Tag Archives: technology
INEOS Bio Produces Cellulosic Ethanol at Commercial Scale
August 2, 2013 INEOS Bio’s Indian River BioEnergy Center in Vero Beach, Fla., is now producing cellulosic ethanol at commercial scale with the first ethanol shipments to be released this month. It is the first facility in the world using advanced bioenergy technology to convert vegetative and wood waste to renewable fuel and electricity, the company said. The production achievement stems from breakthrough gasification and fermentation technology for conversion of biomass waste, the company said. The biofuels produced in Florida will anchor the new production of cellulosic ethanol under the US Renewable Fuels Standard , according to INEOS Bio. The BioEnergy Center is a joint venture project between INEOS Bio and New Planet Energy. The facility has already converted several types of waste biomass material into bioethanol, including vegetative and yard waste, and citrus, oak, pine, and pallet wood waste. It will have an annual output of eight million gallons of cellulosic ethanol and six MW of renewable power. The center is also permitted to use municipal solid waste for bioethanol production during 2014, INEOS Bio said. Energy secretary Ernest Moniz called the project an important industry benchmark that proves the potential of early-stage investment into innovative technologies. The hybrid technology was originally developed with the support of the department, beginning in the 1990s, DOE said. The company said it is working to expand the use of the technology. The center will serve as a reference plan for companies and cities interested in licensing the technology for similar facilities. The project’s gasification-fermentation technology has its roots in a University of Arkansas research project, supported by a $5 million Energy Department investment over fifteen years. The Department’s early support helped this technology obtain a number of patents, with the core intellectual property purchased by INEOS Bio in 2008, DOE said. In 2009, the $130 million INEOS Bio-New Planet Energy joint venture was awarded a $50 million Energy Department grant to design, construct, commission and operate the Indian River BioEnergy Center, DOE said. According to the New York Times, the plant had expected to be operational by the end of last year. Among the setbacks was the transportation of methane gas from a nearby landfill to the plant’s boilers. Another problem was its reliance on the electrical grid. When thunderstorms knocked out the power grid, the plant unexpectedly shut down, and it took weeks to get it running again. Continue reading
9 killed in Indian consulate blast in Afghanistan
9 killed in Indian consulate blast in Afghanistan (Reuters) / 4 August 2013 Suicide bombers attacked the Indian consulate in Afghanistan’s eastern capital Jalalabad on Saturday, killing nine people, including children, mostly in an adjacent mosque, officials said. Twenty-three people were injured. Guards at a checkpoint stopped the three attackers as their car approached the building around 10am, the office of Gul Agha Sherzai, governor of Nangarhar province, said in a statement. Two attackers leapt out of the car and a gunfight broke out, while the third remained inside and detonated his explosives. The blast badly damaged the mosque and dozens of homes and small shops in the area. All three assailants were killed in the explosion. The Taleban, which spearheads armed opposition to Western-backed President Hamid Karzai’s government, denied it was responsible. “Explosion in front of India’s Consulate in Jalalabad. All Indians officials safe,” Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said on Twitter. The bombing followed a world-wide travel alert issued by the United States on Friday, saying that Al Qaeda could be planning attacks in August, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa. The United States has ordered the closure of 21 embassies and consulates on Sunday, including its Kabul mission. All the casualties were civilians, the governor said, though one health official said a soldier was among the injured. Most of those killed or injured were inside the adjacent mosque, according to Nangarhar police chief Mohammad Sharif Amin. India’s Kabul embassy came under attack in both 2008 and 2009, with dozens of people killed. The eastern border province of Nangarhar, and its capital Jalalabad, have long been a hotbed of insurgent activity. In June, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) decided to withdraw foreign staff and suspend some activities in the area after an attack that killed a guard and injured three others. The assault was the first of its kind on the strictly neutral ICRC in Afghanistan since it started operations in the country in 1987. On Friday, a five-hour battle between Afghan security forces and Taleban fighters in the province’s Shirzad district killed dozens of Afghan police and insurgents, officials said. Continue reading
CFI Nears One-Year Mark
31 Jul, 2013 03:30 AM MARK SIEBENTRITT THE Carbon Farming Initiative officially came to life about 12 months ago. And despite the uncertainty created by debates round Australia’s future carbon pricing legislation, the CFI is up and running and looks set to stay in some form post the next federal election. So how is it performing one year in? So far as I am aware, there are no indicators in place to judge progress with the CFI so I created a few of my own: are CFI methods being approved, are the methods getting used, and are Australian carbon credit units being issued? There would no doubt be others, but let’s take these as a start. In previous articles, I have discussed the importance of having relevant, CFI- approved methods in place. But to put it simply, without CFI methods there can be no approved projects and therefore no ACCUs generated. So how many approved CFI methods are there? When the scheme started in July, 2012, there were four approved methods, all of which had been developed by the Federal Government to get the CFI under way. Since this time, a further 16 have been approved, split equally between methods developed by the private sector and the Federal Government. Interestingly, the private-sector methods have focused solely on carbon sequestration through vegetation plantings, and avoided emissions from landfill. It could be argued that getting a method approved has been no simple task, with eight proposed methodologies not being accepted. This means that for every method proposed by the private sector and approved by the government, there is another that has been knocked back. So are the methods getting used and are we seeing projects approved? The answer is ‘yes’. At the time of writing this article, 69 projects had been approved by the Clean Energy Regulator. What is really interesting, is understanding which of the approved projects have had ACCUs issued to them. Of the 68 approved projects, only 22 have had ACCUs issued coming from only seven methods. What’s more, 87 per cent of all issued ACCUs have come from one method: the capture and combustion of methane in landfill gas from legacy waste. Furthermore, landfill related projects as a category account for 98pc of all ACCUs issued to date. All up, 1.75 million ACCUs have been issued in the first year. Applying a carbon price of $23.10 a tonne of CO2 equivalent equates to $40 million of carbon credits. While this is a good start, it’s worth remembering that this quantity of offsets equals about 0.5pc of the emissions generated by liable entities in Australia and even less of Australia’s total emissions. So if we scratch around behind the statistics what are some of the key learnings? First, emissions avoidance projects – especially landfill projects – are the front- runner in terms of generating revenue. This makes sense. Avoiding the emission of methane can result in a short turnaround time for generating ACCUs and has a 21 times multiplier in terms of generating carbon credits compared with storing carbon in trees or the soil because methane is a far more serious greenhouse gas. The approach is also well developed. Unlike some of the newer methods and thinking for generating offsets, the technology and many of the companies involved with the landfill-related projects have been around for at least two to three decades. Second, managed savannah burning has the potential to become popular and widespread in the short term. If we look at the number of projects per approved method, it is only second to the capture and combustion of methane in landfill gas from legacy waste. Because it is about avoided emissions, rather than sequestration, it also has the potential to generate revenue in the short term in the same way as landfill projects. Third, the private sector is embracing the concept of the CFI. While in the early part of 2012-13 it looked as if the Federal Government would drive development of all CFI methods, as described earlier the private sector has also chimed-in and over the course of the past year has proposed more methods in total than the Government. *Full report in Stock Journal , July 25 issue, 2013. Continue reading
