A Bridge Not Too Far
July 20, 2010
Last month, the Canadian Centre for Energy, this humble blog’s (mostly) proud parent, wrote a newsletter about natural gas. In many ways, Canada’s energy future is going to resemble its present, with existing types of energy production, but unconventional sources are going to have major effects on that production.
As the country’s conventional reserves of oil and natural gas decline, we’re increasingly looking toward alternative sources like the Athabasca oil sands and unconventional natural gas. But if unconventional natural gas seems like more of the same, there’s certainly the chance that it’s actually a sign of changing energy use.
According to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, natural gas electricity generation could be a “bridge” to future low-carbon energy production, replacing the carbon-intensive coal generation that dominates the US’s supply. Given natural gas’s lower carbon footprint (natural gas-fired plants emit about half as much CO2 as comparable coal facilities), and its increasing availability, the fuel makes sense for the heavy energy demands of the short term. While renewables are appealing, in Canada, for example, wind still makes up only 0.3 per cent of the country’s electricity generation. Getting that number up will require time and energy in the interim.
Unlike the US, our country’s electricity supply is already dominated by renewables, with hydro making up 61.7 per cent of electricity generation in 2007. Still, the federal government recently announced a plan to phase out the country’s remaining coal generation, retiring two-thirds of the country’s 51 coal plants by 2025. Provincially, both Manitoba and Ontario have already committed to going coal-free. Ontario has set a deadline of 2014, and Manitoba currently has only one remaining coal facility. Alberta, meanwhile, has nine coal-fired facilities. Electricity generation currently makes up about 22 per cent of the country’s CO2 emissions.
Changes to energy are certainly coming, but if our country’s hunger for energy is any indication (13.8 quadrillion Btu in 2007), we’ll need something to sate demand in the short term. In the interim, natural gas could be that fuel.
Bigger And Biggerer
June 30, 2010
When we talk about solar power, we’re not always thinking big. It’s exciting to discover, for example, that there’s actually a species of ocean-bound bacteria that can photosynthesize just like land-based plants, and we’re always hearing about solar-powered devices like solar backpacks that can fit just about anywhere. But sometimes, bigger really is better — at least when we’re talking about megawatts.
At 100 MW, the Shams 1 solar power plant will certainly be producing more power than even the most incredible solar backpack. The plant will be built by Total (a French oil firm) and Abengoa Solar (a Spanish solar firm), and its 768 collectors will eventually cover 2.5 square kilometres. The project is intended to be the first of three, to be followed by Shams 2 and 3, and will take about two years to complete.
Despite being one of the world’s largest producers of oil, the UAE is no stranger to large-scale, headline-grabbing renewable energy projects. The largest of those, Masdar City, will eventually be the home of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), showcasing a variety of renewable energy and energy efficiency-related features.
Like Masdar City, Shams 1’s size provides two main benefits: a critical mass of energy production and, perhaps more importantly, a very public environmental offset to the emirates’ main export. But is it big enough?
When it comes to solar power, it can always get bigger: every day, the Earth receives the equivalent of 174 petawatts of energy from the sun (though over a third is reflected immediately by the upper atmosphere). The UAE are going to need a much, much bigger solar backpack for that one…
Polluters Pay To Promote Parallel Projects
June 28, 2010
No one’s figured out how to snatch money from thin air, but 30 Alberta companies recently cashed in by doing almost that: reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
From CO2 capturing in Exshaw to solar and wind power installations in 9,000 homes across the province, Alberta’s climate change fund is paying out for the first round of emission-reducing energy projects.
Launched in April 2008, the Climate Change and Emissions Management Fund allows companies annually producing more than 100,000 tonnes of GHG emissions to pay $15 for every tonne over their allowed limit (companies must reduce the intensity of their emissions by 12 per cent). Companies can also buy carbon credits in the Alberta-based offset system, but the fund has proven to be a popular option: to date, it’s collected about $40 million.
Now, the province’s Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation is providing the first round of funding, designed to support projects that will ultimately reduce the same GHG emissions that fuel the fund.
The corporation selected 30 projects from 223 project submissions. These include $8.2 million for a Lethbridge biogas cogeneration plant (ECB Enviro North America Inc.), $3 million for a solar thermal power project (City of Medicine Hat) and $1.8 million to develop a pilot plant to produce biofuel and utilize carbon dioxide (Enerkem Inc.). But the province won’t just be seeing carbon-reducing projects that generate power.
The 30 projects run the gamut from renewable energy generation, like Calgary-based Enmax’s plan to install 9,000 wind- and solar-generation kits in Alberta homes over five years, to energy efficiency and carbon capture and storage (CCS), like a CO2 capture facility at a limestone production facility in Exshaw. It’s a slate of projects that shows the diversity of the province’s carbon mitigation efforts, and the growing interest in unconventional approaches to energy. And even if it’s not exactly magic, pulling project funding out of invisible gases still isn’t a bad trick.
