How LNG-Fueled Engines Could be Converted to Run on Ammonia

Gruber in front of his good friend Betzy. Photo: Helge Stranden, UNINETT / Sigma2

PUBLISHED JUL 2, 2021 2:06 PM BY GEMINI NEWS

 

SINTEF researcher Andrea Gruber crunches numbers - with good help from the supercomputer Betzy. With an infinity of calculations that are linked together, the researchers now provide answers to what is needed for the well-known chemical ammonia to become a climate solution for large parts of shipping.

The chemical has the ability to remain liquid at room temperature at moderate pressure levels, such as in ordinary gas cylinders. The climate-friendly alternative hydrogen, by comparison, requires a temperature lower than minus 253 degrees Celsius to stay liquid.

In addition, we already have both production opportunities and a distribution network ready for ammonia. This makes the solution easy to use for large parts of the world. Ammonia can be produced with completely renewable energy sources, or with carbon capture and storage from natural gas. 

Because pure ammonia burns poorly and is difficult to ignite in an engine, the idea of ??the researchers is to use the waste heat from the combustion process to partially decompose the ammonia. Ammonia consists of one nitrogen atom and three hydrogen atoms. After the decomposition, we are left with fuel that consists of ammonia, nitrogen and hydrogen.

The hydrogen content in this fuel helps to kick-start the combustion process well, with good help from large amounts of heated air from the surroundings. It provides movement and propulsion in the engine's well-known thermal process. 

"The fact that the 'working medium' in this combustion is air makes it quite simple and cheap to scale up the process, so that it can be adapted to the largest cargo ships. For battery-powered ships or vessels that use power from fuel cells, it is a lot more difficult," says Gruber. "Unlike the electrochemical process in a fuel cell, which is also an interesting alternative in smaller ships, the internal combustion engine utilizes 'all' the air and not just the oxygen content (~ 22 percent)," Gruber adds.

Animation of the flame (red) burning through the turbulent mixture of ammonia, hydrogen and air (green). The calculation is performed in a small (1 cm3) but representative proportion of the entire combustion chamber by solving differential equations of almost 1 billion points. Animation: Andrea Gruber / SINTEF

Billions of calculations and useful waste heat

The supercomputer Betzy is the researchers' most important tool in the search for the optimal combustion of ammonia. Betzy has five times the existing computing capacity of Norwegian researchers and has a total computing power equivalent to 43,000 "ordinary" laptops. Put another way: With a normal laptop, it would take 1,168 years to perform the simulations in this project. 

The researchers have used 80 million computational hours spread over approximately three months from December 2020 to February 2021. The mathematical solution shows in detail how ammonia is burned in a ship's engine compared to natural gas or pure hydrogen. 

There are already natural gas (LNG) engines on the market, and with the simulation job done, the researchers have the exact data needed to redesign existing gas engines to run on climate-friendly ammonia. Thus, these calculations help us on the way to phasing out heavy oil from shipping.

"We have worked a lot with mathematical simulations of internal combustion engines before, but then we have had to collaborate with research environments in the US to be able to use computing power there. Now we have finally got the opportunity here in Norway," says Gruber.

In practice, the researchers calculate how 19 chemical substances react with each other in 63 different elemental reactions - with different mixing ratios in a turbulent combustion process. 

"What we know from before is how a certain mixture of fuel and air is burned without turbulence. But turbulence arises as an inevitable fact in any practical application of the combustion process. Getting more and more accurate information about this is absolutely essential for optimizing engines with regard to the best utilization of fuel and reducing emissions, but it also requires enormous amount of computing power," says Gruber.

The next step is laboratory experiments 

The calculations have given the researchers important details about how the ammonia behaves under different combustion conditions and makes it possible to simulate virtual flames in a small but representative part of a combustion chamber.

Research shows that under normal operating conditions, pure hydrogen has far too high reactivity as a motor fuel and a tendency to ignite prematurely, while pure ammonia ignites and burns poorly. 

"Neither of the two fuels is therefore favorable for the internal combustion engines. However, by utilizing waste heat from the ship's engine, ammonia can be partially decomposed on board. Then we get a fuel mixture of ammonia, hydrogen and nitrogen," the SINTEF researcher explains.

Such a process will be practical for two reasons: First, the engine's waste heat is recycled to increase the energy content of the fuel, which improves the overall efficiency of the machine. Secondly, the combustion properties of the new ammonia / hydrogen / nitrogen fuel mixture will be very similar to what can be characterized as standard natural gas.

