A tanker carrying liquefied natural gas that was made from harvesting the naturally occurring gas produced from the decomposition of organic trash.
(Credit: The Linde Group)Trash collection giant Waste Management and the Linde Group petroleum engineering firm have partnered to create a plant that makes liquefied natural gas (LNG) from landfill gas, both companies announced this week.
Linde designed and operates the plant which is located close to Waste Management's Altamont Landfill near Livermore, Calif.
"The opening of the world's largest landfill-gas-to-LNG plant right here in California is a milestone and a testament to our commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Now that the technology has been proven, we look forward to seeing its adoption spread so more vehicles can run on garbage," Linda Adams, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, said in a statement.
Contrary to what might be inferred from Adams' enthusiastic sound bite, the project is not the utopistic dream of incinerating any old trash in a DeLorean for fuel, nor has either company claimed this. What the project does show is an idea that reduces pollution in two ways. The renewable source for fuel is also a naturally occurring gas that would have otherwise released itself into the atmosphere.
Waste Management collects the gas that is produced from the naturally occurring decomposition of organic trash in its Livermore landfill. The Linde plant then purifies and processes that gas into LNG. The LNG is then used to fuel some of Waste Management's fleet for collecting trash and recycling. Those vehicles, of course, having been slightly modified so that they can run on LNG.
While the plant has only produced about 200,000 gallons since it started operating in September, it has the capacity to eventually produce 13,000 gallons a day or 4 million gallons a year. That would be enough to cover the fuel needs of 300 Waste Management vehicles used for garbage and recycling collection, and save about 30,000 tons of emissions per year, according to company statistics.
This is not the municipal collection giant's first foray into trash-to-energy tech. Waste Management has been distributing solar-powered trash compactors and investing in various projects geared at converting waste in usable energy in several different forms.
FRAMINGHAM, Mass.--If you want to find out about the cutting edge in green automotive technology, talk to fleet managers.
Although they may have a reputation for stodginess, operators of corporate and municipal fleets are pushing the limits of alternative fuels in both passenger cars and trucks. These projects are driven both by environmental programs and fuel savings, according to attendees at the AltWheels 2009 Fleet Day conference here on Monday.
In the past year, new products, notably hybrid and all-electric commercial trucks, are coming to market. Also, the confidence level in the various alternative energy technologies is firmer, speakers said.
"This is not toy science anymore. This is real utility," said Mike Payette, the fleet equipment manager for Staples, which hosted the event at its corporate headquarters. "It's working exactly as this technology is supposed to work."
Staples has just received hybrid and all-electric delivery trucks made by Smith Electric Vehicles which it will begin testing. The stop-and-go traffic of delivery trucks is well suited to hybrid and electric technology as the trucks can charge batteries during braking.
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)Fleet managers said that the use of hybrid sedans and SUVs has been picking up for salaried employees, such as salespeople or police and fire workers. New York City, for example, has bought more than 3,000 hybrids--Toyota Priuses and Nissan Altimas--since 2001 as part of an effort to reduce the city's greenhouse gas emissions, said Steve Weir, director in the Office of Fleet Administration.
Now, hybrids are being scaled up for bigger jobs. Staples recently received hybrid and all-electric delivery trucks from Smith Electric Vehicles that it will test in different locations. The initial cost is higher--partially offset by government stimulus spending--but Payette estimates that operating the electric and hybrid delivery trucks will cost about half as much as their diesel equivalents.
From a technology point of view, hybrids and battery-electric vehicles are well suited for deliveries, since the stop-and-go nature of the driving allows the trucks to recharge the batteries during braking. Also, the length of trips is well understood, whereas consumers will typically do a mix of driving, including long trips.
But that doesn't mean that electric or hybrid vehicles make sense in every application, said attendees, who are using propane, natural gas, and biodiesel. Fleet managers need to also consider the driving range--Staples' electric delivery truck can go between 100 and 120 miles--as well as the weight of what's being transported.
"The question is not whether it will work, it's whether it will work for me--that's what's different," said Stephen Connors from the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It's all about the drive cycle."
In many cases, in-car technology and programs to promote environmentally aware driving can deliver significant fuel savings, attendees said. The City of Keene, N.H., delivered monthly reports on fuel usage and mileage to department heads in an effort to encourage fuel efficiency habits, such as cutting idling. But far more effective are mechanical systems that enforce driver behavior, said Steve Russell, the former fleet superintendent.
For example, Staples changed the top speed of its Isuzu delivery trucks to 60 miles per hour and installed a system that automatically shuts trucks off after three minutes of idling. Those adjustments showed fuel savings between 4.3 percent and 5 percent on 75 vehicles, according to Payette.
