DoD Can Enter Synfuel Contracts With Long Terms If Low GHG | Coal Gasification News
This is potentially a huge help for our industry. One of the best things the government can do to help speed development of clean domestic fuel sources is to be a strong “consumer of first resort”.
Coal-To-Liquid Fuels Have Lower GHG Than Some Refined Fuels | Coal Gasification News
Here is a good article referencing results from a fabulous study released by NETL in January.
The conclusion: as long as CCS is included, CTL fuels have a lower footprint than conventional fuel. And of course, if you add biomass, this process has the capability of reaching net zero emissions or better.
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Biomass energy ‘could be harmful’
An excellent article that makes some points that should be considered VERY CAREFULLY by those of us looking to use significant amounts of biomass in our projects.
If “sustainable” feedstocks are not produced sustainably (read, the bad-news aspects of many of today’s “industrial agrofuels”), then we have just defeated the purpose.
This kind of falls into the category of one of Richard Heinberg’s “5 axioms of sustainability” (if you have not read those, I suggest you do. I keep them summarized on a sheet, posted to the wall next to my computer. avaliable here: http://www.richardheinberg.com/museletter/178).
1. (Tainter’s Axiom): Any society that continues to use critical resources unsustainably will collapse.
Exception: A society can avoid collapse by finding replacement resources.
Limit to the exception: In a finite world, the number of possible replacements is also finite.
2. (Bartlett’s Axiom): Population growth and/or growth in the rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained.
3. To be sustainable, the use of renewable resources must proceed at a rate that is less than or equal to the rate of natural replenishment.
4. To be sustainable, the use of non-renewable resources must proceed at a rate that is declining, and the rate of decline must be greater than or equal to the rate of depletion.
The rate of depletion is defined as the amount being extracted and used during a specified time interval (usually a year) as a percentage of the amount left to extract.
5. Sustainability requires that substances introduced into the environment from human activities be minimized and rendered harmless to biosphere functions.
In cases where pollution from the extraction and consumption of non-renewable resources that has proceeded at expanding rates for some time threatens the viability of ecosystems, reduction in the rates of extraction and consumption of those resources may need to occur at a rate greater than the rate of depletion.
In my mind, these are principles that should underpin the implementation of the whole next generation of sustainable energy infrastructure.
- Stephen
Bioethanol’s Impact On Water Supply Three Times Higher Than Once Thought - Science Daily
Very interesting. More reason to go to dramatically lower water using synthetic fuels.
There was a nice article on our project in this weekend’s edition of the Portland Business Journal:
http://coalgasificationnews.com/2009/02/28/doe-secretary-chu-reduces-time-required-for-loan-approval-process/
This is good news. The previous attempts at implementation of EPACT2005 guarantees, among others, were painfully slow to the point of commercial inviability. Hopefully Secretary Chu will be able to markedly improve the process.
It’s bad times for those in the corn ethanol business.
Hat tip to Martin Tobias for the link to the story followed from his blog (see the blogroll, bottom right).
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=azPOyrCia8Nc&refer=exclusive
For a visual reference point on why corn ethanol is a bad idea from an energy standpoint, consider the following:
The two images below represent the land area required to produce biomass feedstock required to produce a quantity of fuels equal to 100% of the output of the ICF synfuels plant (which will achieve a dramatically lower GHG footprint and cost of production than corn ethanol).
The image on the top in yellow is if the output were achieved with corn ethanol. The image on the bottom is if a cellulosic bioenergy crop called Miscanthus was used (this feedstock IS compatible with our process).
Taking this much corn out of the food chain removes an amount of food adequate to meet the basic annual calorie requirements of 29,000,000 people…
We are also completely ignoring the energy balance issues here, so if one took into account the energy burned in the growing process (and therefore how much actual energy profit was available for the rest of the economy to use), corn would look very dramatically worse.
Of course, since we will use coal and waste biomass, not an agriculturally sourced feedstock, we will produce the same output, with no impact at all on land use and food production…
NRDC? Sierra Club? Bueller?
There is a new Associated Press article by Chris Kahn on alternative aviation fuels that prominently features synthetic fuels.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ic0mnVmu2Lx9_yVdaGp46ysGo3ZwD92IT2J01
Good to see the word starting to get out there.
As the article mentioned, we probably wont be able to drop the price of jet fuel, but we can certainly do our part to help keep it from going up more, and we can DEFINITELY make it a lot cleaner.
We are looking forward to working with the airlines at the upcoming CAAFI meeting in September.
