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    Spanish company Ferry Group is to invest €42/US$55.2 million in a project for the production of biomass fuel pellets in Bulgaria. The 3-year project consists of establishing plantations of paulownia trees near the city of Tran. Paulownia is a fast-growing tree used for the commercial production of fuel pellets. Dnevnik - Feb. 20, 2007.

    Hungary's BHD Hõerõmû Zrt. is to build a 35 billion Forint (€138/US$182 million) commercial biomass-fired power plant with a maximum output of 49.9 MW in Szerencs (northeast Hungary). Portfolio.hu - Feb. 20, 2007.

    Tonight at 9pm, BBC Two will be showing a program on geo-engineering techniques to 'save' the planet from global warming. Five of the world's top scientists propose five radical scientific inventions which could stop climate change dead in its tracks. The ideas include: a giant sunshade in space to filter out the sun's rays and help cool us down; forests of artificial trees that would breath in carbon dioxide and stop the green house effect and a fleet futuristic yachts that will shoot salt water into the clouds thickening them and cooling the planet. BBC News - Feb. 19, 2007.

    Archer Daniels Midland, the largest U.S. ethanol producer, is planning to open a biodiesel plant in Indonesia with Wilmar International Ltd. this year and a wholly owned biodiesel plant in Brazil before July, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The Brazil plant is expected to be the nation's largest, the paper said. Worldwide, the company projects a fourfold rise in biodiesel production over the next five years. ADM was not immediately available to comment. Reuters - Feb. 16, 2007.

    Finnish engineering firm Pöyry Oyj has been awarded contracts by San Carlos Bioenergy Inc. to provide services for the first bioethanol plant in the Philippines. The aggregate contract value is EUR 10 million. The plant is to be build in the Province of San Carlos on the north-eastern tip of Negros Island. The plant is expected to deliver 120,000 liters/day of bioethanol and 4 MW of excess power to the grid. Kauppalehti Online - Feb. 15, 2007.

    In order to reduce fuel costs, a Mukono-based flower farm which exports to Europe, is building its own biodiesel plant, based on using Jatropha curcas seeds. It estimates the fuel will cut production costs by up to 20%. New Vision (Kampala, Uganda) - Feb. 12, 2007.

    The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has decided to use 10% biodiesel in its fleet of public buses. The world's largest city is served by the Toei Bus System, which is used by some 570,000 people daily. Digital World Tokyo - Feb. 12, 2007.

    Fearing lack of electricity supply in South Africa and a price tag on CO2, WSP Group SA is investing in a biomass power plant that will replace coal in the Letaba Citrus juicing plant which is located in Tzaneen. Mining Weekly - Feb. 8, 2007.

    In what it calls an important addition to its global R&D capabilities, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) is to build a new bioenergy research center in Hamburg, Germany. World Grain - Feb. 5, 2007.

    EthaBlog's Henrique Oliveira interviews leading Brazilian biofuels consultant Marcelo Coelho who offers insights into the (foreign) investment dynamics in the sector, the history of Brazilian ethanol and the relationship between oil price trends and biofuels. EthaBlog - Feb. 2, 2007.

    The government of Taiwan has announced its renewable energy target: 12% of all energy should come from renewables by 2020. The plan is expected to revitalise Taiwan's agricultural sector and to boost its nascent biomass industry. China Post - Feb. 2, 2007.

    Production at Cantarell, the world's second biggest oil field, declined by 500,000 barrels or 25% last year. This virtual collapse is unfolding much faster than projections from Mexico's state-run oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos. Wall Street Journal - Jan. 30, 2007.

    Dubai-based and AIM listed Teejori Ltd. has entered into an agreement to invest €6 million to acquire a 16.7% interest in Bekon, which developed two proprietary technologies enabling dry-fermentation of biomass. Both technologies allow it to design, establish and operate biogas plants in a highly efficient way. Dry-Fermentation offers significant advantages to the existing widely used wet fermentation process of converting biomass to biogas. Ame Info - Jan. 22, 2007.

    Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited is to build a biofuel production plant in the tribal belt of Banswara, Rajasthan, India. The petroleum company has acquired 20,000 hectares of low value land in the district, which it plans to commit to growing jatropha and other biofuel crops. The company's chairman said HPCL was also looking for similar wasteland in the state of Chhattisgarh. Zee News - Jan. 15, 2007.

