The Energy Blog

FYI: Record High Capacity Methane Storage Material Found

Science Now reports the development of a new type of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), called PCN-14, that has a high surface area of over 2000 m2/g. Laboratory studies show that the compound, composed of clusters of nano-sized cages, has a methane storage capacity 28 percent higher than the DOE target, enough to allow vehicles to travel 483 kilometers (300 miles) between fill-ups, a record high for methane-storage materials, the researchers say.

FYI: Huckabay Ridge Now Producing Renewable Natural Gas from Manure at Full Capacity

Biopact reports that Environmental Power Corporation (Nasdaq: EPG), announced that its Huckabay Ridge facility in Stephenville, Texas, has achieved full-capacity production levels of pipeline-quality renewable natural gas (RNG(R)) and has now moved into full-scale commercial operation. The facility generates methane-rich biogas from manure and other agricultural waste, conditions the biogas to natural gas standards and distributes RNG(R) via a commercial pipeline. Huckabay Ridge is expected to produce approximately 635,000 MMBtus of RNG(R) per year -- the equivalent of over 4.6 million gallons of heating oil.  . . .

In Europe, upgraded biogas is already being fed into the natural gas grid routinely and on a growing scale, but for the U.S. this is a first.
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Biogas Could Replace All EU Natural Gas Imports From Russia**

Biopact reported that biogas can replace all EU Natural Gas imports:

Last year, the German Greens (Grüne) commissioned a report on the potential of biogas in Europe. The Öko-Instituts and the Institut für Energetik in Leipzig carried out the study and came to some startling conclusions: Germany alone can produce more biogas by 2020 than all of the EU's current natural gas imports from Russia.

The growing interest in the gaseous biofuel can be easily explained: it can be produced in a decentralised manner, it is highly efficient - yielding more than twice as much energy per hectare of energy crops than ethanol from similar crops - and it can be obtained in a straightforward way from a large variety of biomass resources (organic waste, manure, dedicated energy crops). What is more, the fuel has two highly efficient uses: as a gas for CNG-capable vehicles (taking you twice around the world on a hectare's worth of biogas) as well as a fuel that can be used for the cogeneration of power and heat.

** Headline revised 12:18 pm Jan. 9, 2008

University of New Hampshire to get 80-85% of its Energy from Landfill Gas

The University of New Hampshire president Mark Huddleston recently announced that the UNH, in cooperation with Waste Management of New Hampshire, Inc., has launched EcoLine, a landfill gas project that will pipe enriched and purified gas from Waste Management’s landfill in Rochester to the Durham campus.

UNH is the first university in the nation to undertake a project of this magnitude; it will not only stabilize the university’s fluctuating energy costs but significantly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, which have doubled in the last five years and grown at an annual rate of 18.9 percent.

The renewable, carbon-neutral landfill gas, from Waste Management’s Turnkey Recycling and Environmental Enterprise (TREE) facility in Rochester, N.H., will replace commercial natural gas as the primary fuel in UNH’s cogeneration plant, enabling UNH to receive 80-85 percent of its energy from a renewable source.

“By reducing the university’s dependence on fossil fuels and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, EcoLine is an environmentally and fiscally responsible initiative,” said Huddleston. “UNH is proud to lead the nation and our peer institutions in this landmark step toward sustainability.”

Construction is set to begin immediately on a landfill gas processing plant in Rochester which will purify the gas, and the 12.7 mile underground pipeline which will transport the gas from the plant to the university’s Durham campus. UNH is expected to fuel its cogeneration plant with landfill gas by the fall of 2008. Estimated cost of the project, including the construction of a second generator at UNH, is $45 million.

EU Could use Biogas to Replace all Imports from Russia by 2020

You may have seen this on the news, but Biopact has a good article on the story.

The biogas sector has ... been scaled up to become an industry that produces quantities large enough to be fed into the main natural gas grid. More and more, dedicated biogas crops (such as specially bred biogas maize, exotic grass species such as Sudan grass and sorghum, or new hybrid grass types) are being utilized as single substrate feedstocks for large digester complexes, and biogas upgrading to natural gas standards is becoming more common. ...

Some studies in fact estimate that by 2020 the EU could replace all gas imports from Russia and produce some 500 billion cubic meters (17.6 trillion cubic feet) of gas equivalent biogas per year.

