“Umm, I’m telling on you!” was a common refrain in Greenbang’s school days. The threat of grassing up a fellow pupil to the teachers would be enough to strike terror into the stoutest of prepubescent hearts. It must be a feeling familiar to carbon spewing cars and lorries these days. If they so happened to be sentient. Hey, it worked for the Transformers.
The folks over at Lysanda make software that tracks the carbon emissions and fuel efficiency of fleet cars and then shares all the details with drivers via an in-cab display or sends it back to base over mobile networks. As a result, environmentally questionable vehicles can be dobbed in to fleet management for correction, or companies can gather in all the data for CSR purposes, or just have a read and see how attempts to turn their carbon footprint into a dainty size 3 are going.
Lysanda’s efforts have attracted the eye of VCs of late. The company has just revealed that its finished its second round of VC funding, and pulled in £1.25 million of investment in a round led by the likes Logispring.
And what Lysanda do with all the cash? It says the funding boost will see it get its carbon monitoring system, Eco-Log, into production this year.
Much like Russell Brand, it looks like the Department of Energy isn’t afraid of sharing the love. (Greenbang’s already noted its grant-dispersing frenzy here) It seems that there’s little the DoE isn’t prepared to fund in terms of renewable energy: hydro, solar, biofuels - a strategy that suggests it’s kind of prepared to kiss a lot of frogs in order to find its prince.
Today, it’s got its tongue down the throat of carbon capture - the technology which < href=”http://www.greenbang.com/3072/carbon-capture-as-much-use-a-chocolate-teapot-greenpeace/”>Greenpeace picked out as a fat lot of use in stopping global warming earlier this week.
Nevertheless, the DoE is pressing ahead with the tech and financing a handful of projects to the tune of $126 million to the West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (WESTCARB) and the Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (MRCSP).
Apparently, the idea is to store one million tonnes of carbon in Ohio and California.
Here’s the whole skinny from the DoE:
The new projects will demonstrate the entire CO2 injection process — pre-injection characterization, injection process monitoring, and post-injection monitoring — for large scale injections of one million tons or more to test the ability of different geologic settings to permanently store CO2. DOE plans to invest $126.6 million in the two projects over the next 10 years, while the industry partners will provide $56.6 million in cost-shared funds to make these projects a success.
In the first stages of the projects, researchers will characterize the selected sites. Over the first 24 months, researchers and industry partners will complete the modeling, monitoring, and infrastructure improvements needed before CO2 can be injected. These efforts will establish a baseline for future monitoring after CO2 injection begins. Each project will then inject one million tons or more of CO2 into a regionally significant storage formation. After injection, investigators will monitor and model the fate of the CO2 to determine the effectiveness of the storage reservoir.
The latest projects to be awarded are outlined below:
Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (MRCSP) — The MRCSP, led by Battelle Memorial Laboratories, will demonstrate CO2 storage in the Mount Simon Sandstone. This geologic formation stretches from Kentucky through Ohio and has the potential to store more than 100 years of CO2 emissions from major point sources in the region. The MRCSP will inject approximately one million tons of CO2 from an ethanol production facility. In this area of Ohio, the Mount Simon formation is approximately 3,000 feet deep. The CO2 will be injected on the facility site, and MRCSP will be responsible for development of the infrastructure, operations, closure, and monitoring of the injected CO2. The MRCSP covers Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and Michigan.
Total Project Cost: $92,846,271
DOE Share: $61,096,271
Partner Share: $31,750,000
West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (WESTCARB) — The WESTCARB Partnership, led by the California Energy Commission, will conduct a geologic CO2 storage project in the San Joaquin Basin in Central California. The project will inject 1 million tons of CO2 over 4 years into deep (7,000+ feet) geologic formations below a 50-megawatt, zero-emission power plant in Kimberlina, CA. The Clean Energy Systems plant uses natural or synthesis gas in an oxyfuel system and produces a relatively pure stream of CO2. This CO2 will be compressed and injected into one of a number of potential storage formations below the surface of the plant. WESTCARB will develop, operate, and close the injection site as well as monitor the fate of the injected CO2. The WESTCARB Partnership includes California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, and British Columbia.
Total Project Cost: $90,594,099
DOE Share: $65,606,584
Partner Share: $24,987,515
Pass the tissues. Greenbang has a nasty feeling she’s going to break some big polluters’ hearts. OK guys - brace yourselves, Greenbang is just going to say it: Greenpeace isn’t impressed with your eco-efforts. There, it’s out in the open now.
Specifically, Greenpeace is not impressed with the technique now being examined by a few big businesses, Exxon Mobil among them: carbon capture and storage (or CCS), which whips the carbon out of emissions, so it doesn’t go into the air. Instead, it’s put away underground for safe keeping.
