NewNergy

NewNergy discusses the latest inventions, innovations and breakthroughs in the energy & environmental sciences.

US Scientists Say Burning Ice Could Provide Green Fossil Fuel

Posted on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 8:54 PM

US Scientists have revealed how natural gas locked up in frozen water crystals could provide massive amounts of energy, and claim that it could even be totally emissions-free. To the naked eye, clathrate hydrate (CH) looks like everyday ice but, as well as being partly made of water, the molecules are also organised into “cages”, which trap individual molecules of methane.Remarkably, a new method of extracting the methane and ’swapping’ it with carbon dioxide could turn the substance into a revolutionary carbon-neutral fossil fuel.

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Bio-based Succinicacid Plant: Reduce dependence on fossil fuels

Posted on Friday, January 2, 2009 posted by posted by Mak @ 2:52 AM

DNP Green Technology and ARD are pleased to announce that their Bioamber joint venture has obtained the necessary permits and begun construction of the world's first production plant for bio-based succinic acid. The succinic acid plant will have an annual production capacity of 2,000 metric tons and will be integrated into an existing bio-refinery located in Pomacle, France. The plant, which is being financed by ARD at a cost of US $27m, will begin production in the fall of 2009. This technological milestone represents a significant step forward for renewable, bio-based chemistry and it will help reduce the world's dependence on fossil fuels.

Bioamber's production of bio-based succinic acid can use various renewable feedstocks such as wheat, corn, sugar cane, rice, lingo-cellulose and glycerin. Succinic acid and succinate esters can be used as building blocks in a multitude of markets including biopolymers, plastics, polyesters, resins, runway deicers, non-toxic solvents and renewable fuels (as a diesel additive).

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Gravity Power: An Addition to Alternative Source of Energy for Fossil Fuels

Posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 posted by posted by visa @ 11:29 PM

Rajaram Bojji, a product of the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, has discovered a power, Gravity Power which he says would potentially save the world 70 percent of fossil fuels required for the purpose every year.

Rajaram, says that it is "an evolutionary initiative that can possibly free the world of its dependence on fossil fuels, underlying much of the volatile price rise".

Rajaram, former managing director, Konkan Railway, said his technology, unlike other sources of renewable or alternative energy like sunlight or biofuels, would not require heavy investment or land and can work with existing infrastructure even in developing countries.

Interested to know more on Gravity Power

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HTC Purenergy Announces CO2 Capture Cost Reduction Breakthrough

Posted on Wednesday, June 18, 2008 posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 10:26 PM

HTC Purenergy announced a new CO2 Capture cost reduction breakthrough - the Thermal Kinetics Optimization process. TKO will be added to the existing base Purenergy CCS CO2 Capture System and will substantially reduce the energy requirements of capturing CO2 from post-combustion coal and natural gas power plants.

The TKO process improves the CO2 Capture System through heat recovery, thermal balancing and optimized process flow. The primary advantage of this newly patented system is that it directly reduces the largest single cost of CO2 capture - the use of power plant steam - to a ratio of below 1 unit steam required to 1 unit CO2 captured.

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Arabidopsis Plant to Help in Paint, Lipstick Manufacture

Posted on Sunday, May 4, 2008 posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 8:15 PM

The 'Lipstick plant' offers to bring new meaning to the term plastic flower.

It looks like a weed, but the Arabidopsis plant could end the need for fossil fuels in the manufacture of household items such as paint and lipstick.

Australian researchers have genetically engineered a specimen of the plant – a member of the mustard family – to produce an unusual fatty acid normally only found in petrochemicals.

Scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CISRO) say the acid can be used to make polymers – the "building blocks" behind plastics and some paints and cosmetics.

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DOE Releases Feasability Study for Illinois Coal to Liquid Plant

Posted on Wednesday, May 23, 2007 posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 9:02 AM

DOE releases feasability study for Illinois Coal to Liquid Plant

Via: Auto Blog Green

May 22nd 2007

The Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory has completed a feasibility study for a proposed Coal to Liquid fuel production facility in Illinois. The proposal would include a plant that would convert coal into fuel along with electrical power that would go back into the grid. The input would be high-sulfur bituminous coal which would be gasified and the gas converted to liquids by the Fischer-Tropsch method. The output would include diesel. This diesel will need to additional additives before it could be used. The other output products will be be naptha, which can be used as a chemical feedstock.