"This is important, because it means that it will be possible to adapt engines that are already in the current fleet to burn the fuel mixture," says Gruber.

This article appears courtesy of Gemini News and is reproduced here in an abbreviated form. The original (in Norwegian) may be found here.

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

 

Cape Horn Engineering Refines Designs for Sail-Powered Cargo Ships

EcoClipper concept (EcoClipper/Cape Horn Engineering)

PUBLISHED JUL 2, 2021 12:53 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

EcoClipper, a Dutch start-up company working to develop a fleet of zero-emission sail-powered cargo ships, is using 21st-century technology to perfect wind propulsion to provide sustainable transportation for cargo, passengers, and trainees around the world. UK-based engineering consultants Cape Horn Engineering is partnering with EcoClipper to apply its expertise in computational fluid dynamics to advance the design of the modern sailing ships.

Founded in 2018, EcoClipper plans to develop a fleet of ships that will sail on four shipping lines with fixed schedules, thereby creating a new shipping logistics system for sail cargo vessels. The concept calls for three regular routes to be established, starting with the Atlantic sailing from the English Channel to the United States and the Caribbean. The Pacific route would sail from California to China and Japan, and the most ambitious is a traditional route sailing around the world using the westerly wind patterns.

The inspiration and starting point for the design of the modern vessels was based on the design of the Dutch sailing clipper Noach, launched in 1857 and reported to have been the fastest Dutch sailing vessel ever built. The EcoClipper 500 will be built in steel with modern construction techniques. According to the company, each vessel will be able to carry 500 tons of cargo along with a crew of 12, 36 trainees, and up to 12 passengers.

“The historic records of Fop Smit’s Noach are extensive,” says Jorne Langelaan, sail cargo expert and founder and CEO of EcoClipper, nothing that the design of the historic ship was built around cargo carrying capabilities and passenger comfort. He, however, wants to test different hull shapes to ensure the best performance of the modern ship. “With Cape Horn Engineering’s expertise, we are able to fine-tune the ship to make sure it can sail as fast as possible, whilst retaining these necessities.”

 

CFD simulation for the EcoClipper design (Cape Horn Engineering)

 

Cape Horn Engineering’s expertise focuses on optimizing the design of many composite vessels using its experience in hydrodynamics and specialization in computational fluid dynamics (CFD).  The engineers use high-fidelity RANS-based simulation techniques where accurate forces and moments are obtained for the given shape candidates and operating conditions.

For the EcoShip project, Cape Horn explains that an ambitious R&D program was agreed and extensive CFD simulations for four different candidate hulls were performed and compared at different sailing conditions to aid the design process. Dr. Rodrigo Azcueta, managing director of Cape Horn Engineering explained that CFD technology is a crucial support for naval architects to optimize designs for critical elements such as weight saving, performance predictions, reducing emissions, and ship optimization. 

One of the main challenges the engineers faced said Azcueta was to compare fairly dissimilar hull shape candidates without the aid of a Velocity Prediction Program, where all hydro and aero forces are balanced. With the complex sail plan for the EcoClipper 500, which consists of three square-rigged masts, a maximum of 29 sails (including stunsails), and the maximum sail area being around 1580m2, the generation of a full aerodynamic model was out of the scope of the project. Therefore, sail coefficients for similar sailing vessels found in literature had to be used, to give a relationship between the driving force, side force, and heeling moment, to enable accurate calculations to be made for the hydrodynamic performance of the hull candidates. 
 
Another detailed investigation was aimed at finding the best possible position to install the hydro-generators that will provide the electricity requirements of the vessel. Velocity maps around the hull were analyzed to find the locations with the most homogeneous and higher speeds for the best performance of the turbines.

Using these advanced engineering capabilities, EcoClipper reports that it is further advancing the sustainability of the project. The company’s previous research showed that the most sustainable way to transport cargo and passengers is using a traditional design of vessels, the Clipper ship, with square-rig sails. EcoClipper previously reported that it is examining the financial market to build its first ship.
 

 

Developing Integrated Renewable Energy Systems for Ships

EMP's concept design Aquarius incorporating wind and solar power (EMP)

PUBLISHED JUL 2, 2021 4:15 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

Eco Marine Power (EMP) is a Japan-based technology company focusing on the development of renewable energy solutions for commercial ships. The company is developing integrated solar and wind power systems in cooperation with Japanese marine manufacturers and other partners. Recently, EMP signed a memorandum of cooperation with shipowners for a prototype installation of the integrated solar and wind systems on a ship.

