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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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Friday, February 09, 2007

MIT scientists look at saline aquifers for CO2 storage

The list of potential carbon dioxide storage options is growing. Earlier, researchers found that storing the gas in a solid form as a gas hydrate, or as a pool of liquid CO2 below a cap of hydrate cemented sediments, might offer an alternative method of geological sequestration to the current practices of storage in warm, deep sediments in the North Sea (earlier post).

A new analysis led by an MIT scientist now describes another such 'carbon capture and storage' (CCS) mechanism: by injecting CO2 into saline aquifers it would be trapped naturally as tiny bubbles and safely stored in briny porous rock.

Research into CCS technologies is important, because the technique could be applied to so-called 'Bio-Energy with Carbon Storage', a radically carbon negative energy system that can take us back to pre-industrial CO2 levels in a matter of decades (earlier post).

The MIT research implies that it may be possible for a (biomass) power plant to be built in an appropriate location and have all its carbon dioxide emissions captured and injected underground throughout the life of the power plant, and then safely stored over centuries and even millennia. The carbon dioxide eventually will dissolve in the brine and a fraction will adhere to the rock in the form of minerals such as iron and magnesium carbonates:
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Carbon dioxide is one of the primary greenhouse gases contributing to global warming. Studies have shown that reducing carbon dioxide emissions or capturing and storing the emissions underground in a process called sequestration is vital to the health of our planet. But one of the biggest risks of any sequestration project is the potential leak of the injected gas back into the atmosphere through abandoned wells or underground cracks.

In a paper published in a recent issue of Water Resources Research, MIT Professor Ruben Juanes and co-authors assert that injected carbon dioxide will likely not flow back up to the surface and into the atmosphere, as many researchers fear.

"We have shown that this is a much safer way of disposing of CO2 than previously believed, because a large portion--maybe all--of the CO2 will be trapped in small blobs in the briny aquifer," said Juanes, a professor of civil and environmental engineering. "Based on experiments and on the physics of flow and transport, we know that the flow of the CO2 is subject to a safety mechanism that will prevent it from rising up to the top just beneath the geologic cap."

Researchers have considered the possibility of sequestering CO2 beneath the Earth's surface in at least three types of geologic formations: depleted oil and gas fields, unminable coal seams and deep saline aquifers. Juanes' research dealt with the third category--porous rock formations bearing brackish water that are ubiquitous underground.

The study shows that carbon dioxide could be compressed as it leaves the power plant and injected through a well deep underground into a natural sublayer consisting of porous rock, such as sandstone or limestone, saturated with saltwater. Because of its buoyancy, the injected gas will form a plume and begin to rise through the permeable rock. Once the injection stops, the plume will continue to rise, but saltwater will close around the back of the gas plume. The saltwater and CO2 will juggle for position while flowing through the tiny pores in the rock. Because the rock's surface attracts water, the water will cling to the inner surface of the pores. These wet layers will swell, causing the pores to narrow and constrict the flow of carbon dioxide until the once-continuous plume of gas breaks into small bubbles or blobs, which will remain trapped in the pore space.

"As it rises, the CO2 plume leaves a trail of immobile, disconnected blobs, which will remain trapped in the pore space of the rock, until they slowly dissolve and, on an even larger timescale, react with rock minerals," said Juanes. "It is a good example of how a process that occurs at the microscopic scale affects the overall pattern of the flow at the geologic scale."

Other co-authors are Martin Blunt of Imperial College London and Franklin Orr Jr. of Stanford University. The work was funded by industrial affiliates of the Petroleum Research Institute at Stanford.7

The paper also describes how the mechanism of capillary trapping can be exploited (e.g., by controlling the injection rate or alternating water and CO2 injection) to improve the overall effectiveness of the injection project.

The work was funded by industrial affiliates of the Petroleum Research Institute at Stanford.

Image: Carbon dioxide could be injected underground into the briny porous rock below. Most of the CO2 gas would be immobilized (light blue), trapped as small bubbles (white) in the pore space of the rock (gray). Only a small portion of the CO2 (dark blue) will continue to flow up towards the impermeable layer of caprock (yellow). Courtesy of MIT.


More information:

MIT: Storing carbon dioxide below ground may prevent polluting above - Feb. 7, 2007.
R. Juanes, E. J. Spiteri, F. M. Orr Jr., M. J. Blunt, "Impact of relative permeability hysteresis on geological CO2 storage" [abstract],- Water Resources Research, Vol. 42, 2006.



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