Making Waves With Tidal Kites
June 16, 2010
When you think about it, a lot of our renewable energy methods are basically just closely related technological cousins. For example: the humble turbine. Whether it’s being spun by a raging river, or a strong breeze a turbine is just a turbine, wherever it is. And that might be why, in the end, it isn’t so hard to imagine putting a kite in the water.
Manufactured by a Swedish company called Deep Green, these tidal “kites” are capable of capturing tidal energy at 10 times the speed of the surrounding water. Anchored to the sea floor by a 330-foot cable, these 39-foot-wide kites would each hold a turbine, the kind already used in existing tidal plants like the 20-MW Annapolis Tidal Generation Station.
In Canada, most of the attention for tidal energy has been focused on a single province: Nova Scotia. And that’s because of a little bay named Fundy.
Each day, 100 billion tonnes of seawater flows through the Bay of Fundy. And because of its great tidal range — the vertical distance between high and low tides —the bay is considered a prime location for tidal power generation. The Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy (FORCE) coordinates the province’s research on tidal power, and would be the body that could ultimately allow technologies like Deep Green’s tidal kites into Canadian waters. While the current design for the kites is still in early testing, it’s a sure bet that an increasing demand for renewable energy across the world will bring a variety of interesting-looking devices into the Bay. And it won’t matter that some of these technologies look like they belong in the sky, rather than the water.
In fact, tidal technology has a long history with unconventional designs for its generators. A kite “flying” in the ocean might be an odd image, but it’s certainly a lot more comforting than the notion of 200-metre-long anacondas slithering through our waters. And in the end, when it comes to a comforting image for future renewable energy development, most people would probably prefer a lazy, sailing kite to an enormous snake, technological cousins or not.
Go Big Or Go Green Or Both
May 12, 2010
As we’ve seen with project like the United Arab Emirates’ Masdar City, there’s something to be said for raising a city’s energy profile with a splashy public display — like any huge public monument, it definitely makes it hard to look the other way. But when it comes to splashy projects, Rio de Janeiro’s got everyone else beat: Their latest design for the 2016 Olympic Games is nothing less than a giant, artificial waterfall.
Designed with embedded solar panels that provide power for the city and the games’ facilities during the day, the Solar City Tower will use excess energy to pump seawater into its upper recesses, 60 above sea level. At night, this water would be released with the help of turbines, producing even more power. To accommodate guests and tourists, the facility includes an amphitheatre at the tower’s base and an urban plaza with a glass walkway located at its top.
Though the structure’s “urban waterfall” display isn’t intended to be constant (no matter how much renewable power fuels the process, it would be awfully hard to justify building a giant waterfall for nothing but show), the effect it produces is undeniable — like Rio’s iconic Christ the Redeemer statue, it’s hard to look away from something so massive. And that attention, in turns, draws attention back to the city’s larger energy goals.
Greenhouse gas emissions continue to be a major point of discussion for contemporary Olympic Games and Rio de Janeiro has been drawing attention to its emissions since its original bid. When it comes to making big statements about energy use and emissions, it helps to make a big splash.
image RAFAA architecture and design
COP15 Day 2
December 8, 2009
To make sense of all the information coming out of the COP15 confence in Copenhagen, Flow will be running a series of daily blog entries to keep you up-to-date on the latest news from the largest climate change event in the world. Today is day two of the 12-day conference.
Certainly today’s most talked-about Copenhagen moment was US President Barack Obama’s announcement that greenhouse gases would now be considered a health hazard, giving the Environmental Protection Agency the power to to regulate industrial emissions. Given the difficulties of negotiating domestic GHG regulation (let alone on the global scale that the Copenhagen delegates are tackling), the fact that a single body in one of the world’s largest two emitters has the power to drastically affect industrial policy is a major coup. But while the US is certainly one of the most looked-at participants in the conference, it joins 191 other countries in the conference’s meetings.
Among others, today’s meeting topics include “China and the world: Solving climate change through practical, on-the-ground collaboration,” “Trade liberalisation and its role in technology diffusion: A look at the renewable energy, buildings” and “Developing Country Implementation Strategies and Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs)”. Every day of the confernece also includes a variety of side events, including an update from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on its renewable energy reports and a four-part series on low carbon scenarios in Denmark, France, Germany and the UK. Renault’s Zero Emission Transportation – Taking a Step Towards the Future in Copenhagen, will be taking place in parallel with the conference today, highlighting zero-emission vehicles.