Other fleets are simply converting to four-cylinder vehicles, at times adding more amenities to motivate employees to convert. Heating and cooling equipment company Carrier was able to meet its emissions-reduction goals by choosing a different size vehicle and reducing the weight of deliveries, said purchasing manager Denise Cross.
Business case
Conference speakers said that many efforts to make their fleets more environmentally friendly were driven by corporate environmental sustainability efforts, which can help improve a company's image. But at the same time, there is scrutiny on the financial implications of using hybrids or biofuels, for example.
"We were in a state of flux last year: 'is this going to work?' This year, we're able to put vehicles in place and say that there are lower emissions overall--so we have proof," said Tom Hartner, the manager of global sourcing at Millipore. "Now we're trying to make sure we can deliver at a lower cost--that's where we're going."
Often, the financial picture includes the cost of vehicles, the cost of fuels--biodiesel or natural gas, for example--and ongoing maintenance and infrastructure costs. Staples is projecting that it will be able to get its hybrid and electric trucks competitive on price compared to diesel after funding for the government-aided project runs out, said Payette. "I don't want to be the greenest company to go out of business," he said.
In many cases, corporations don't get federal tax incentives for hybrid passenger cars. But there is federal stimulus money available for projects to test and ramp up production of components for plug-in electric vehicles. For example, a number of utilities are testing how plug-in electric vehicles can fit into smart-grid projects, where cars are charged at off-peak times and act to stabilize power grid frequency.
MIT's Connors said that one of the underlying questions with green auto technologies is what will happen after the stimulus funding ends--and whether these projects will continue if oil prices drop significantly. But corporations and auto suppliers need to go through the trial programs to test various technologies and help bring down the cost of components, he said.
Staples' Payette said he expects the cost of battery and electric motors for vehicles to drop 40 percent as volumes ramp up. Although there isn't a widespread refueling infrastructure, biofuels and natural gas look promising as well, he said.
Increasing domestic natural gas production and retrofitting buildings to be more efficient should form the basis of a low-carbon U.S. energy policy, according to a statement put out Monday during the Clean Energy Summit.
The summit, held for the second year in Las Vegas, brought together some of the most recognized political figures shaping energy policy, including Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and businessman T. Boone Pickens. Other speakers included Bill Clinton, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, Al Gore, and green jobs advocate Van Jones.
The event was organized by the Center for American Progress and the Energy Future Coalition, which jointly put out a memo touting the benefits of natural gas and building efficiency.
The memo says that there is now technology to tap natural gas in so-called nonconventional sources, namely trapped in shale deposits in the U.S. "This creates an unprecedented opportunity to use gas as a bridge fuel to a 21st-century energy economy that relies on efficiency, renewable sources, and low-carbon fossil fuels such as natural gas," according to the memo. (Click for PDF of full text.)
Natural gas can be used to make electricity and as a transportation fuel. The memo recommends investing in natural gas filling stations for large trucks and buses, which are much harder to run from electric batteries than passenger cars. In addition to reducing imports of oil, natural gas burns cleaner than coal, emitting half as much carbon
Efficiency, considered the most cost-effective way to reduce fossil fuel use, was a consistent topic of discussion at the summit as well.
The Center for American Progress and Energy Future Coalition estimated that retrofitting 40 percent of U.S. homes and buildings would save consumers $1,200 a month on energy bills and create 625,000 jobs.
"Energy efficiency should be the first source we turn toward to meet energy demand and reduce consumers' bills" said Reid, who is a key figure in the energy and climate bill being considered by Congress. "It creates more jobs than nearly every other energy investment and the cheapest, cleanest, safest energy is the energy we never have to use."
If your mission is to make coal less polluting, China is a good place to start.
GreatPoint Energy, a start-up with technology to convert coal to cleaner-burning natural gas, expects to open a demonstration plant in China in three years.
The plant would cost between $100 million and $200 million and be located at a coal-fired power plant operated by Datang Huanyin Electric Power. Most of the financing for the plant will come from Datang, one of the biggest single polluters on the planet, according to GreatPoint Energy CEO Andrew Perlman.
GreatPoint Energy's pilot facility in Somerset, Mass.
(Credit: GreatPoint Energy)Although GreatPoint Energy's business is focused on fossil fuels, the company was founded by environmentalists intent on tackling climate change.
In its demonstration plant in China, GreatPoint's technology will convert 1,500 tons of coal a day into natural gas, according to Perlman.
China is rapidly constructing more domestically supplied coal plants to meet swelling electricity demand, contributing to air pollution problems and rapid growth in the country's carbon emissions.
"If we can show (Datang) that they can make more money being clean rather than dirty, then we can make a real impact," says Perlman.