The study projected the $3.65 billion plant would have a 20% annual return on investment...

[Source: NETL]

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Turning Black Coal Green - Zero Emissions Coal Plants

Posted on Monday, May 14, 2007 posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 4:31 AM

Turning Black Coal Green - Zero Emissions Coal Plants

February 02, 2007

Sooty coal hardly seem like the future of energy, but that’s exactly what the U.S. Department of Energy predicts. Coal’s growing dominance need not spell doom for the environment, according to an executive at American Electric Power (AEP), a large American utility company which is building the first near-zero-emission coal plant by 2012. The 275-megawatt facility will serve as the model for a new generation of high-tech coal facilities, it is hoped

Source of article: AltEng post

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Peak Oil is not About Running Out of Oil!

Posted on Friday, May 11, 2007 posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 8:07 AM

Peak Oil is not About Running Out of Oil!

May 10, 2007

If you hear someone saying the peak oil theory is wrong and that the world is not about to run out of oil, tell him that he is wrong in his understanding that peak oil is about our running out of oil.

This post at Oil Be Seeing You details on the same issue:

"...No one in the peak oil movement, unless they too are new to the movement and do not yet understand, ever says, or ever would say, that peak oil means the end of oil, means we are running out of oil. Most in the peak oil camp, in fact, believe we will never consume all of the oil there is, for a wide variety of reasons. In general only about thirty percent of the oil in a reserve is recoverable so there is always going to be oil left over in a field after the last well has been shut down."

The post goes on to explain what indeed is peak oil:

"Peak oil is about a global society and global economy that have become hopelessly dependent on an ever-increasing supply of cheap, high-grade oil, increasingly dependent also on natural gas and coal, the other main fossil fuels. It is about the impact on that global society and global economy when the supply of oil can no longer be increased, when the demand for oil exceeds what the world's oil fields can produce..."

Useful post for those who want to have a clear and detailed understanding of the Peak Oil term.

Read the full post here @ Oil be Seeing You

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Coal’s Future in Doubt - Could Peak in 15 Years?

Posted on posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 7:59 AM

Coal’s Future in Doubt - Could Peak in 15 Years?

May 2007

A recent newsletter article by GPM consisted of a summary of the conclusions of a recent study by the Energy Watch Group (EWG) on future global coal supplies. That study found that global coal production could peak in as few as 15 years. This rather surprising conclusion was based on a careful analysis of recent reserves revisions for several nations.

The EWG report has enormous implications for climate change, global energy, and particularly for future electricity supply and steel production in the US and China. Until now, virtually everyone in the fields of energy policy and energy analysis had assumed that the world’s coal endowment was so enormous that no limits would be encountered anytime this century. The EWG’s conclusions turn this assumption on its head.

Read more from this post by Richard Heinberg @ Global Public Media

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Cleaning Up Coal & The Future of Coal

Posted on Tuesday, May 8, 2007 posted by posted by Ecacofonix @ 10:58 AM

Interesting discussion at this Biodiesel America page on Cleaning Up Coal & The Future of Coal

"
Hi JohnO,
I plan to look back at coal ten years from now the way I look at my old IBM 286 – dead technology. After we transform America to green energy making trillions of dollars of new industries in the process, we will reverse climate change – probably by making some kind of carbon dense briquettes (similar to coal) and putting them back in the ground. Right where they belong. JT

JohnO Writes:
Joshua: my parents forwarded this to me. I especially like his statement
"we've run out of backyards".

This brings to mind the question - what is the most concentrated form of
carbon that we might be able to sequester? Too bad glycerol doesn't
contain any significant carbon - we could sequester it, solving the
disposal problem. I could see raw veg oil as a potential carbon trap,
squeezing it out of beans and seed (and palm nuts) only to be pumped
into the ground to make room in the atmosphere for coal smoke. I'm
afraid to run the figures to see if that makes economic sense. Yikes!
Luckily I don't have the figures readily available, so I'll keep my head
in the sand a little longer. Sigh.
Cheers,
JohnO
"

Read the full discussion and the rest of the opinions here @ Biodiesel America

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  In the beginning, there were algae,
but there was no oil Then, from algae came oil.
Now, the algae are still there, but oil is fast depleting
In future, there will be no oil, but there will still be algae  
So, doesn't it make sense to explore if we can again get oil from algae?
This is what we try to do at Oilgae.com - explore the potential of getting oil from algae