Tag Archives: fuel
Energy Consumption In The U.S. By Source & Sector
By Kolby Hoagland | August 09, 2013 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory recently released an energy consumption chart categorized by source and sector. Copied below, the chart details the quantities of energy of the various primary fuels and the derived usable energy delivered to the residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation sectors. The chart also specifies the amount of energy that the generation of electricity consumed and where the electricity was ultimately used. In total, the U.S. consumed 95.1 Quads of energy (1 Quad = 1,000,000,000 MMBtu) in 2012, down 2.2 Quads from 2011. Biomass made up 5% of the primary fuels consumed, while fossil fuel made up 82%. The use of renewables in the U.S.’s energy portfolio has grown in recent years, increasing from 7.3% of the total primary fuels in 2008 to 9.3% in 2012. Surprisingly though, the energy infrastructure in the U.S. became considerable more inefficient in the amount of useful energy that was derived from the primary fuels. From 2008 to 2011 , between 42.3% and 42.9% of the bound energy in the primary fuels was converted into usable energy services. The rest of the bound energy that was not used in an ‘energy service’ was lost to heat (out of a tail pipe or smokestack, for example) or via other routes of loss. In 2012, however, the efficiency of the energy infrastructure converted 38.9% of the energy in the fuel to useful energy, representing a decrease of roughly 3.5%. I ntrinsic losses during the production of usable energy are unavoidable, particularly with combustion. There are, however, various technological advancements that allow a variety of proven strategies to improve the overall efficiency that usable energy is produced, for example: CHP plants, hybrid auto-mobiles, super-critical boiler, etc.. The decrease seen in 2012 is hopefully an anomaly, and increases in the overall efficiency will be observed as older, inefficient power plants, automobiles, space heating systems are retired. Biomass and other renewables have a large part play in a more sustainable energy infrastructure. Yet, beyond renewables, gains in the efficiency of how energy is currently produced need to be exhaustively pursued if climate mitigation goals have any chance of being reached. Continue reading
Turning Waste Into Energy
Aug. 8, 2013, 1:32 p.m. A new direction in fuel? Image source: www.gizmodo.com.au New Forests and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (“CEFC”) have announced they have jointly executed a collaboration agreement to finance new bioenergy and biofuel developments. The new investments could include combined heat and power projects or renewable fuels projects featuring biodiesel or syngas associated with forestry investments in regional Australia. New Forests has invested in extensive forestry plantations in Australia, and the agreement may support establishment of new domestic markets for hardwood and softwood timber as well as traditional forestry and sawmill waste products. Under the collaboration agreement, New Forests will seek to develop commercially-oriented investment opportunities in renewable energy that complement regional forest sectors. New Forests’ managing director, David Brand, said, “This is an opportunity to diversify Australian markets for timber, turn waste material into energy, and create new jobs and investment in rural Australia. We see biomass based energy and liquid fuels as an area of substantial potential for growth, and an opportunity that could rival the size of traditional timber markets in the next ten or 20 years.” CEFC CEO, Oliver Yates, said “This is an excellent demonstration of how the CEFC can work with the forestry industry to enable bioenergy projects that will fulfil the potential for the industry to convert its waste products into a valuable renewable energy source. Investment in bioenergy can help reduce carbon emissions, lessen the reliance on traditional electricity and has the potential to boost productivity through reduced energy and operating costs.” Bioenergy presently provides 0.9 per cent of Australia’s electricity generation, but the Clean Energy Council estimates that this has the potential to increase six-fold by 2020 with the right support in place. “Linking Australia’s very significant forestry resources and skills and enhancing these through new clean energy technologies utilising cellulosic biomass will build a new industry of national value”, Mr Yates added. New Forests’ investments already include 375,000 hectares of land and timber plantation assets in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and Western Australia and Timberlink