to now was the warmest of its kind, except for July, which was fourth-warmest. At this pace, according to NOAA, we’re on track to see the hottest year in recorded history — and that’s without El Nino, which has a good chance of starting soon and which will bring regional warming. (As Joe Romm of Climate Progress explains, “it’s usually the combination of the long-term manmade warming trend and the regional El Niño warming pattern that leads to new global temperature records.”) In North America, September was also the snowiest on record, going back to the 1960s. This does not disprove global warming, but it might mean that the continent’s in for a particularly brutal winter. If that turns out to be the case, global warming will still be happening. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
