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.
Shenhua will launch China’s first ‘carbon capture’ project
VERY interesting news.
I am glad to see China also stepping up and employing CCS technologies at thier synthetic fuels facilities. If both the US AND China employ CCS and biomass blending in thier synfuels industries, then perhaps there is hope yet for achieveing both significant production of synthetic fuels, and reductions in lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions, on a worldwide basis.
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.
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Mercury pollution treaty proposed
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7902092.stm
This would be a good measure for improving the general state of the world environment.
Such emissions cuts are easily achievable with the use of gasification technology, which would have the associated benefit of making new power generating stations both dramatically cleaner in many other categories of pollution (SOX, NOX, ETC), and would make such facilities essentially “carbon capture ready”, so when an agreement on carbon emerges, equipment could be added on, and the carbon from such plants could be sequestered (assuming such facilities are appropriately sited).
Interesting article in the SF Gate newspaper.
They analyzed arctic ice cores, and found that the worst coal pollution occured back in the early 1900s, and that things have been improving since then. Just imagine what we can do when we go from combustion to gasification in terms of cleaning the nasties out of coal emissions.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/09/16/state/n155419D99.DTL&type=science
I recently wrote a response to a general energy piece that was posted on Grist, which is an interesting environmental news/blog site that I read regularly.
A guest contributor to the site, Michael Hoexter, posted an article that sharply criticized synthetic fuels based on info from the Natural Resources Defense Council. For those not familiar with the back story, the NRDC apparently has a problem with our industry because they have not bothered to educate themselves about the current state of the technology, and have made numberous efforts to inappropriately demonize synfuels on climate change grounds. (I guess they still have not figured out that we have the only process capable of producing carbon neutral fuels with existing commercial off the shelf technology).
It is my sincere hope that one of these days the NRDC will wake up and start working WITH us to commercialize and implement large-scale reduced or zero carbon footprint fuels production. Until then, they are only serving to confuse and slow the implementation of one of the best available tools to help alleviate global climate change, which would seem to me to be against thier charter… but then what do I know.
Anyway, the energy piece on Grist charactarized coal-to-liquids as a process that would “lead to climate disaster and resource exhaustion”.
I might have kind of taken that personally.
I wrote a lengthy response, and it seems that some have found that to be valuable information, so I thought I would post it up here for wider consumption by all.
The NRDC’s uninformed position on synthetic fuels
Michael, I must take exception at your blanket dismissal and incorrect environmental demonization of coal-to-liquids synthetic fuels.
You wrote that coal-to-liquids synfuels would “lead to climate disaster and resource exhaustion.”
First it is crucial to realize that coal-to-liquids is only one portion of a larger whole within the synthetic fuels space (which for today’s discussion we will define as gasification and Fischer Tropsch or Methanol To Gasoline conversion, producing ultra-clean gasoline, diesel , and jet fuel). Included within synthetic fuels are also Biomass-To-Liquids, which can use feedstocks such as switchgrass (read: cellulosic infrastructure-compatible diesel, jet, and gasoline fuels from proven off-the-shelf technologies), garbage, and other high-efficiency biomass sources.
The NRDC is not telling you the whole truth about the environmental performance of synthetic fuels.
Yes, if you develop thee plants wrong, and do not capture or sequester the carbon produced at the plant level, it is absolutely possible to produce a plant that will deliver a much larger lifecycle carbon footprint than the conventional fuels that they replace (corn ethanol, anyone?)
BUT! if you include CCS technology, which EVERY SINGLE SUBSTANTIAL SYNTHETIC FUELS PLANT IN THE US TODAY IS DOING, then that alone will reduce the lifecycle GHG footprint to one comparable with conventional fuels. But the story does not end there. These plants can consume a wide array of biomass feedstocks alongside coal (a concept to CBTL). These biomass sources can even include landfill garbage. And when you add biomass alongside coal, you can further reduce the lifecycle GHG footprint of these fuels, even down to the point of outright greenhouse gas neutrality, or even GHG negative.
So in essence, what I am telling you, is that the NRDC is lying to you by omission. CTL is not some horrible climate boogieman, provided the plants are developed even remotely responsibly (which they all are). In fact, if the CBTL approach is used, which is the case in at least three of the four major “CTL” synfuels projects, then the synfuels industry can and will deliver a fuel that not only dramatically outperforms existing fuels in all conventional pollutants, but also dramatically outperforms existing conventional, and ALL EXISTING NONCONVENTIONAL alternative fuels in the area of greenhouse gas emissions.