Australia, with two softwood sawmills located in Tasmania and South Australia. Many of these plantations were established under managed investment schemes and now need concerted effort to develop markets and infrastructure. “Market development is a key part of the work that needs to be done to reposition Australia’s plantation forestry sector for the future,” Mr Brand said. “As an Australian business we seek to achieve excellent returns for investors, and innovation is a key part of that work,” he said. The collaboration agreement is open to any projects brought forward by New Forests that meet the CEFC investment criteria. New Forests has identified a bioenergy plant in the Green Triangle alongside the Tarpeena sawmill as an immediate priority, as well as an assessment of the potential to use hardwood plantations for bioenergy and biofuel production at other locations. www.cleanenergyfinancecorp.com.au Continue reading
EPA Slashes Cellulosic Biofuels Mandate
August 7, 2013 The EPA has slashed the amount of cellulosic biofuels that refiners must blend into their gasoline and diesel, from its initial proposal for 14 million gallons of cellulosic biofuel to 6 million gallons in the final 2013 requirement. The rule, issued yesterday, sets percentage standards for four fuel categories that are part of the Renewable Fuel Standard program. The final 2013 overall volumes and standards require 16.55 billion gallons of renewable fuels to be blended into the US fuel supply— a 9.74 percent blend. This standard specifically requires: Biomass-based diesel (1.28 billion gallons; 1.13 percent) Advanced biofuels (2.75 billion gallons; 1.62 percent) Cellulosic biofuels (6 million gallons; 0.004 percent) The biomass -based diesel and advanced biofuels requirements are the same as originally proposed by the agency in February. In all, the 2013 quotas represent an almost 9 percent increase over the 2012 mandated renewable fuel volume of 15.2 billion gallons. The EPA is also giving refiners more time to comply with the 2013 volume requirements by expending the deadline by four months, to June 30, 2014. During this rulemaking, the agency says it received comments from a number of stakeholders concerning the “E10 blend wall.” Projected to occur in 2014, the E10 blend wall refers to the difficulty in incorporating ethanol into the fuel supply at volumes exceeding those achieved by the sale of nearly all gasoline as E10. Most gasoline sold in the US today is E10. In the final rule issued yesterday, the EPA said it will propose to use flexibilities in the Renewable Fuel Standard statute to reduce both the advanced biofuel and total renewable volumes in the forthcoming 2014 Renewable Fuel Standard volume requirement proposal. In January, a US federal court struck down the 2012 Renewable Fuel Standard target for refiner use of cellulosic biofuels, which stood at 8.65 million gallons, but upheld the government’s goal for use of other advanced fuels. The EPA says the final 2013 standard for cellulosic biofuel announced today was developed in a manner consistent with the approach outlined in that ruling. The American Petroleum Institute (API) had filed a lawsuit against the EPA over the cellulosic biofuel target. There was no commercial production of the fuel last year, BusinessWeek notes. Despite the lower cellulosic biofuel requirement and extended deadline, some oil industry groups aren’t happy with the EPA’s final ruling. API president and CEO Jack Gerard called the 2013 biofuel mandates a “missed opportunity to fix the problem” and called on Congress to “immediately repeal the broken mandate,” echoing earlier calls by API and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers for a complete repeal of the Renewable Fuel Standard . The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), on the other hand, applauded the ruling and said it provides advanced biofuel developers and investors with confidence that if they can produce advanced and cellulosic biofuels, they will have market access. Efforts to repeal the program are “motivated solely by the oil refining industry’s desire to block competition and consumer choice at the pump,” said Brent Erickson, executive vice president of BIO’s Industrial & Environmental Section. The Energy Independence and Security Act established the Renewable Fuel Standard program and the annual renewable fuel volume targets, which steadily increase to an overall level of 36 billion gallons in 2022. To achieve these volumes, the EPA calculates a percentage-based standard for the following year. Based on the standard, each refiner and importer determines the minimum volume of renewable fuel that it must ensure is used in its transportation fuel. Continue reading