According to the latest Greenpeace report, CCS is about as much use as a chocolate teapot. Here’s a snippet from it:
CCS cannot deliver in time to avoid dangerous climate change. The earliest possibility for deployment of CCS at utility scale is not expected before 2030. To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, global greenhouse gas emissions have to start falling after 2015, just seven years away.
CCS wastes energy. The technology uses between 10 and 40% of the energy produced by a power station.2
Wide scale adoption of CCS is expected to erase the efficiency gains of the last 50 years, and increase
resource consumption by one third.3
Storing carbon underground is risky. Safe and permanent storage of CO2 cannot be guaranteed. Even very low leakage rates could undermine any climate mitigation efforts.
CCS is expensive. It could lead to a doubling of plant costs, and an electricity price increase of 21-91%. Money spent on CCS will divert investments away from sustainable solutions to climate change.
CCS carries significant liability risks. It poses a threat to health, ecosystems and the climate. It is unclear how severe these risks will be.
What’s it like to have an angry Rockefeller on your back? Not a pleasant experience, Greenbang reckons, apart from the potentially ear-pleasing sounds of gold bullion dropping from his trouser pocket as you try to shake the blighter off.
One company who could describe the Rockefeller experience is Exxon Mobil, who recently got a slap-down from the family, which holds shares in the oil giant over lack of investment in renewables.
While there’s no word on the renewables front yet, Exxon is experimenting with clean tech in the form of carbon capture.
The company revealed this week that it’s ploughing $100 million into “development and testing of an improved natural gas treating technology” which could boost carbon capture.
Here’s more on the tech itself from Exxon:
The company plans to build a commercial demonstration plant near LaBarge, Wyoming, where it will use ExxonMobil’s Controlled Freeze ZoneTM technology, known as CFZTM. CFZTM is a single-step cryogenic separation process that freezes out and then melts the carbon dioxide and removes other components including hydrogen sulfide, which is found in so-called sour gas. If successful, the process will reduce the cost of carbon dioxide removal from produced natural gas. […]
Using the CFZ™ process, the carbon dioxide and other components are discharged as a high-pressure liquid stream for injection into underground storage or for use in reservoir management to enhance oil recovery. Besides reducing the cost of separation, transportation and reinjection, the CFZ™ process can eliminate the use of solvents, sulfur plants and carbon dioxide venting in processing of the natural gas.
The new demonstration plant will advance the CFZ™ technology to commercial application, and be located at ExxonMobil’s Shute Creek Treating Facility. It will process about 14 million cubic feet of gas per day for injection and test a wide range of gas compositions to evaluate the extent of its applicability to the world’s undeveloped gas resources.
Construction on the plant is scheduled to be finished next year, with two years of testing to follow.
Greenbang isn’t sure about the whole carbon capture thing. Not the technology of it, more the concept behind the whole thing. It’s a bit like when, as a kid, your mum asked you to clean your room and so you’d push all the mess under your bed where she wouldn’t notice it. Both aren’t really about cleaning up, more just displacing the mess for a bit.
According to Reuters, the EU is considering mandating carbon capture on fossil fuel power stations and will be discussing such a plan today.
Reuters says the European Union wants to get 12 pilot plants going by 2015 and then bring in a bit of regulation to get people onside.
Chris Davies, is the man MEP responsible for shepherding CCS legislation through the European Parliament and he told Reuters he’d like to see carbon capture tech put on power plants from 2025.
Davies is somewhat chirpy about how the power industry will take to the impending legislation.
He told Reuters:
“I found strong support from industry, and had one power plant manufacturer and one power generator saying it’s do-able.”
“But there’s a number of details to be resolved and the goal is dependent on getting the pilot projects up and running.”
In the land of the long white cloud, the Emissions Trading Scheme that sprung from the loins of the Kyoto Protocol is about as popular as windypops in an enclosed lift. The country’s Sustainability Council has put on its thinking cap, chewed the end of its biro, done a bit of number crunching and come up with this conclusion: Joe Public, not big business, will bear the brunt of the costs, and the emissions will carry on gleefully monkeying around with the environment regardless.
According to the Council, households, road users, and small and medium are only responsible for a third of the nation’s carbon gas emissions but will end up making 90 percent of the payments mandated by the emission trading scheme before 2013 - or around $4 billion kiwi dollars.
The Council says the main industrial emitters and the agricultural industry are getting off lightly, with some of their contributions getting refunded.
So, how to fix this? Get rid of the NZ-specific carbon currency, for one thing, and using the world carbon price for another, the Council reckons.
According to the Council, this is the way forward:
[the emission trading system or ETS'] central mechanism of a charge that is automatically indexed to the world price for carbon is well worth keeping and building on. It is the unnecessary creation of a new carbon currency (the NZU) that enables the massive transfers of wealth to take place off the Government’s balance sheet and out of clear sight.
Instead of creating a new carbon currency, the ETS could simply use the existing international carbon currencies that have been established under the Protocol.