OK, so we have just established that CTL is not going to result in “climate disaster” if the projects that are developed are held to a high standard of carbon emissions control, which they all are, or they will probably not get their permits.
You second point is “resource exhaustion”. I am the first one to point out that converting our economy from oil to coal would be like taking us out of the frying pan (peak oil), and putting us right pack in the prying pan(peak coal). Doing so would be just effectively replacing one inherently depleteable fossil fuels resource with another. BUT, because these same processes can accept biomass as feedstock, you can leverage coal to make it economically and technically feasible to use these facilities as “consumers of first resort” for highly efficient second-generation biofuels and waste-to-fuel feedstocks. You can even engineer the facilities to eventually transition entirely off of coal and into advanced second-generation biorefineries. So these CTL plants can be made forwards-compatible to an eventual sustainable fuels economy.
So it is also not fair to say that CTL synfuels will result in “resource exhaustion”.
Perhaps it would be good for you to ask the NRDC why they are “omitting to mention” that CTL synfuels can be done responsibly, and are in fact doing everything they can to try and block the implementation of this economically and environmentally crucial fuels production method. Their current approach has them effectively attempting to block implementation of one of our best technical pathways to carbon neutral environmentally responsible sustainable fuels production. That would seem to me to be counter to their charter and advertised purpose. I bet it has something to do with them not liking coal (which admittedly is not without its very good reasons, I am not here to advocate blowing up Appalachia to make diesel). Still, not-liking something is not a good reason to obstruct such crucial work as the implementation of advanced second-generation fuels production.
Oh, and on your point of “there really aren’t too many of these and they don’t have political momentum anyway”, you are wrong there too.
The four leading synthetic fuels projects in the US have an announced combined capacity of 133,000 barrels per day, or 2,038,890,000 gallons per year. That is over four and a half times last year’s US output of biodiesel.
Just because the synfuels industry is not asking for a $1/gallon handout from the government, does not mean that it has little political support. These projects have been widely endorsed by unions, politicians, and civic leaders, and there are a number of bills currently under consideration to help further the development of this clean energy source.
Please do not take this comment personally. The misinformation on which you based your opinions is widely held, and as such should be reversed aggressively. My intent here is not to criticize you, but to set the record straight on this critical emerging industry.
Best Regards,
Stephen F. Johnson (no relation to the EPA)
President,
Illinois Clean Fuels
There was an interesting piece out in The Guardian today, quoting people from a number of different environmental organizations who were rightly concerned about the potential negative environmental impacts of alternative fuels production enabled by high oil prices.
Specific quotes were from members and directors of The Climate Group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Clean Air Watch.
I would like to suggest to these esteemed leaders of the environmental community that perhaps instead of constantly attempting to portray how dirty we could be, and doing everything in their power to forestall, delay, or otherwise impede crucial alternative energy development in the synthetic fuels industry, that we instead focus on and work together to achieve how clean we CAN be.
It is readily apparent that up till now the NRDC in particular has chosen to willfully deny that the synthetic fuels industry has the technology to proactively address our carbon footprint, and indeed is the only technology out there with the proven real-world technical capability to deliver a lifecycle neutral carbon footprint for conventional transportation fuels.
I would like to offer an olive branch.
Trading cherry-picked statistics, CNN-ready sound-bites, and intentional disinformation only perpetuates the heavily-entrenched battle lines that are keeping this country in an energy deadlock.
The fact is, we have the technology to produce huge quantities of ultra-clean transportation fuels cleanly, cheaply, efficiently, and in a manner that protects the environment, creates jobs, improves our energy security, and advances us down the path to sustainability.
Lets work together.
Peak oil is a real problem, and presents a greater immediate existential threat to our economy than even climate change. Oil is trading at $135/BBL and climbing, and the real-world impacts of this on people’s everyday lives are tremendous. We need these alternative fuels to keep the system working, in full combination with a concerted effort to improve efficiency and reengineer our way of lives to live sustainably within the constraints of the resources at our disposal.