Greg Atkinson, Chief Technology Officer for Eco Marine Power, explains that he began studying in 2010 how renewable energy technologies might be used on ships as a way of reducing fossil fuel use and noxious gas emissions. Initially, the focus was on the use of sails as a form of supplementary propulsion and solar power as a source of supplementary power, but with a background in electronic systems, he also started to explore overall systems and what other technologies could be included to enhance the operations and sustainability of a vessel.

EMP’s research began seeking to develop an integrated wind and solar power solution working with a Japanese company that develops automation systems for ships. Through its work with its research partners, EMP has developed several innovative renewable energy systems and devices for ships, including Aquarius Marine Solar Power, Aquarius Marine Renewable Energy (MRE), the Aquarius Management & Automation System (MAS), and the EnergySail. Patents have been granted covering Aquarius MRE and EnergySail and this year EMP applied for another patent related to a new and innovative type of sail-like device.

EMP’s research has also explored how various energy-saving devices and measures could be integrated to improve the energy efficiency of ships. This includes the Aquarius Eco Ship project, a green shipping concept design and study focused on optimizing the design of ocean-going ships such as bulk carriers, tankers, RoRo vessels, and cruise ships, to harness the power of the wind and sun. They are also working on incorporating other emission reduction and energy efficient technologies and future propulsion systems, including hydrogen fuel cells.

“Our plan is to begin the installation of the subsystems associated with Aquarius MRE later this year or early next year. Recently, EMP signed a memorandum of cooperation with a major shipowner regarding this project,” says Atkinson. “This will involve the installation of a complete Aquarius MRE System on the ship in stages and the evaluation of each subsystem in cooperation with the shipowner, before moving onto the next stage.”

 

 

The Aquarius MRE System incorporates a range of technologies seeking to harness both wind and solar power with automation tools to increase the sustainability and efficiency of the ship’s operations. In May 2021, ClassNK issued an AiP approval for the system that integrates rigid sails, marine-grade solar panels, energy storage modules, a charging system, and computers. According to Atkinson, one of the strengths of the system is that it has been engineered to be relatively easy to install. The solar power system, for example, was installed on a ship entirely by the crew with remote support provided by the ship manager and EMP. “We intend to follow the same approach for the Aquarius MRE project although, for some equipment, additional technical and design staff will be needed, especially when the EnergySail’s are fitted,” says Atkinson.

EMP is also expanding its research and planning additional elements to further enhance sustainable operations for commercial shipping. “We plan to introduce new photovoltaic (PV) technologies and installation methods, plus we are studying how other renewable energy devices, including wind turbines, could be incorporated into the overall system architecture,” says Atkinson.

Other R&D efforts underway at EMP include design variations of the EnergySail, including options allowing them to be used on cruise ships. Later this year, EMP plans to expand upon the Aquarius Eco Ship research and design work, including adding further energy-saving devices including air lubrication systems and additional renewable energy-related technologies. They are also exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) can be incorporated with their current automation systems and control algorithms. 

In addition to the applications for the maritime industry, EMP also sees applications for its solutions in areas such as offshore power and land-based renewable energy projects. They plan to expand their exploration of those applications as well as seeking other strategic partners.

EMP’s focus is on R&D and working with strategic partners to provide the hardware, software, and services for the solutions. Its goal is to develop the intellectual property, including product designs, and then it expects these solutions will be licensed to other companies, to make them available to shipyards and shipowners.

SINOPEC starts building carbon-capture project in east China

Published JULY 05, 2021

SINGAPORE - China Petrochemical Corp, or Sinopec, said on Monday it started building a carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) project in east China, the largest of its kind in the country, as part of the refiner's goal to be carbon-neutral by 2050.

The Asian company has been planning to cap its carbon emissions at peak levels prior to a national timeline set by the government for 2030, both through its work to increase hydrogen output and the treatment and capture of carbon dioxide.

The CCUS project involves capturing carbon dioxide produced from a Sinopec's Qilu refinery in eastern Shandong province during a hydrogen-making process, and then injecting it into 73 oil wells in nearby Shengli oilfield, Sinopec said in a statement.

At a purified rate of more than 99%, carbon dioxide can be mixed with crude oil and help generate higher oil production.