New Syngas Reactor to be Tested at Pulp Mill

Diversified Energy Corporation and Evergreen Pulp, Inc have announced that they formed a partnership and submitted a proposal to pursue an advanced gasification project based on a molten-metals reactor technology,called HydroMax®. funded by the state of California.

HydroMax is an advanced gasification system that offers significant benefits compared to conventional techniques.The process offers several critical advantages to industrial-scale customers, including a compact size for simple integration, biomass feedstock flexibility, synthetic gas (syngas) output variability, limited emissions output, and attractive economics. By leveraging proven processes from the metals and mining industries, the HydroMax technique intends to break the status-quo paradigm by delivering gasification systems at up to 50% the cost of traditional systems, with 80+% efficiency, and demonstrating high availability.

German Biogas Project Recycles Wastewater to Grow Corn

Biopact reports on the construction of a €10 million (US$13 million) biogas complex in Germany that includes a dedicated field of corn watered by wastewater, a pipeline and a combined heat-and-power plant. 

Corn will be raised on a dedicated plot of 10 square kilometers (2471 acres). The entire plant's biomass (grain, cobs, stems, leaves) will be fed to a fermentation process which produces biogas. The unpurified biogas will be pumped to the city of Braunschweig, via a 20 km (12 mile) pipeline, to a combined heat-and-power plant which converts the energy contained in it with an efficiency of almost 90%. The heat and power will satisfy the total energy demand of some 7000 households. The biogas maize will be irrigated with waste water from Braunschweig.

Methane from Wood Chips to Fuel 75,000 Cars

Biopact, Dec 7 -  Biogas from wood chips, more efficient than cellulosic ethanol. Sweden, Europe's leader when it comes using renewables, the country generates 28% of all its energy from green sources, is now taking the development of biogas as a transport fuel a step further.

By gasification of low-grade biomass such as forestry residues, Göteborg Energi AB plans on producing biogas in large quantities. Their aim is to build a biomass gasification plant with a capacity to produce enough biogas for 75,000 cars. They will convert wood chips into methane with 70% efficiency.

According to an EU well-to-wheel study of more than 70 different (fossil and renewable) fuels and energy paths, including hydrogen from wind, solar or nuclear, biogas is the cleanest and most climate-neutral transport fuel of them all.

They plan to have the plant in operation by 2011 at a cost of roughly €150 million. Since the technology employed is untested on this scale, they are depending on government or EU funding.

The large-scale use of the green gas has one major disadvantage, in that one needs dedicated cars, similar to CNG-vehicles, to use the fuel.

Methane From Coal Using Microorganisms

BASF Venture Capital America Inc., Fremont, CA, is investing $3 million in LUCA Technologies LLC, Golden, Colorado. LUCA develops biotechnology that uses microorganisms to reactivate or intensify the production of methane (natural gas) from finite fuels such as coal or oil.

This methane production is the result of indigenous populations of microorganisms that, in the absence of oxygen, metabolize the large hydrocarbon molecules present in coal and oil into smaller hydrocarbons, principally methane. The company describes these naturally occurring methane factories as "Geobioreactors(TM)".

To leverage this discovery, LUCA has undertaken a program to understand and manipulate these microorganisms in order to ultimately maximize methane production in existing Geobioreactors, and hopefully stimulate its production in currently non-reactive hydrocarbon deposits. Methane is the least polluting and most energy efficient of all the available hydrocarbon fuels.  LUCA believes that, if developed and managed properly, methane-producing Geobioreactors have the potential to meet U.S.  energy needs for the foreseeable future.

Renewable Energy Park Completed

A subsidiary of PPL Corporation (NYSE: PPL), PPL Energy Services, today marked the completion and commercial operation of a renewable energy park comprising three green energy projects in Camden County, N.J. The 3,800 kilowatt (kW) Energy Park located in Camden County, New Jersey is composed of three power generating plants and was built by PPL Energy Services, a subsidiary of PPL Corporation, which owns, operates and maintains them. Kyocera supplied over 5,000 solar modules for the park.

Two projects - a 2800-kilowatt landfill gas-to- energy power plant at the Pennsauken Sanitary Landfill and a 500-kilowatt photovoltaic (solar) power plant at Aluminum Shapes in Pennsauken, N.J. - produce power for Aluminum Shapes. The company uses the output to run a variety of applications, from presses that extrude aluminum to machines that fabricate and coat metal surfaces.