I also share your deep concern for the potential impacts of these fuels on the environment if they are not produced responsibly. The truth is, if you do synthetic fuels wrong, it can be very dirty (or else the NRDC wouldn’t have any bad statistics to cherry-pick from). This is true of most types of energy production. Left unchecked, you could do FT CTL without carbon sequestration, without biomass blending, or even worse, you could do direct coal liquefaction, with very little cleanup and an absolutely horrible environmental footprint.
Or, we can use coal, in combination with the latest in proven technology and efficient new sustainable feedstocks, as a powerful springboard to sustainability. At roughly a 40% biomass blend, with CCS, our fuel becomes lifecycle greenhouse gas neutral. With a little more development work, we can run these same plants sustainably on 100% biomass (making this industry largely forwards-compatible with a sustainable energy future).
Lets work together to set a high but economically achievable standard for the first generation of development in this industry. Let’s protect the air, the water, and the American Economy, all at the same time.
High oil prices make development of alternative fuels in this country an inevitability. We can choose to do it cleanly, as a stepping stone along the path to sustainability and the end of fossil fuels dependence, or we can choose to do it dirty. I am committed to the clean route. It would be a lot easier, more efficient, and quicker to get it done working in partnership with our environmental stewards to set and implement high standards for developers in our industry. The alternative is to push through a long and sloppy process of PR campaigns, litigation, and obstruction, simply exacerbating our problems with high oil prices and foreign fuels dependence until we finally arrive, battered and weary, at a balance that we can all live with. I don’t think the country can afford those kind of delays.
High oil prices are as much an opportunity as they are a threat, and should be treated as such.
Lets work together to do this right.
Stephen Johnson
President
American Clean Coal Fuels
SGR Industry Interview http://www.syngasrefiner.com/
Stephen Johnson, president and CEO, American Clean Coal Fuels (ACCF)
SGR: With oil at $118/bbl, what is it going to take to get multiple synthetic transportation fuel-producing projects off the ground in the US?
ACCF: Well, clearly $117-$118/bbl is a great starting point. I get asked this question frequently, and I am always asked if this is so good from an environmental and economic standpoint, why hasn’t it been developed more.
And the short answer to that is that we needed about $40-$45/bbl to begin to make this a growing economic proposition. And up until just a few years ago this simply was not a condition that was present.
Given the magnitude and the lifecycle of development of a project, the industry is actually starting to come up about the most aggressive rate that anyone could anticipate without a major government incentive plan in place.
The organic development of the industry is going on a relatively healthy basis, given the relatively small community of people that really understand this process and technology.
The short answer is high oil prices, time, probably a straightforward and honest discourse on the emissions possibilities from this industry. We have certain groups out there, like the Natural Resources Defense Council that are basically lying through errors, or lying about emissions in what they are telling everyone about the environmental footprint of this technology.
The bottom line is they are opposing the development of the only technology that has the capability of reducing carbon or GHG footprints on a lifecycle basis in a large efficient way, which to me, is counter to their own mandate.
The more quickly we can get the word out that not only can this industry be clean, but it can really set the benchmark for what we should be doing. We think that the more that word gets out, the more investment dollars will flow into this base and the more developers will get interest in coming in and actually deploying.
SGR: CCS is a major capital cost for these projects that could total $300 million in some projects. What do you think its going to have to take to get this CCS side of the projects off the ground, in regards to a regulatory standpoint, as well as an investment standpoint?
ACCF: Well, again there are a number of factors. On the permitting side, CO2 is officially being considered to be a pollutant according to the Supreme Court ruling. And the CO2 issue is something that cannot be ignored by industry anymore, this is something we have to address proactively and upfront in the development process.
Realistically, capture-ready isn’t going to cut it for synthetic fuels production. If the standards we have to meet is for a fuel that is basically on par with conventional fuels, then that means that every synthetic fuels project that is going to move forward in the US, at a minimum, will have to have full carbon capture and sequestration.
So, there is a major distinction between the IGCC industry and the synthetic fuel space, in the standard that is being set there. Now certainly EOR is going to be the first target to be approached by the entire industry, because it allows us to offset the considerable costs of CCS.
So, anything that can be done to enhance the development of pipelines and help write off the extremely considerable costs of developing CO2 pipeline infrastructure will of course make it easier to do.