Sinopec estimated that 10.68 million tonnes of carbon dioxide would be injected into the oilfield over the next 15 years and boost crude oil production by nearly 3 million tonnes.

The project is scheduled to start operations at the end of this year, Sinopec said, adding that it plans to build similar projects in neighboring Jiangsu province, by capturing and utilizing carbon dioxide from refinery and petrochemical plants there and using them to boost oil output at its Huadong and Jiangsu oilfields.

The state oil and gas producer said it would explore setting up a CCUS research and development centre, but did not provide financial details about these investments.

A growing number of countries including China are targeting net zero carbon dioxide emissions by around the middle of the century in the wake of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

To achieve that, the amount of carbon dioxide captured must rocket to 800 million tonnes in 2030 from around 40 million tonnes currently and require up to $160 billion investment, the International Energy Agency said last September. 

REUTERS

Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/world/sinopec-starts-building-carbon-capture-project-east-china

Report calls for public takeover of old Alberta oil and gas wells to fund their cleanup

By Bob Weber The Canadian Press
Posted June 29, 2021 

View image in full screen

A pumpjack works at a well head on an oil and gas installation near Cremona, Alta., Saturday, Oct. 29, 2016. Jeff McIntosh / The Canadian Press


Most of Alberta’s energy wells no longer hold enough oil and gas to pay for their cleanup and the public should take them over to ensure their remaining revenue funds remediation, a new report concludes.


“It is a radical idea,” said Regan Boychuk of the Alberta Liabilities Disclosure Project, which produced the report. “It is something akin to nationalization.”

Using data from the Alberta Energy Regulator released under Freedom of Information legislation, the report estimates the overall cleanup cost for the province’s 300,000 unreclaimed wells at somewhere between $40 billion and $70 billion — a figure that doesn’t include infrastructure such as pipelines or pumping stations.

The Disclosure Project, which has followed the issue for years and has advised academics and government, concludes there may not be enough value left in the ground to fund the work.

The same data set from the regulator suggests that 80 per cent of Alberta’s operating wells no longer hold enough oil and gas to pay for their own remediation. It also says that by the regulator’s own standards, 49 per cent of oil and gas companies licensed by the regulator are insolvent, their assets outweighed by liabilities.

Still, those companies retain wells that pump and generate revenue. The report suggests the creation of an agency that would step in on insolvent companies, operate whatever wells remain and use the proceeds to fund remediation.

Boychuk points to the example of Trident Exploration, which collapsed in 2019 leaving more than 4,000 unreclaimed wells. He said those wells were still pumping the equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil a day.

Instead of being sold to pay creditors, the report says a reclamation trust could have taken over those wells and used the revenue to clean up the sites and create reclamation jobs.

“A reclamation trust would make lemonade out of lemons like Trident,” Boychuk said.

Such an agency could create as many as 10,000 jobs across the province, using skills Albertans already possess, he said.

Instead, Boychuk said, the public is paying. Between government grants to fund reclamation, unpaid taxes and outstanding lease payments to landowners, the report says Canadians subsidize energy cleanup to the tune of $4.3 million a day.

“Polluting companies must pay for their own cleanup,” Boychuk said. “It’s the law.”

Richard Wong, operations manager for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, suggested the report’s analysis is too pessimistic. He said capital investment in oil and gas is expected to increase during 2021 — “a signal that the industry is on the road to recovery,” he wrote in a statement.

“Accelerating the decommissioning and reclamation of inactive wells and associated sites remains a priority for our industry. We continue to work with the Alberta government to advance policies and regulations which ensure substantial progress.”

Thomas Schneider, a professor of accounting and finance at Ryerson University who advised on the report, said Alberta needs to do something as liabilities mount and the resource dwindles.

“In Alberta today, the regulator only collects a deposit from a company when it’s deemed to be insolvent. This is absurd. We need to collect cleanup costs before a company becomes insolvent.”

He said oil and gas companies should have to report all their cleanup liabilities.

READ MORE: Abandoned oil and gas wells will be cleaned up despite backlog: Alberta regulator

In an email, Energy Minister Sonya Savage said the government has already moved to ensure wells get reclaimed.

She said companies now face a tighter evaluation of their ability to meet environmental obligations when they buy wells. The role of an industry-funded group that looks after wells for which no owner exists has been expanded.

As well, the government is introducing a new program to encourage producers to require companies to spend a certain percentage of their environmental liabilities on well cleanup each year.

