sfj4076’s Recent Comments

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  RE CCS, etc: Biodiverivist, gryfalcon, mr. hoexter

  To biodiversivist, I am sorry sir, but you are badly mistaken about the current state of development of CCS technology, as well as the costs of such development, and the mechanics of lifecycle carbon emissions.

  You said:

  "Carbon capture technology is about as close to reality as breeder fission, fusion, fuel cells, and the hydrogen economy. And even if carbon capture ever gets perfected, you end up with a fuel just as carbon intensive as what we use today but at even greater costs. "

  There are a number of full commercial scale CCS projects actively working today:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage#E ...
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  As of 2007, four industrial-scale storage projects are in operation. Sleipner [8] is the oldest project (1996) and is located in the North Sea where Norway's StatoilHydro strips carbon dioxide from natural gas with amine solvents and disposes of this carbon dioxide in a deep saline aquifer. The carbon dioxide is a waste product of the field's natural gas production and the gas contains more (9% CO2) than is allowed into the natural gas distribution network. Storing it underground avoids this problem and saves Statoil hundreds of millions of euro in avoided carbon taxes. Since 1996, Sleipner has stored about one million tonnes CO2 a year. A second project in the Snøhvit gas field in the Barents Sea stores 700,000 tonnes per year. [16]

  The Weyburn project is currently the world's largest carbon capture and storage project.[16] Started in 2000, Weyburn is located on an oil reservoir discovered in 1954 in Weyburn, southeastern Saskatchewan, Canada. The CO2 for this project is captured at the Great Plains Coal Gasification plant in Beulah, North Dakota which has produced methane from coal for more than 30 years. At Weyburn, the CO2 will also be used for enhanced oil recovery with an injection rate of about 1.5 million tonnes per year. The first phase finished in 2004, and demonstrated that CO2 can be stored underground at the site safely and indefinitely. The second phase, expected to last until 2009, is investigating how the technology can be expanded on a larger scale.[17]

  The fourth site is In Salah, which like Sleipner and Snøhvit is a natural gas reservoir located in In Salah, Algeria. The CO2 will be separated from the natural gas and re-injected into the subsurface at a rate of about 1.2 million tonnes per year.
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  As for the cost and efficiency hit (as greyfalcon alluded to before), yes, doing CCS is not cheap, but many in this forum will make the argument that we should not use coal at all if we cannot do something about the carbon issues. It is worth taking the energy hit to do it cleanly, because otherwise the resource would be stranded.

  So the question is not "is it more expensive than conventional coal power generation?" (again mixing up electricity and transportation fuels, common mistake).

  The question is "Despite the costs of CCS and biomass blending, are synthetic fuels economically, technically, and logistically feasible, despite the not-insubstantial costs (both operating and capital) of making them in a carbon-controlled-to-neutral-or-better manner?" To which the answer is a resounding YES. (which is why there are at least three such projects underway in the US today).  

  As demonstrated above, it is well within the realm of technically proven technology.

  To address Mr. Hoexter's saftey point,
  Yes, like everything in the energy industry, there are safety considerations. The geological formations used for sequestration MUST be stable, and the sequestration must be done is such a way that there is no potential for a massive sudden release. The geology around co2 storage is fairly well understood. We have been pumping natural CO2 formations near Utah and pipelining it down to Texas for EOR since the '70s.

  Back to biodiverstist's cost concerns,
  I am curious how you come to the conclusion that these cost factors will make it uneconomic, or higher cost than existing systems, because I am actively developing one such project, and our extensively researched figures are fully competitive with conventional oil down to $60/BBL, including full CCS and biomass blending.

  I am also curious why you have concluded that the fuels will be just as carbon intensive?  Clearly, carbon is emitted when the fuels are burned, and at about the same rate as conventional diesel, but the more important question is "Where did that carbon that was just emitted when the fuels were burned come from?"

  That is why biomass blending is so critical. You can source the portion of the carbon feed that ends up in the fuels, and that is not captured and sequestered during the conversion process, from biomass (effectively pulling the CO2 from the air), instead of from coal (which is clearly pulling it from the ground).  This means that on a lifecycle basis, you are storing as much carbon as you pull out of the ground in coal via CCS, and you are sourcing the carbon that ends up in the fuels (and is ultimately re-emitted), from the air via biomass. This gets you to lifecycle carbon neutral (and yes, you have to to real LIFECYCLE carbon accounting, meaning you have to look at the WHOLE lifecycle, including planting, harvesting processing transportation, ETC.)

  Another great advantage of gasification technologies is that most of these systems have already been fully proven and demonstrated at full scale, and under strict regulatory requirement, meaning that you are not going to have any surprises about what is in the byproducts, what is emitted at the plant level, ETC.

  So in conclusion, this technology IS proven at scale, IS economically viable, and IS environmentally sound, so we ought to get busy developing it on a wider scale.