Laying it on thick
October 26, 2009
So, you’ve heard about oil sands in a documentary or on the news. You’ve heard, perhaps, in conversation or classroom debates, about its impact on the environment. Perhaps you even know some people who have packed their bags and headed to Alberta to get their own nugget of black gold and share in the wealth. But this Texas, er…Alberta tea doesn’t come up from the ground like a bubbling crude as Jed observed in the famous classic, Beverly Hillbillies.
Instead, it comes in the form of bitumen… gummy, gooey and thicker than molasses in January. To make matters worse, it’s mixed right in with the sand, presenting a grueling challenge for industry. How to separate such an unruly brew from the ground is for another story, but this is a tale about the origins of bitumen’s thick skin and how we toil to tame this intractable taffy of the turf.
Thicker than peanut butter, but not quite as tasty, Athabasca bitumen has a viscosity, or resistance to flow, of more than 500,000 centipoise (cP) at room temperature.
Now, with every story you have some sort of conflict, a rising action, a climax and a conclusion. The conflict here is bitumen’s high viscosity, and the implications it has on this resource’s means of production and impact on the environment.
That’s a heavy story man
A penetrating glimpse inside the molecular structure of bitumen reveals the cause behind its thickness. Are you ready for it? Bitumen is thick because… (insert drum roll)… it is heavy.
You may have heard the term “heavy oil” before, but few people know what this actually means. What makes heavy oil heavy? What makes oil sands heavier than conventional oil or methane?
Essentially, when we say a certain oil is heavy, what we’re really saying is that it is carbon heavy, meaning that type of oil has longer and more complex carbon chains than other types of oil. Light crude oil, such as conventional Alberta crude, contains many small, hydrogen-rich hydrocarbon molecules whereas heavy crude oil contains many large carbon-rich hydrocarbon molecules.
As you can see, the antagonist in this particular story is the carbon molecules.
So, in order to bring bitumen to a viscosity that refiners can actually work with, you have to upgrade the bitumen, which essentially means, getting rid of some of the carbon, resulting in a product that is less thick. In fact, when you consider the extra process bitumen has to go through in order to get rid of all that heavy carbon, you can see where the environmental conflict lies. Additional energy is required to separate bitumen from the sands and upgrade it. As well, heavy crude oil requires more refining to transform it into transportation fuels. And of course, more energy equals more greenhouse gas emissions if the energy being used to power the extraction, upgrading and refining processes is natural gas.
So the rising action in this story has everything to do with the rising demand for cheap energy around the world, the important role of oil sands in meeting that demand and the unrelenting challenge of reducing greenhouse gases. The plot starts to thicken as the bitumen thins because at each stage of carbon removal, the viscosity of the bitumen becomes less and less, making it easier to work with. But the overall energy used becomes more and more. It’s really annoying.
Technology is starting to change all that. Scientists are exploring ways to reduce the energy used in oil sands extraction and upgrading. One approach in the pipes is adding bacteria to bitumen deep underground, converting it into methane, which is easier and less energy intensive to extract. Another in-situ approach of extraction is Toe to Heel Air Injection (THAI) which involves injecting air into the ground, causing combustion. As the bitumen heats it becomes less viscous allowing it to flow towards the well. As it flows it leaves some of the heavy carbon behind in a process called “coking”. Coking usually happens above ground as part of the upgrading process but doing it underground results in a lighter product that can be transported through pipelines, is partially upgraded and results in fewer lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions.
Of course, another approach is to use renewable energy to power any or all of these processes. The challenge here is that renewable energy is not as cheap and bountiful. But as society and governments evolve towards increased sustainability, that could soon change.
Although renewables are rapidly being embraced across the globe, it is important to recognize the degree to which we depend on oil, even as we make the transition to greener alternatives. Sure we can heat our homes with solar and earth energy, and derive electricity from nuclear, wind and hydro, but there remains a conundrum surrounding our cars. Solar, nuclear, wind and hydro-powered cars are still a long way off. Sure we have hybrids, but for the most part they still run on gasoline and electric cars have very limited ranges and low speeds. As well, a lot of electricity used to power them is coal or natural gas fired thermal electricity.
Now, every good story must have at least a few literary devices, and the most delicious of them is irony. We labour to make bitumen and the resulting crude products less viscous right from the extraction phase (especially with in-situ extracting techniques) through to the upgrading and then refining phase. The most premium petroleum products are the highly refined and less viscous transportation fuels such as jet fuel and gasoline. Ironically, lubricating oil, which is a highly refined product, needs to be more viscous so as not to ruin the engine. So after all this work to make it less viscous, additives are put in to make sure it retains its viscosity.