Savage has said that figure could be four per cent. It remains unclear how the program would be administered or enforced.

“The report… falls short on a number of points and completely fails to reflect the significant progress made by Alberta’s government on addressing a number of issues it identifies,” Savage wrote.

She said the reclamation trust suggested in the report would expose Alberta taxpayers to unnecessary risk.

“Implementing a public reclamation trust would create a significant risk with Alberta taxpayers having to assume the cost of liabilities.”

RELATED NEWS
$400M available in next round of funding to clean up orphan oil wells in Alberta

Climate Solutions

Capping methane-spewing oil wells, one hole at a time

Across the U.S., abandoned wells are belching the powerful greenhouse gas. This nonprofit aims to plug them to fight global warming.

A drilling rig works on pulling pipe while plugging an abandoned oil well in Toole County, Mont., just one of many sites the Well Done Foundation is tackling. (Adrián Sanchez-Gonzalez for The Washington Post)

By Nick Ehli
July 1, 2021 



TOOLE COUNTY, Mont. — The stench bellows from the 1,500-foot hole in the ground, the remains of a well long ago abandoned by a bankrupt oil company. Despite the well’s rotten-egg smell, the real culprit is methane, and every year this single well spews the potent greenhouse-gas equivalent of roughly 600 cars.

It has been gushing, unchecked, for nearly three decades.

Curtis Shuck calls the well a “super emitter,” one of many in a wheat field not far from the Canadian border, a part of Montana known as the “golden triangle” for its bountiful crops. Aside from the scattered rusty pipes and junked oil tanks, the field is splendid and vast, its horizon interrupted intermittently by power lines and grain bins. On these plains, Shuck says, you can watch your dog run away for a week.

He is a former oil and gas executive who nowadays leads a small nonprofit — the result of a personal epiphany — and is tackling global warming one well at a time. That is the approach of his Well Done Foundation, plugging this and then other orphaned sites and trapping the methane underground. The effort started in Montana in 2019 but will expand to other states before the fall.


“When we’re done, it will be like this well was never here,” Shuck said, standing upwind as cement was pumped hundreds of feet down, through a series of pipes stuck in the 7½-inch-wide hole like a straw in a juice box.


Abandoned oil well spews methane gas

A specialized camera shows an abandoned oil well in Montana spewing methane gas. The Well Done Foundation plugs wells like these to trap the gas underground. (Curtis Shuck of the Well Done Foundation)

Hundreds of abandoned oil and natural gas wells cover Montana, according to Shuck, and nationally the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the number exceeds 3 million, which various people view as either way too low or way too high. Either way — and especially when what is escaping from the ground is measured by the metric ton — the math is ugly, the effects profound.

In the short term, methane is markedly more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas because of its ability to trap heat. Concentrations of methane in the atmosphere rose more sharply last year than at any time “since systematic measurements began in 1983,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported in April.

Fossil fuel extraction is not the sole source of the problem, but many experts believe that curbing methane’s unchecked emission from oil and gas operations has great potential to slow Earth’s warming. The House weighed in last Friday, voting to restore Obama-era standards, relaxed by the Trump administration, that limit such emissions. President Biden is expected to sign the legislation.

“In combating methane, there are climate benefits to be realized within our lifetimes,” said Emily Connor, a scientist and program manager with the Yale Carbon Containment Lab, who recently visited Toole County to watch Well Done at work.

Contract workers maneuver a pipe as they prepare to plug an abandoned oil well in rural Toole County. (Adrián Sanchez-Gonzalez for The Washington Post)

A worker lowers a greased pipe into the well hole, a precursor step to pouring in cement. (Adrián Sanchez-Gonzalez for The Washington Post)

Curtis Shuck, founder of the Well Done Foundation, oversees operations as the well is plugged. (Adrián Sanchez-Gonzalez for The Washington Post)

The 59-year-old Shuck’s own moment of realization came two summers ago as he was driving the dirt road that cuts through that Toole County field. He caught a foul waft and spotted a pile of corroded metal surrounding a hole that had once been an active well. Then he saw others, pock marks across the landscape.

He would later learn that the land was a century-old oil field, now mostly played out. When the petroleum company that had drilled many of these wells folded in the 1990s, as many did when crude prices bottomed out after the Gulf War, the open boreholes left behind became the responsibility of the state. There they have remained.