So once again, $117/bbl of oil helps considerably, but it will not take extremely long to get to the point where there are not anymore EOR opportunities and the industry would be forced to look at pure geological sequestration, which will be a very considerable cost center. When that time comes we will have to look anything that can be done on a policy level to help defray these capital costs for developers.
SGR: What will have to be done to shift from the perception that coal is bad and FT fuel is bad when we are facing a serious shortfall in oil and natural gas?
ACCF: Well, everybody has a high level of awareness of the potential problems associated with GHGs, but really very few people have an understanding of the true state of the global oil production infrastructure.
For the longest time we have been living in a world where everybody says I believe there is such and such amount of oil out there, but don’t have any real data to back that up with.
The bottom line is global oil reserve reporting is not perfect. A lot of this is considered to be a state secret in a lot of areas, but according to the best, educated information that we can come up with, is still not perfect, but we can see that we have a very serious problem coming, in which we should know enough to be able to start really setting up and meeting this problem head on.
Because in terms of real-world economics and at the end of the day, quality of life impacts like this are going to a have much larger and more immediate impact on everybody’s lives than global warming will.
We are just beginning to feel it now with oil hitting $117/bbl, and people are seeing this when they go to pay at the pump. That is why we are rapidly seeing a change in attitude, but the bottom line is that people really don’t understand the simple fact that we have not discovered more oil than we have produced in any single year since 1981.
Now we are pulling three and six barrels out of the ground for every one new barrel of oil that we are discovering. We were out of global reserve/production capacity, and the sooner people learn and understand that fact, the sooner we can begin to realize we have a very serious problem here and we need to start responding to it.
The wonderful thing about this industry is we truly have a mechanism here to respond to this problem and do it in a way that where not only do we produce considerable amounts of new transportation fuel, but we do it in a way where we address the climate change problem and we do it in way without creating a massive land use impact at the same time.
SGR: Do you see USAF plans to produce FT fuels bringing to light what a dire situation this is and how we have to have contingency plans and reduce fuel costs?
ACCF: Well, clearly the national security concerns alone from the USAF is a big consideration, and on top of that, the USAF and the US military have been one of the few proactive elements of the government that have recognized the imminence of the peak-oil issue and they are beginning to do something about it.
Current oil prices are the biggest driver, but the USAF’s testing and qualification efforts for FT fuels, and also their strong support as a consumer of first resort has done more than any other governmental action, by a long shot, to help the development of this industry. They have been encouraging this industry in no uncertain terms not just to do it, but do it cleanly.
SGR: What is the future of biomass, MSW and algae gasification have in this industry?
ACCF: We believe that biomass is the future of the gasification industry. Certainly coal is critical, it is our most plentiful conventional resource, it’s a resource that can and should be leveraged, as long as it can be done cleanly.
Ultimately switching from oil to coal as a primary transportation fuel source is like jumping out of the frying pan and putting ourselves right back into the frying pan. Transitioning from one geologically constrained fossil fuel resource to another.
We believe that done properly biomass can and should work along side coal, and we can use our immense coal resources to form a bridge that is ultimately going to have to be a sustainable and renewable energy infrastructure.
So, we believe that the most responsible development, environmentally and in the long-term economically, is to do our best to design these facilities that would be forward compatible with an ultimate transition to 100% renewable sources.
Now, this is not exactly within the current envelope of proven technology, but we are not far away either. This technology has the potential to be a bridge to sustainability if done properly.
We think that the technological jump from the gasification of coal and petcoke, to coal and biomass, and eventually to 100% biomass is a lot smaller of a leap than anything that is being proposed for instance with the cellulosic ethanol space.
This is known, commercial, off-the-shelf technology and the ability to gasify biomass has been demonstrated a number of times. We are not talking about is not a big technological leap.
SGR: I have heard that gasifying coal and biomass at commercial scale has not been proven. Do you think that is going to be a problem?
ACCF: That is not our experience in the gasification-technology market. We have seen where coal and biomass have been co-fed to the gasifier at the same facility.
SGR: When EOR opportunities run out, one of the options could be to capture the CO2 and feed algae farms and then gasifying the algae. What do you think about that?
ACCF: That is a technology that has tremendous potential and we are watching it very closely, but the technology isn’t quite there yet even though they’re working on it hard. There is a lot of potential to use a biological route to substantially enhance the carbon- conversion efficiency of these facilities.
