Tag Archives: thursday
Kedco Shares Up As It Chooses Contractor For Enfield Biomass Plant
Thu, 10th Oct 2013 10:39 LONDON (Alliance News) – Kedco PLC Thursday said it has chosen a preferred contractor to build its Enfield Biomass plant and a preferred partner to buy the electricity the plant will produce, while its Pluckanes wind turbine project had started exporting electricity to the grid. The renewable energy developer said it has chosen MWH Global Inc as preferred construction contractor on the 12 megawatt Enfield plant while Statkraft Markets GmBH is its preferred partner for the purchase of all the electricity generated by the plant. It said is continuing to work with “a large multinational, located close to the Enfield Project,” wghich will buy all of the heat generated by the project. Kedco added that it is continuing to work with the Foresight Group on financing for the project and due diligence has commenced. It hopes to reach financial close during the fourth quarter and start construction immediately afterwards. The company’s 800 kilowatt Pluckanes windfarm has been energised and is now exporting to the national grid, it said in a statement. Elsewhere, it said it has taken longer-than-expected to get agreement on a site for a biomass plant in Plymouth, but expects a deal shortly. Kedco shares were up 7.1% at 0.525 pence Thursday morning. By Steve McGrath; stevemcgrath@alliancenews.com; @stevemcgrath1 Continue reading
Turning Wood Chips Into Gasoline? NJ Firm Hopes To
Published: Thursday, 3 Oct 2013 By: Brad Quick, CNBC field producer Source: Primus Green Energy View from the north side of the demonstration plant. A New Jersey company has opened an energy facility that converts cheap natural gas into gasoline, and the firm hopes to eventually convert biomass—wood chips or switchgrass, for instance—and even to make jet fuel. The process being carried out by Primus Green Energy at its synthetic gas-to-gasoline, or “STG+,” facility, which launched Wednesday, is not new, but the size and efficiency of this particular plant are. Primus hopes to create about 100,000 gallons of gas a year—a small amount compared with modern oil refineries, but still making it the largest facility of its kind anywhere in the world, Primus said. Primus takes cheap natural gas and through a chemical process, converts it into more expensive gasoline that can power your car. Primus is using the new plant as a testing facility, a scaled-down version of how it hopes its future plants will operate. The company hopes the operation will be enough to show investors that the technology is both economically feasible and possible to build on a larger scale. Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst with Raymond James, said Primus has to prove it can raise capital before it can be successful. “This is an early stage company. They’ve yet to produce gasoline commercially. It’s going to take some time to scale up,” Molchanov said. “With any scale up comes the need for a large amount of capital. Raising capital is never easy, particularly for an early stage business.” To date, Primus has raised about $60 million, all of it through an investment from IC Green Energy, the renewable energy arm of Israel Corp . Primus is working with Credit Suisse to raise additional capital by the end of the year. ( Read more : Six myths about renewable energy) A larger facility that will produce 28 million gallons a year, which the company hopes have built by 2016, will cost roughly $280 million. That’s cheaper than what it would cost to build an oil refinery of the same size. Natgas price worries? Not really, says CEO Source: Primus Green Energy Primus Green Energy CEO Robert Johnsen Molchanov said he sees the cost of natural gas as another potential headwind. “If natural gas prices go up, it would not be helpful for their margins,” he said. “I’d like to see what would happen if prices doubled.” Primus CEO Robert Johnsen said that’s not a scenario that keeps him up at night. The natural gas industry just released its winter forecast, and both supply and demand look as if they’ll remain steady, with prices hovering at around $3.47. Johnsen estimates that at current natural gas prices, it costs him about $1.65 to create one gallon of gasoline, far cheaper than the big oil refiners. And with those kinds of margins, prices would need to move significantly higher before the process was no longer profitable. “Natural gas would have to be in the double digits for us to be uneconomic, given the current forecast for gasoline prices,” Johnsen said. Continue reading
Cool Planet, Acritaz To Turn Palm Waste Into Biofuel In Malaysia
Details Category: Bioenergy 03 Oct 2013 Published on Thursday, 03 October 2013 Palm plantation waste will be made into biofuel and biochar Biorefinery developer Cool Planet Energy Systems and Acritaz Greentech will be building commercial facilities in Malaysia to transform palm plantation waste products – empty husks, wood, and bark waste – into biofuel and biochar Acritaz Greentech, a group of companies that bring biomass processing and bio-technology innovations to plantations, has signed an agreement with Cool Planet to explore the building of multiple commercial biomass processing facilities using Cool Planet technology in Malaysia. Cool Planet develops small-scale biorefineries that convert non-food biomass into biofuels and biochar, a soil enhancing substance. They recently announced an agreement with Concord Energy to establish a joint venture in the Asia Pacific Region to develop biofuel facilities (see related story ). “We are pleased to be working with Acritaz Greentech, a group that is known for their technology leadership in biomass processing and bio-technology in Malaysia, to deploy our biofuels and biochar technology,” said Cool Planet Chief Executive Officer Howard Janzen. Acritaz and Cool Planet will use biomass raw materials that are abundant in Malaysia – such as palm plantation waste – to create renewable cellulosic fuels for the Asian market. They will develop a plant design that satisfies the specific needs of Malaysia with the first such plant to begin construction in 2014. “Acritaz is excited to commercialize Cool Planet’s platform technology to bring drop-in fuels to the Malaysian fuel market,” said Looi Kem Loong, a director at Acritaz. “This is the kind of breakthrough technology that Acritaz wants to deploy.” Acritaz will work to commit $60 million for this first facility before the end of 2013. They plan to locate this facility in the Malaysian state of Johor. The two companies will then work to build multiple such facilities across Malaysia, with Acritaz purchasing proprietary equipment and consumables from Cool Planet. – EcoSeed Staff Continue reading