“It is what it is,” Shuck remembers a local farmer telling him. “We’ve been farming around these for decades.”

As he drove on, he conceived Well Done. He registered the domain name from the cab of his truck.

“Whether you are a climate denier or a climate advocate,” he stressed last month, “when you look at what I saw that first day, you can’t tell me that’s OK. There is no universe where leaving something behind like that is OK.”

So far Well Done has capped seven orphaned wells, all emitting significant levels of methane, and Shuck says it will likely cover two dozen more in Toole County by the end of the year. It is slow going, but he and the foundation’s board of directors see progress.

“Pretty soon, you look back, and we are plugging our seventh well, and we’ve stopped the emission of equal to thousands of automobiles. That’s not nothing,” he said.

Remnants of an abandoned oil well mar the landscape in Toole County.(Adrián Sanchez-Gonzalez for The Washington Post)

Abandoned oil storage tanks are part of the legacy that fossil fuel companies left behind in Montana. (Adrián Sanchez-Gonzalez for The Washington Post)

Beyond emitting methane, abandoned wells and storage tanks can leak oil or pollute water supplies. (Adrián Sanchez-Gonzalez for The Washington Post)

The Biden administration’s infrastructure plan proposed $16 billion to address the country’s abandoned wells and mines, and separate legislation in Congress would spend $8 billion to clean up orphaned oil and gas wells. Montana sets aside $650,000 every two years for its work, though Jim Halvorson with its Board of Oil and Gas Conservation says it prioritizes wells that pose a “more serious and immediate” threat because they are leaking oil onto topsoil or sullying a water supply. Other states also have related programs.

Shuck welcomes those initiatives, even when they are slowed by bureaucracy or politics. But he thinks there is a place for his nonprofit model, a way for individuals to have an impact on a problem many perceive as overwhelming.

“Planting trees in the Amazon is a great endeavor,” he noted, “but plugging wells in your own backyard is also great. The gas is on, and then it’s off.”

Connor considers Well Done’s “nonprofit, private-citizen angle’’ unique and promising. It “is something very tangible to people,” she said, “and you can see, on the aggregate, how that adds up and contributes to a broader effort.”


Expanding to other states is the foundation’s next step. Shuck is already collaborating with regulatory agencies in Pennsylvania and Louisiana, and the monitoring of orphaned wells in those states will begin in July. He expects Well Done to plug the first wells there in August. Kansas is not far behind.

The work at each well costs about $30,000. To date, that money has come from individual donations or businesses wanting to offset their own carbon use. In particular, Shuck sees opportunities for oil and gas corporations “wanting to change the narrative.” In early June, a Tennessee-based oil and gas firm paid $120,000 for the foundation to cap four wells in Toole County, and it just announced a nearly $1 million pledge for tackling as many as 30 more wells around the country.

“If we are going to drill wells, we should at least fill up some existing legacy wellbores to help with the remediation issues that the industry has,” said Craig Perry, Origination’s chief executive.

Investing in Well Done made sense, Perry added, because of its early foray into identifying “super emitters” and plugging wells. “The reality is that [the foundation] is at the forefront.”

Curtis Shuck checks readings that show how much methane gas a capped oil well is still leaking. (Adrián Sanchez-Gonzalez for The Washington Post)

Curtis Shuck works with solar-powered testing equipment to get accurate emissions readings at a site. (Adrián Sanchez-Gonzalez for The Washington Post)

Many of the Well Done Foundation's drilling targets began operating in the 1920s and were abandoned in the 1990s. (Adrián Sanchez-Gonzalez for The Washington Post)

Even with a fair bit of methane monitoring and measuring per site, most of the costs involved are for the wages of contracted rig workers and for the thousands of pounds of cement poured down a hole to keep the gas in the ground. Well Done then clears whatever rusted scrap metal or rotted timbers remain. After it plugged its first well last spring, farmer Sam Stewart planted wheat there the next month.


Navigating a tractor and other equipment around the abandoned wells — 16 of them on his farm alone — was “a time killer” that long frustrated Stewart. “If it was up to me,” he said, “I would have just gone out with the backhoe and dug down 10 feet, cut them off and called it good.”


Yet he knows that Shuck and others are motivated by greater concerns. “They have these gases they are worried about,” he said. “I’m not a big global warming dude, but they do stink so I think cleaning that up is probably good.”