SGR: Is ACCF planning any other projects besides the one in Oakland?
ACCF: We are, we have a number of different development opportunities that we are developing and we are also considering possibly expanding the Oakland facility at some point. We are keeping our primary focus on successfully completing the Oakland facility, but our intent is to develop a crack project development team that would take the lessons learned from this and start applying them to additional projects nationwide.
SGR: What areas in the US are you looking at?
ACCF: We are very comfortable with the Illinois basin and region and we are looking at Illinois and Indiana for a place to develop a project. It is a prime location. You have a combination of carbon sinks, available feedstock sources, great transportation infrastructure, and workforce availability.
So, it is a great spot to be doing this first wave of development in this industry and that is where are attention is focused at this time. But there are multiple other locations across the US that are ideal for the development of this type of technology.
Although we are very committed to biomass and will likely do a full transition that way, we are going to be looking at blending coal for at least the next 15 to 20 years. At least as long as our reserves are in place, as the US moves forward with the development of these facilities. Both economically and logistically there really is no reason to look beyond where we are looking today.
SGR: Where do you see your company in the next five years?
ACCF: Well, we are pushing very hard to have this plant online by late 2012. We are trying to set this thing up so we would have the ability to double capacity at the Oakland facility. We also have additional development prospects on the table that we are pursuing at this point. We plan to develop multiple, follow-on projects, but because of the magnitude of the plants, focus and execution are the keys for each one. So, by the end of 2012 we would be looking to fire up the project in Oakland, and turn our attention into developing additional projects through our the US.
SGR: What is the reaction or perception when you go to a financial firm to secure financing for a gasification project like the one in Oakland?
ACCF: It depends on the financial firm you talk to. To give my opinion, financial firms are absolutely thrilled to talk to us once the project is de-risked. The venture capital community is often times very intimidated by the size of these projects, and frankly most of them on the US West Coast, our experience has been when talking to a lot of these companies it is has been difficult to get their attention, because we are not claiming to develop some revolutionary new technology here.
We are developers and we are taking commercial, off-the-shelf technology and putting it together in a new, but low-risk way, to get some actual production capacity on line. Unfortunately, a lot of the US early-stage money for these projects has gone away from a real infrastructure-development focus and is more focused on technology.
Obviously, it’s huge and it is a concern but we have dealt with it very proactively in our business model and from day one we planned to do carbon-capture. I think we were the first US project to announce we would use biomass along side with coal. We have been very aggressive in dealing with the carbon footprint issues upfront.
SGR: Is the rate of return on the investment a big issue for investors?
ACCF: With oil as high as it is, it hasn’t been a large concern. We focused our entire package on risk mitigation. We are vertically integrated with our feedstock source that has calmed a lot of concerns about what happens if our input costs really go up. Most of the considerations are about the development, permitting process and getting the deal de-risked before you look to close construction financing.
SGR: Is there anything I forgot to ask that you would like to add?
ACCF: We view the FutureGen Project delay as being very unfortunate because some full-scale experience with pure geological storage as opposed to an EOR application, we think would become very important, rapidly, as the EOR opportunities will likely be taken up by the first several projects to come online. From our perspective we would like to see that happen as quickly as possible.
SGR: I don’t understand really what the government is doing now with FutureGen. They are talking about studying and financing CCS, but they are not moving forward with any R&D on IGCC now.
ACCF: Well, also the US Congress approved substantial support for the synthetic fuels industry in one of the previous energy bills, and failed to appropriate any money to help those initiatives advance as well. All I can say is the government works in mysterious ways.
There have been a number of recent articles talking about the tightness in global coal markets, and rapidly rising prices. This is a help for our project during the development stage, as it makes the mining portion of our project more profitable during it’s development phase while the synthetic fuels plant is still being constructed.
Below are some links to several great CNBC spots talking about the strength of the
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=629623375
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=643855788
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=641607231&play=1
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=638928307&play=1
Here is are some links to recent Forbes and Wall Street Journal articles that provides a good overview of the current global factors that are playing into the current tightness of the international coal markets:
This article in the
They discuss the recent Energy Watch Group report http://www.energywatchgroup.org/fileadmin/global/pdf/EWG-Coalreport_10_07_2007.pdf from