  Best Regards,

  Stephen F. Johnson (no relation to the EPA)
  President
  Illinois Clean FuelsOn The five transport energy solutions and one imperative posted 1 year, 2 months ago 34 Responses

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  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 FuelsOn The five transport energy solutions and one imperative posted 1 year, 3 months ago 34 Responses

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  There IS IGCC with CCS

  Sorry to comment on a comment, but:

  "no IGCC with cO2 sequestration has ever been built, not even experimentally"

  Technically speaking, that is not correct. The Great Plains gasification facility, that feeds the Weybourne CO2 sequestration project, is a gasification based synthetic natural gas plant, but that the plant has it's own power block, which technically speaking is it's own internal IGCC plant. It matters not that the primary output of the facility is synthetic natural gas, as it is just a change in process equipment, but effectively the Great Plains Synfuels Plant can be considered to be a working example of a full scale IGCC plant process doing co2 sequestration. (It just happens to be using all of the electricity it generates internally, and then putting most of the facility's energy output into synthetic natural gas). On When 'hand wringing' isn't enough posted 1 year, 8 months ago 4 Responses

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  Developing sustainable sustainable fuels.

  This is an important factor to pay attention to (along with land use, food vs fuels, ecosystem services, ETC) as we develop new large-scale bio-energy sources.

  However, I have been delighted to learn that at least some of the new "cellulosic" bio-energy crops are not substantially fertilizer intensive. In fact, beyond weed control on initial establishment of the crop, some such as giant miscanthus do not require any fertilizer inputs, and are remarkably efficient at nutrient recycling.

  Richard Heinberg's third axiom of sustainability is that "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."

  If sustainability is the goal, this is something that all bio-fuels suppliers must aspire to achieve.

  This is difficult/impossible to achieve with most current approaches to conventional biofuels, but some of the new second-generation approaches might just work.

  I am developing a synthetic fuels plant in Illinois, and as we gradually transition from coal feedstocks to renewables, and if waste sources are not available, the next best bet is cellulosic bio-energy sources. We are applying a thermochemical conversion process, so we do not need any of the nutrient components of the plant. We are looking for BTUs, so low nutritional content in the grasses is not an issue.

  Dr. Stephen Long and the University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana is doing the world-leading research on Miscanthus Giganteus. It is a fairly spectacular crop. Extremely high yields, noninvasive, and it recycles the nutrients back down into the rhizome prior to harvest, making it extremely efficient in retaining and efficiently recycling soil nutrients. It is planted once, and then grows for 30 years or more, meaning you don't have to till the soil, and you actually keep the crop in the fields until late winter, providing a much higher level of ecosystem services for wildlife until harvest.

  I have personally focused on nitrogen up to now (it requires no nitrogen fertilizers), so I don't know specifically about phosphorus, but my present understanding is that this cellulosic bio-energy crop requires no fertilizer inputs.

  You can learn more about it here: http://miscanthus.uiuc.edu/

  So I guess what I am saying is that phosphorus is not necessarily the Achilles heel of cellulosic bio-energy. Some approaches to it? Probably. But not all.

  As economics allow, and we make the gradual transition over to efficient second-generation biofuels, I believe that with proper research and implementation there is indeed a way to produce substantial quantities of transportation fuels efficiently and cleanly. We are doing it at our plant in Illinois.

  I am not necessarily arguing a technofix here. Can we match our current consumption rates sustainably? Probably not. So efficiency and reducing our society's energy intensity will be a critical parallel initiative, but if we put our energy to it and work together, we can still meet the economy's needs without compromising the environment.

  Best Regards,
  Stephen Johnson
  President
  American Clean Coal FuelsOn Can a 'renewable fuel' rely on mining a finite resource? posted 1 year, 8 months ago 19 Responses

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  Actually, liquid coal 'aint so bad (if done right)

  Christopher, actually some studies on CTL+CCS show a slight reduction in lifecycle CO2, but that is not the important point.

  The important point is that the same plants that are doing CTL+CCS can incorporate a biomass component in thier feedstock mix, as many players in the CTL space are now starting to do, and actually produce a fuels with a dramatic reduction in lifecycle CO2. This process is the only process I am aware of that is both commercially ready and technically capable of producing a fuels with a lifecycle neutral CO2 footprint.

  It is unfortuante that the NRDC and others continue to conspicuously omit this fact in thier discussion of coal-derived synthetic fuels. Seems kind of counter to thier supposed goal of driving implementation of large-scale fuels production with a reduced or neutral carbon footprint...

  They would much better serve thier mission if they were to call for responsible development practices, as opposed to distoring the truth via omission, to try and stop an emerging industry that has a realistic major piece of the solution to both our energy security AND our climate change problems. On Coal lobbyists step up their game posted 1 year, 9 months ago 7 Responses