Because the oil sands and its continually evolving technologies are a work in progress, this story is too. There are yet so many variables that could affect the outcome, such as the direction of the economy, incentive to invest in research and development and carbon pricing laws. While the U.S. is introducing a tough stance on carbon emissions through its Green Energy and Security Act, Canada is waiting to see what happens before coming up with anything definitive.
But the rest of the world isn’t holding its breath. Already the wheels are in motion to come up with a global carbon pricing scheme in an effort to reduce world greenhouse gas emissions and to ensure an even playing field for renewable energy to compete in the global energy market. It may be safe to predict that the outcome of the upcoming conference of world leaders in Copenhagen this December could serve as a climax for this story.
Most importantly, however, is the conclusion and that rests in the hands of energy consumers as well. Mitigating climate change is a heavy topic and while many remain thick headed towards a potentially warming planet, many more are working towards a positive conclusion for the planet – one where energy, the economy, the environment and its inhabitants live happily ever after.
Carbon footprint of the internet is growing
September 18, 2009
When Google started, there weren’t enough computers around to bother worrying about their combined energy efficiency.
Over time, computer and Internet use has exploded in ways they never imagined. In addition to probably rubbing their hands with glee, Google also started devoting resources to thinking about how much energy they were wasting.
Every search and every page you load requires energy, releasing 20 milligrams of CO2 per second. While it may not be included in your energy bill, it comes from somewhere. Giant data centres – warehouses of servers storing every Internet file – require lots of energy.
The Internet has an enormous carbon footprint, and it’s only getting bigger. Certain environmental groups claim the IT industry has an even bigger carbon footprint than the aviation industry. It happened so quickly that many Internet firms had a hard time catching up.
Luckily, some were prepared. Google’s headquarters makes use of 9,200 solar panels, and their new Toronto office is Bullfrog-powered. It’s also constructed almost entirely from recycled materials, from old tires for their floors, to pop cans recycled into work stations.
Google’s data centres were already upgraded to be energy-efficient about six years ago; way ahead of the curve. The company is now looking at enhanced geothermal energy as an equally green – but possibly more reliable – energy source.
In Kelowna, the biggest green data center in Canada has recently been completed, and runs on hydroelectricity. RackForce Networks Inc says that it has only 2% of the carbon footprint a typical data centre does.
In time, renewable energy sources may prove the most important “Google search” ever.
Biofuels caravan rolling along
September 14, 2009
Federal funds continue to flow to an array of biofuel projects across the country, mainly from Natural Resources Canada’s ecoENERGY program in a determined bid to encourage production of renewable alternatives to gasoline and diesel. Compared with gasoline, grain-based ethanol can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 40 per cent on a life-cycle basis and the difference can be as much as 60 per cent for biodiesel.
Ottawa has committed $1.5 billion over nine years for development of the renewable fuels industry in Canada. The most recent recipient of ecoENERGY support is Husky Energy, which will receive up to $72.8 million for its ethanol plant in Minnedosa, Manitoba. Other announcements this year include up to $23.2 million for Permolex Ltd. of Red Deer, Alberta, up to $19.9 million for Western Biodiesel in High River, Alberta, and up to $72.4 million for Biox Canada in Hamilton, Ontario.
However, the main ecoENERGY beneficiary is GreenField Ethanol, Canada’s main producer of ethanol. It has federal commitments of up to $212.3 million for facilities in Ontario, including up to $117.5 million in Johnstown, up to $72.8 million in Chatham, and up to $14 million in Tiverton. The Johnstown project also is receiving $7.3 million in repayable funding from ecoAgriculture Biofuels Capital, a $200-million program run by Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada.
Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) is also involved in encouraging ethanol production through its NextGen Biofuels Fund. An SDTC grant of up to $1.82 million to Lignol Energy Corp. of Burnaby, B.C., will support development of an industrial-scale plant for production of cellulosic ethanol and other renewables.
On-demand ocean hydropower
August 19, 2009
If solar or wind energy don’t float your boat, maybe generating power from waves will be more up your oceanic alley.
In an effort to create even more predictability from the ocean, Dartmouth Wave Energy, a British company has developed an energy converter called the Searaser, which is making waves. Literally.
The machine attaches to the ocean floor by a movable tether, which allows it to float up and down. Pumping is made possible by the motion of waves lifting the device as it rises and falls. This water is either pumped to shore to drive a turbine at sea level (the on-demand ocean hydropower part), or up a hill where it could be held in a reservoir and used as needed to drive a hydroelectric turbine.
So far the prototype has successfully pumped water up a 160 foot hill and the company expects a full-sized version to be able to pump water up a 650 foot hill and have the capacity to generate 0.25 MW per device.
Looks like you would need to corral a school of searasers to make this idea float.