Rather than offering blanket subsides to agriculture and major industries, all emitters would pay the carbon charge on the same proportion of their emissions. If spread equally in this way, the cost of the Kyoto bill would be covered if all emitters paid the world price on about a third of their emissions from 2008 to 2012. The cost would be less if emissions are reduced below expected levels.
If individual emitters face difficulties as a result, and if there are benefits to the nation in providing transitional assistance, the required subsidies could be paid transparently from the Government’s accounts.
When oil folk go shopping, what do they buy? If Dallas is anything to go by, kidney-shaped pools, shoulder pads, ten gallon hats and even more gallons of gin for the good old gals to drown their sorrows in. If this week’s news is anything to go by, they buy stakes in carbon abatement companies.
Oil conglomerate Vitol has decided to take out its wallet and avail itself of a 25 percent stake in Carbon Resource Management, a company which develops wind, biomass and coal mine methane projects which can then “enable developing countries to develop carbon abatement initiatives, with the certificates of qualifying projects being sold into industrialised countries to fund the initiatives”.
As well as putting in cash now, Vitol will be funding future development of the carbon negating goodness.
CRM is doing a lot in China on the carbon front, where it’s got one-sixth of the certified emission reductions market. It’s recently got the thumbs-up to go ahead with 12 projects in the country, including three biomass projects, seven windfarms, a hydropower scheme and a coal mine methane project.
If you’ve already turned your excess carbon into a new CD library and you’ve still got a bit left over, Greenbang suggests you get your pet scientist to turn it into a new diamond. If you’ve still got a bit spare, you might want to reduce your footprint - or ask Newcastle Uni what to do with it.
A team from the University, headed up by Michael North, Professor of Organic Chemistry, has whipped up a way of turning all that unloved carbon into cyclic carbonates.
Greenbang will assume that everyone knows what cyclic carbonates are, so no need to recap. Oh alright then, for the bloke in the back with his hand up: cyclic carbonates are used in the manufacture of stuff including solvents, paint-strippers, biodegradable packaging, as well as having applications in the chemical industry, according to Newcastle.
They can also be used as an additive to make fuel burn better. Presumably, the carbon from the fuel is then used to make cyclic carbonates, which are added to petrol, over and over again, like a crazy petrol MC Escher painting.
According to North, there’s a 48 million ton market for cyclic carbonates - that’s the equivalent of four percent of the UK’s carbon production.
Here’s how it all works, according to the Uni:
The conversion technique relies upon the use of a catalyst to force a chemical reaction between CO2 and an epoxide, converting waste CO2 into this cyclic carbonate, a chemical for which there is significant commercial demand.
The reaction between CO2 and epoxides is well known, but one which, until now, required a lot of energy, needing high temperatures and high pressures to work successfully. The current process also requires the use of ultra-pure CO2 , which is costly to produce.
The Newcastle team has succeeded in developing an exceptionally active catalyst, derived from aluminium, which can drive the reaction necessary to turn waste carbon dioxide into cyclic carbonates at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, vastly reducing the energy input required.[….]
Professor North compares the process developed by his team to that of a catalytic converter fitted to a car. ‘If our catalyst could be employed at the source of high-concentration CO2 production, for example in the exhaust stream of a fossil-fuel power station, we could take out the carbon dioxide, turn it into a commercially-valuable product and at the same time eliminate the need to store waste CO2′, he said.
Electrabel, E.ON Kraftwerke and Hitachi have decided three is not in fact a crowd, it’s the magic number for getting your head down and solving a case of bad flue.
The threesome have teamed up on a carbon capture project that will “design, build and operate a test facility to investigate the behaviour of different solvents in the process for CO2 capture from flue gases” and see how they work on a genuine flue, processing 5,000 Nm³/h.
In a move that inexplicably reminds Greenbang of the Wheelies in Chorlton and the Wheelies, the threesome said the test site “can move to locations in Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium or other European countries whatever is technically most interesting”.
Electrabel and E.ON will provide the power plant sites, Hitachi will design, set up and build the test facility and supply staff.
And there’s more:
The relatively large scale of the test installation will deliver reliable data as to allow scale-up.
In order to reconcile competitiveness, security of energy supply and the fight against climate change, the utilities Electrabel and E.ON Kraftwerke are basing their strategy on a diversification of energy sources and sustainable and flexible solutions.
Electrabel and E.ON Kraftwerke want to maintain also in future a high fuel flexibility that currently characterizes its electric power plants.
In this framework, they are interested in building knowledge and hands-on experience in Post Combustion Capture, to improve this process and prepare for possible subsequent scale-up for Post Combustion Capture on new to build or existing plants.
“Umm, I’m telling on you!” was a common refrain in Greenbang’s school days. The threat of grassing up a fellow pupil to the teachers would be enough to strike terror into the stoutest of prepubescent hearts. It must be a feeling familiar to carbon spewing cars and lorries these days. If they so happened to be sentient. Hey, it worked for the Transformers.