GreatPoint's hydromethanization process, being used in pilot facilities in Massachusetts and Illinois, passes coal or other carbon-heavy feedstock through a chute where it is treated with a metal catalyst and steam.
The material is then gasified in a chamber, which creates carbon dioxide and methane, the main ingredient in natural gas. The methane is then cleaned and the catalyst recuperated for use again. The process can work with petroleum coke, a byproduct of oil extraction from tar sands, or plant biomass.
The end product--natural gas--is a lot cleaner to burn than coal and can be transported through existing pipelines. Other chemicals in the coal, including nitrogen and sulfur, can be separated and sold for industrial use, according to Perlman.
But GreatPoint Energy's process also creates carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas. To keep carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, the company plans to build its plants in places where it can be pumped underground to get more oil out of existing wells, a technique already done in the oil and gas industry.
Overall, GreatPoint's process can produce natural gas at between $4 and $5 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), which is in the range of today's prices but a lot lower than natural gas prices before the global recession hit.
Cleaner fossil fuels?
Many entrepreneurs interested in green technologies have gravitated toward solar power, which still garners the most venture capital compared to other segments, or IT-related fields like smart-grid tech.
But Perlman argues that renewable energy sources, which represent less than 3 percent of power generation in the U.S., cannot be ramped up fast enough to make a significant impact on cleaning up power generation.
"The problem with renewables is that realistically they may not get us to where we need to go. Coal has to realistically be in the mix and realistically be a big part of the mix," he said at last month's AlwaysOn GoingGreen East conference, where GreatPoint Energy was picked as the top green business.
The company is pursuing other coal plants in China and the U.S. Following its demonstration facility with Datang, it hopes to build a full-scale plant, which would cost $1 billion, Perlman said.
"China is tremendously short on natural gas. They are going to have to use more natural gas if they are going to clean the environment and address their air problems," he said.
GreatPoint Energy CEO Andrew Perlman at GoingGreen East conference in Boston.
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)Shell is filling cable channels with commercials for GTL, or gas-to-liquids, and someone asked me about it, so here's your answer:
GTL is a type of liquid fuel produced from natural gas. It isn't classic liquefied natural gas, which is natural gas cooled to the point where it turns into a fluid. Instead, methane from underground is cracked by catalysts and heat, turned into synthetic gases, and then transformed into a liquid similar to diesel. The process resembles the coal-to-liquid Fischer-Tropsch process devised in the 1920s.
Shell already makes token amounts of GTL in a plant in Indonesia; much of that fuel gets mixed into the diesel Shell sells in Europe. The next big step comes when the company opens the Pearl facility in Qatar in 2010. (Shell showed us the first fully GTL car at a conference in Qatar in late 2005.) That plant will produce 140,000 barrels of GTL and 120,000 barrels of other byproducts daily. While tiny from a global perspective, that much fuel can keep a lot of cabs on the road.
While GTL results in fewer greenhouse gases than conventional diesel, it ain't cheap. Shell, in fact, is getting its natural gas to make GTL in an area where it's impractical to build pipelines for selling regular natural gas. GTL will be sold into megacities in the emerging world like New Delhi that are struggling to contain emissions.
Oh, and you can drink it. It doesn't taste great, but you won't end up in the hospital. Biodiesel is drinkable, too.
Wind power is worth it, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.
ERCOT studied the costs and benefits of wind power in three scenarios and concluded that expanding wind power in Texas would outweigh the total costs of boosting the state's electrical grid with conventional technologies. (Renewable Energy Access has a more detailed story here.)
The organization estimated the costs of putting in 5.1 gigawatts (GW), 11.6GW, and 18GW of new wind energy as well as the required grid connections. The 5.1GW plan would bring with it a $3.8 billion premium, but save $1.2 billion in fossil fuel costs a year. The 11.6GW plan would cost $4.9 billion, but save $1.7 billion in fuel costs annually. (Estimated fuel cost savings were not included for the 18GW scenario, but will be included in a future study.) Either way, both programs would pay off in about three years. Wind turbines last for decades; thus, new turbines would save billions over time as well as cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.
If you assume 2 kilowatts a house, 5.1GW is enough for 2.6 million homes.
Wind, according to many, is the cheapest form of renewable energy and in many places it is quite plentiful. Ireland could nearly supply all of its power through wind and some companies are developing technology to store wind power so that these plants could provide power on calm days. Wind harnessed at night, for instance, could pump water up a hill, which could be released during the day. The high demand of turbines, however, has created a shortage.
Texas gets 49 percent of its electricity from natural gas plants, says Renewable Energy Access. The U.S. has 16.8GW of wind power installed and 4.4GW is in the flat, windy plains of Texas.
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