See on Scoop.it – Green & Sustainable News
Want clean air? Sometimes it takes just a few simple changes. New York City, in partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund, has a great story to tell about
>… Just recently, New York City and EDF through the city’s Clean Heat Program converted over 1,200 boilers to the cleanest available fuels reducing over 150 tons of soot pollution, or particulate matter (PM2.5), from the air.<
See on thegreenregister.com
See on Scoop.it – Green & Sustainable News
Ohio lets energy companies keep emergency-management officials in the dark about the fracking chemicals they use. The EPA says that has to stop.
See on grist.org
See on Scoop.it – Green Energy Technologies & Development
Aemetis, Inc. (OTCQB: AMTX), an advanced fuels and renewable chemicals company, announced today that the Aemetis 60 million gallon per year capacity ethanol facility in Keyes, California has completed planned maintenance and preparations for the production of Advanced Biofuel under recent EPA rulings, and is now restarting production.
The plant will start up using corn as the principal feedstock, with grain sorghum or a feedstock blend used after startup to maximize operating income. In December 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the use of grain sorghum feedstock along with biogas in a combined heat and power system to produce an Advanced Biofuel containing approximately 50% lower carbon content than gasoline. Advanced Biofuel generates D5 Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) that have traded at a premium to traditional ethanol D6 RINs.
[…] “About $5 million of capital investment and new working capital has been invested since mid-January for maintenance and to enable the plant to produce Advanced Biofuel in a flexible configuration that enables the use of multiple feedstocks and energy sources.”
McAfee added, “The Keyes plant has sustainable cost advantages in Advanced Biofuels production. The plant’s location enables both rail and ocean shipping access to advanced biofuel feedstock from lower-cost supply sources. The Keyes plant is also equipped with an energy-efficient Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system to reduce energy costs and decrease the carbon content of fuel. By using grain sorghum feedstock and sourcing biogas for the CHP system instead of natural gas, the Keyes facility is now able to produce Advanced Biofuel to support EPA requirements for advanced fuels.”
See on online.wsj.com
See on Scoop.it – Green Energy Technologies & Development
NEW YORK, April 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue:
Global Markets for Gasifiers
INTRODUCTION
Gasification is a centuries–old thermochemical energy conversion technology that has slowly achieved modernity over the decades. The technology is undergoing its third evolutionary surge. Fuel shortages in WWII spurred widespread adoption for vehicle fuels. The oil crisis 1973 spurred a re–evaluation and renewed development. Rising oil prices, globally increasing fuel demand, and overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change have spurred this last leg to full industrialization.
The central concept of gasification is that by raising carbon–rich materials to high temperatures in an oxygen–deficient containment, the material will break down thermochemically instead of burning. If the same material is combusted (burned), it emits carbon monoxide and a host of pollutants, besides being incompletely consumed. If gasified, the products are hydrogen (H2), carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2). This is synthetic gas, simply called “syngas.” It can be burned, captured, stored, or its molecules rearranged to form fuels and chemical feedstocks.
The process is moderately more efficient than incineration, has significantly fewer emissions and waste, and the syngas can be shaped into a myriad of products for power production, chemical industries, liquid fuels, and heat.
Feedstock for gasification can be coal, the organic components of municipal waste, industrial waste streams, chemical feedstocks, forestry residues, forest products and crop residues, medical waste, unrecycled plastic or, in the case of plasma gasifiers, almost any nonradioactive material.
A gasifier is the central component of a gasification plant. Surrounding it are the feedstock conditioning and delivery systems, oxygen, steam and air input systems, waste removal components, syngas cooling and cleaning systems, power plants, heat recovery units, Fischer–Tropsch molecule rearrangers, and so on. This report focuses on the markets for gasifier units that are in place and will be installed by application segment and geographic location through the year 2017.
See on online.wsj.com
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Lycoming County was one of seven places in the country to receive the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s award for excellence in landfill gas energy projects for 2012.
Yaw, who was present at Thursday’s presentation at the commissioners’ meeting, said he frequently became frustrated when driving by the landfill and seeing excess methane being flared off.
“We’re utilizing all of the landfill methane (now). We’re not flaring anything,” said Tucker.
The county’s waste gas-to-energy project produces enough electricity to power 4,000 homes a year and has the equivalent reduction of 80,000 barrels of oil a year, according to PPL Renewable Energy.
Donna Zickefoose, Allenwood Federal Correctional Complex warden, said the local institution is the first federal prison to be involved in such a project. She said it will save the prison $5 million during the next decade.
See on www.sungazette.com
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Low gas prices, state incentives, environmental regulations and the retirement of old power plants helps fuel rising investment in combined heat and power (CHP) installations in the US, according to a Department of Energy (DOE) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report.
Obama’s CHP initiative
The 40GW CHP expansion goal is based on a 2012 Executive Order from Obama which encourages the Departments of Energy, Commerce, and Agriculture, and the EPA […] to coordinate policies in order to encourage investment in industrial efficiency measures such as CHP.
The installation of a further 40MW of capacity would save about 1 quadrillion Btu of energy annually, eliminate over 150 million metric tons of CO2 emissions and save energy users some $10 billion a year.
Shale gas revolution helps spur CHP growth
Currently about 8 percent of US power generation capacity and 12 percent of MWh generated annually comes from CHP, according to the DOE report, while 87 percent of CHP installations support manufacturing plants.
The recent US shale gas revolution has helped spur renewed interest in the sector, after investment in new CHPs slowed down between 2004 and 2005, mainly due to volatile gas prices and an uncertain economic outlook.
See on gastopowerjournal.com
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Natural gas and oil production is the second-biggest source of U.S. greenhouse gases, the government said, emboldening environmentalists who say tighter measures are needed to curb the emissions from hydraulic fracturing.
[…] the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the first time included oil and natural- gas production. Emissions from drilling, including fracking, and leaks from transmission pipes totaled 225 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide equivalents during 2011, second only to power plants, which emitted about 10 times that amount.
The EPA report on oil and gas looked at emissions from basins, or large production areas, not individual wells. Among the top emitters were ConocoPhillips’ operations in the San Juan basin in New Mexico, and Apache Corp.’s operations in the Permian basin in Texas. Both companies are based in Houston.
See on www.bloomberg.com
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