    The Zimbabwean national police begins planting jatropha for a pilot project that must result in a daily production of 1000 liters of biodiesel. The Herald (Harare), Via AllAfrica - Jan. 12, 2007.

    In order to meet its Kyoto obligations and to cut dependence on oil, Japan has started importing biofuels from Brazil and elsewhere. And even though the country has limited local bioenergy potential, its Agriculture Ministry will begin a search for natural resources, including farm products and their residues, that can be used to make biofuels in Japan. To this end, studies will be conducted at 900 locations nationwide over a three-year period. The Japan Times - Jan. 12, 2007.

    Chrysler's chief economist Van Jolissaint has launched an arrogant attack on "quasi-hysterical Europeans" and their attitudes to global warming, calling the Stern Review 'dubious'. The remarks illustrate the yawning gap between opinions on climate change among Europeans and Americans, but they also strengthen the view that announcements by US car makers and legislators about the development of green vehicles are nothing more than window dressing. Today, the EU announced its comprehensive energy policy for the 21st century, with climate change at the center of it. BBC News - Jan. 10, 2007.

    The new Canadian government is investing $840,000 into BioMatera Inc. a biotech company that develops industrial biopolymers (such as PHA) that have wide-scale applications in the plastics, farmaceutical and cosmetics industries. Plant-based biopolymers such as PHA are biodegradable and renewable. Government of Canada - Jan. 9, 2007.


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Wednesday, January 31, 2007

EU grant for biofuel capable SOFC power plants

The EU has awarded a grant of €5.8 (US$7.5) million to a European consortium undertaking a three-year project to develop Large Solid Oxide Fuel Cell-based (SOFC) power plants that run on a multitude of fuels, including biofuels (on biogas powered fuel cells, see earlier post).

The project, ‘Towards a Large SOFC Power Plant,’ started on January 1, 2007, with a total budget of €11 (US$14.2) million. The project focuses on materials, components and systems required for efficient, reliable and cost effective large scale SOFC power plants. Systems design, balance of plant component engineering, such as heat exchangers, and the processes and materials required for low cost stack production are included in the project.

Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (click image to enlarge) work at very high temperatures, typically between 700 and 1,000ºC. In these cells, oxygen ions are transferred through a solid oxide electrolyte material at high temperature to react with hydrogen on the anode side. Due to the high operating temperature of SOFC's, they have no need for expensive catalyst, which is the case of proton-exchange fuel cells (platinum). This means that SOFC's do not get poisoned by carbon monoxide and this makes them highly fuel-flexible.

The possibility for stack production will be critical for the successful commercialisation of the concept, so the project will study the production of large quantities of stack for non-pressurised CHP (combined heat-and-power) units and pressurised units producing only power. Reviewing the issues of grid connection, fuels and environmental impact are also included in the project.

The consortium expects the units to be on the market in the middle of the next decade. Success of the units will be measured by a combination of high fuel efficiencies, low emissions, multi-fuel capabilities and use of bio-fuels including gas from biomass gasification, biogas from the anaerobic fermentation of biomass and natural gas.

The use of biofuels forms part of a separate project, run by France's Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD), called 'SOFC Fuel Cell Fuelled by Biomass Gasification Gas' which aims to develop a tar decomposition and gas cleaning system that can be integrated with woody biomass gasifiers, in order to produce a gas with suitably low tar content for solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) applications. Two approaches to tar removal based on char beds - with and without bed material – will be developed and evaluated. The project will also determine the requirements of the gas cleaning system to ensure that the inorganic impurities are removed to an acceptable level. To demonstrate the feasibility, two laboratory or pilot-scale systems comprising the complete chain from gasifier to SOFC stack will be operated for 100 hours.
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SOFC-based power plants are currently under rapid development. First demonstrations can be expected in the end of the decade. Sizes of the plants will range from 20 – 50 kW to 250 kW and up to 1 MW, using pressurized and non-pressurized technologies. These units will be suitable both for CHP and power-only in distributed generation applications.

The research consortium working on the SOFC power plants is coordinated by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and comprises nine collaborators from EU member states: VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Wärtsilä, Rolls-Royce Fuel Cell Systems, Topsoe Fuel Cell, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Chimica e di Processo ‘G.B. Bonino’ - Università di Genova, Bosal Research, Verteco and Inmatec Technologies.

posted by Biopact team at 12:34 PM  

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