Fossil fuels Canadian province plans carbon capture bitumen refinery T


he Canadian province of Alberta has concluded negotiations for construc- tion of the first ‘new generation’ bitu-


men refinery in North America that includes fully implemented carbon capture technolo- gy. A second agreement should result in con- struction of the Alberta Carbon Trunk Pipeline, which will deliver95%of the carbon dioxide that would otherwise be emitted fromthe gasification unit of the refinery – for use by other industries and for enhanced recoveries from mature oil fields. The two deals represent significant steps


forward to implement industrial-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere. The two contracts, with the North West Upgrading/ Canadian Natural Resources Limited


Partnership and Enhance Energy respectively, reinforce Alberta’s commitment to CCS and to finding environmental solutions to oil sands operations, says the provincial govern- ment. The 50 thousand barrels-per-day first phase


of the refinery, to be operational by mid- 2014, will feed over 3,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide daily into the 240 km pipeline to con- ventional oil recovery projects, for injection intomaturing oil reservoirs in central Alberta. Enhanced oil recovery using carbon diox-


ide from the refinery will have an additional environmental benefit of extending the useful lifespan of the existing road and pipeline infrastructure. Enhance estimates that the storage capacity over the 30 years of this project will be 275mn tonnes, unlocking 550mn barrels of otherwise unrecoverable


conventional oil. Ron Liepert, Alberta Energy Minister, said:


‘This new refinery and carbon dioxide pipeline will significantly advance Alberta’s capacity for upgrading bitumen as well as extending the life of Alberta’s conventional oil reserves As the owner of the oil sands resource, the


Alberta government will be exercising its right to take its royalty share of bitumen pro- duction in-kind. Doing so allows the province to direct feedstock to the state-of-the- art refinery where it will be processed into ultra-low sulphur diesel fuel. The province will pay a processing and marketing fee and earn its royalty from the sale of these refined products.


 www.albertacanada.com Russia begins producing power from coal bed methane T


he first coal bed methane (CBM)-to- energy project in Russia has been opened at Kuzbasskaya Energo-


setevaya Compania’s Talda site, located near Kemerovo in the central part of the country. The gas comes from test drills that Gazprom is conducting to capture the huge reserves of CBM in this traditional coal mining region. A 1 MW, J320 Jenbacher gas engine from GE uses the gas to provide electricity, which is ultimately sold to the grid. CBM gas occurs naturally within coal


deposits and is composed largely of methane, the principal component of natu- ral gas. Compared to natural gas, CBM even burns a little more efficiently and thus can serve as a valuable alternative for natural gas on a global base. The aim of the Kemerovo administration


is to encourage active coal mines in the region to collect the gas prior, during and


after coaling operations. This not only will help to increase mine safety, but also will provide additional revenues to the coal min- ing companies. The project will, says GE, con- tribute to improving the environmental safety and energy efficiency in Russia. ‘GE’s innovative technology allows us to


turn a previously environmentally harmful gas into a safer, useful fuel to produce energy for our customers in a more cost-effective manner,’ said Peter Kuruch – CEOof Kuzbasskaya Energosetevaya Compania. GE’s J320 gas engine technology has been


successfully used in power projects fromvar- ious types of coal seam gases (coal mine methane, abandoned mine methane and CBM) around the world. Currently, GE has Jenbacher units with a total capacity of more than 400 MW running on this type of gas. The engines have the potential to


generate more than 3 TWh of electricity per year – saving the equivalent of 830mn cubic metres of natural gas a year, according to the company. The Kemerovo plant opening continues a


series of recent actions by GE aimed at grow- ing its overall presence in the global coal mining arena. Last November, the company signed a memorandum of understanding with Indonesian coal bed methane company, Ephindo, to develop a pilot power genera- tion plant that will tap into the country’s vast reserves of coal methane gas to produce electricity. GE has also won an order for one of its


J420 units to power the first Kazakh coal mine methane (CMM) project in the Arcelor Mittal Lenina Mine in Temirtau, in the Karaganda region of Kazakhstan. 


www.ge.com Leeds researchers study UGC and local carbon dioxide storage R


esearchers at the University of Leeds are exploring a greener and cheaper way of using coal from deep underground


seams in which coal would be burned under- ground to generate energy, and waste green- house gases would be stored in the rock locally, making the process virtually carbon neutral. Even modern coal-fired power plants have a


sizeable carbon footprint, and many of the world’s coal reserves are lying unused because the seams are simply too deep to dig out. University of Leeds engineers, together with colleagues from across Europe, hope to solve


both of these problems in a €3mnproject fund- ed by the European Commission. During the first step – underground coal


gasification (UCG) – oxygen or enriched air are injected into the un-mined seam, together with water, and the coal is burned under- ground at high pressure. This produces streams of combustible gas, rich in hydrogen and/or methane and carbon dioxide, which can be


16


extracted from underground through long boreholes. Once above ground, the combustible gas


stream could be used to generate power in conventional turbines or fuel cells, or for indus- trial heating. Meanwhile, the carbon dioxide- rich stream of gas would be compressed and injected back into the rock, filling the space where the coal had previously been. In other words, most of the carbon produced by the underground burning would be locked into the rock. UCG has been tested in numerous small-


scale trials worldwide. The technology was applied on an industrial scale in the former Soviet Union and is still operating in Uzbekistan. The proposed scheme for on-site, underground carbon dioxide storage is, how- ever, completely new. Dr Yong Sheng, who is leading the


University of Leeds part of the project, said: ‘There is a lot of talk about the need for carbon


capture and storage, but nearly every suggest- ed system has the same problem: the high cost of capturing and transporting carbon dioxide to the storage site. This scheme would bemuch more cost-effective – as well as virtually carbon neutral – because we wouldn’t need to move the gas anywhere.’ Researchers will assess the viability of the


scheme at a test site in Bulgaria where coal is buried more than 1,200 m underground. The international team, including the Leeds engi- neers,will use data from this site to model the complete process – including combustion, gas extraction and carbon dioxide storage. They will pay particular attention to potential envi- ronment hazards, such as the chance of stored carbon dioxide leaking through cracks in the rock.


The project is being coordinated by the Bulgarian company Overgas Inc.


 www.leeds.ac.uk Energy World April 2011


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