Shuck originally conceived Well Done as a for-profit venture but concluded the foundation could accomplish more without needing to return a profit. He does not take a salary and describes himself as “a volunteer with a well-plugging habit.” He insists he is not atoning for his former career in the oil industry.


“Finance to us is a means to an end,” he said. “It’s not the overall goal of our project. It’s more about making a difference and hopefully inspiring others to make a difference.”

Curtis Shuck, founder of the Well Done Foundation, takes photos of an abandoned oil storage tank in Toole County along Montana's northern border. (Adrián Sanchez-Gonzalez for The Washington Post)

Toole County is an odd spot for this to take hold. Donald Trump won 75 percent of the presidential vote here in 2020, and a T-shirt offered by a bar and grill in the nearby town of Oilmont declares: “Earth First. We will drill other planets later.”


Still, Shuck says Well Done has been well-received. He hires local help, buys local whenever he can and he refurbished a vacant building into a company “visitors center” on Main Street in the county seat of Shelby, population 3,000. He is also quick to offer that the past booms here helped grow a community, a state and a nation. Oil as an energy source is not the villain, he insists.


The nonprofit has its detractors. Shuck gets pushback from some in the oil industry, not because of the science behind Well Done’s goals but “because they feel we are bringing all of this attention to this problem in their own backyard. They are afraid that will translate in a higher cost for them to do business.


“To that, I say, ‘This is your wake-up call. This ship is sailing.’ We should at least strive to be better today than we were yesterday. I don’t think that is too much to ask.”


Swift action to cut methane emissions could slow Earth’s warming by 30 percent, study finds


Methane is a hard-hitting greenhouse gas. Now scientists say we’ve dramatically underestimated how much we’re emitting


A ski company built a power plant fueled by methane. It’s a success, but can it be replicated?

U.K. Will Stop Using Coal Power in Just Three Years

A decade ago, 40 percent of the country’s electricity was generated with coal

By Sara Schonhardt, E&E News on July 1, 2021

Credit: Monty Rakusen Alamy


The United Kingdom will end its use of coal-fired power by October 2024, a year earlier than scheduled, as it pushes other countries toward greater climate ambition ahead of a global warming summit it's hosting in November.

“Coal powered the industrial revolution 200 years ago, but now is the time for radical action to completely eliminate this dirty fuel from our energy system,” Energy and Climate Change Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan said in a statement yesterday.

It won't have far to go. Coal accounted for just 1.8% of the U.K.'s electricity mix last year, with roughly 43% coming from renewable sources such as wind and solar, according to the U.K. Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

The government plans to introduce legislation on the coal phaseout “at the earliest opportunity,” it said. It will only apply to coal used in electricity generation, not other sectors such as the steel industry.

The U.K. has come a long way from the days when a thick blanket of coal-fueled smog fell over London in the 1950s. As recently as a decade ago, coal accounted for roughly 40% of the country's power generation.

Trevelyan said the move is a “clear signal that the U.K. is leading the way on consigning coal power to the history books.”

It may not bring everyone along.

“I don't think a country with a de minimus residual coal fleet is necessarily going to shame big coal consumers into radical change,” said Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners LLC.

]“There are countries where it's going to be a big deal to transition off coal, and there are countries where it's not,” he added.

Leaders of the Group of Seven nations agreed last month at a summit in Cornwall to end financial support for international coal power generation without carbon capture by the end of the year and to move toward an “overwhelmingly” decarbonized power system by the 2030s (Climatewire, June 14).

But getting them to commit to an end date for coal power has been harder given domestic politics in places like Japan and the U.S., where it could upend President Biden's infrastructure bill. Germany passed a law last year to end coal-fired power generation by 2038.


Still, coal has hit the skids globally as costs for mining and generation have grown and more countries have committed to stricter targets for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. Coal is a leading contributor to the growth in emissions, according to the International Energy Agency.

Research from Climate Analytics shows that coal needs to be phased out globally by 2040 to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement.

The U.K. passed legislation in 2019 to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and has been pushing other countries to commit to coal phaseout dates ahead of the United Nations climate summit being held in Scotland in November.

“The impact of this step will be far greater if we can bring the world with us,” said Alok Sharma, president of the climate summit, known as the Conference of the Parties, or COP 26, yesterday.

Book said the U.K.'s phaseout does have a lot of symbolism given its coal-dependent history.

“But as a percentage change relative to the status quo, it tells a different story: It says this is what it's like on the far side of an energy transition, and that may motivate when one looks at where the U.K. started,” he said. “But it also illustrates the huge gaps that lie ahead for some of the countries that are still where the United Kingdom was 50 years ago.”

Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2021. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.

How much power will Germany need for its energy revolution?

Germany intends to become climate-neutral. The big questions is just how much wind and solar power that will require. But it's difficult to figure out how much power the country will actually need in the next decade.


German experts are divided over how much energy from renewables will be needed in the future

Germany intends to do more to protect the environment. Following a ruling by the Constitutional Court in March, the government announced that by 2030 CO2 emissions should be reduced by 65% compared with 1990 levels and not by 55% as originally planned. To reach this goal, more electricity from renewable sources will be needed than previously planned.

The goal sounds challenging, and as usual the devil is in the details. In order to achieve this target, there needs to be more development and expansion of wind and solar power capacities. How much more depends on the estimates for electricity consumption in 2030.

So far, the German Economy Ministry has assumed that electricity consumption will not change significantly over the next nine years and will remain at about 580 terawatt-hours (TWh). A glance back seems to support this.

"In the last 10 or 20 years, electricity consumption has been relatively constant," said Johannes Wagner, from the Institute of Energy Economics (EWI) at the University of Cologne. "We had gross electricity consumption of around 600 terawatt-hours over a long period of time. It only fell sharply in 2020 due to effects from the coronavirus.

Will Germany need more electricity in 2030?

But what was true in the past does not necessarily apply to the future. Various experts assume that the government's planning is too cautious. Social Democrat chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz criticized it recently. "Anyone who claims that electricity consumption will remain the same until 2030 is lying to themselves and the country," he said.

What if energy consumption doesn't stay the same? What if it increases? What if it increases sharply? This is the scenario that various energy experts assume will happen.

"The expert commission for monitoring the energy transition, to which I belong, has estimated electricity consumption will be significantly higher than the government believes," Veronika Grimm told DW. "We come in at around 650 terawatt-hours and are thus still at the lower end of the spectrum," she said.

Agora Energiewende, a think tank specializing in energy, also mentions 650 terawatt-hours of electricity consumption in 2030. EWI in Cologne estimates that 685 terawatt-hours will be needed then.

The Germany Renewable Energy Federation (BEE) figures that it will be 745 terawatt-hours and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) anticipates electricity consumption of 780 terawatt-hours in 2030. That is 70 to 200 terawatt-hours more than the government forecasts.

Mobility concepts require lots of electricity

According to the experts, more electricity will be needed mainly because of the move to e-mobility and the fact that buildings will be heated differently. At the same time manufacturers will turn away from fossil fuels and switch to synthetic energy sources like hydrogen. But the production of green hydrogen also requires electricity.

On the other hand, there are efficiency gains that reduce electricity consumption. Here the government has set the goal of reducing electricity consumption by 25% by 2050 compared with 2008 levels through greater energy efficiency.

These efficiency gains cannot compensate for the additional electricity demand, experts say. In addition, large efficiency potentials have not yet been systematically used, although such technologies are already available, according to research by Agora Energiewende.

New above-ground power lines have not gone down well with many locals across Germany

Being energy-efficient isn't enough

How many new wind turbines and photovoltaic installations Germany needs will depend on how its hunger for electricity develops. Using the relatively low 2030 estimate by Agora Energiewende, each year Germany would have to add around 10 gigawatts of solar power, 1.7 gigawatts of wind on land and four to five gigawatts of wind power at sea.

"That is roughly comparable to what we had in recent years, in the record expansion years," said Mara Kleiner, from Agora Energiewende. "So it's doable."

The current growth in both photovoltaics and wind energy is below these highs. So there needs to be more momentum, according to Kleiner.

Grimm also said it would be challenging to significantly accelerate the expansion of renewable energies. Especially when it comes to onshore wind energy, there are always protests from local residents.

"That is why we have to concentrate even more on offshore expansion," Grimm said. But not even that is without problems, since new power lines would have to be built across Germany — something else that often meets with resistance.
It can only work in collaboration

And this probably won't work alone either. "Germany currently exports electricity abroad," pointed out EWI's Wagner. "In the medium term, we can expect that Germany will become a net importer for the first time."

Manufacturing is one example. Here Grimm believes that it will not be possible to ramp up the production of green hydrogen quickly enough. "We have to prepare for importing green hydrogen at the same time," she said. There are already various projects with Morocco, Chile, Australia and EU countries. In addition, blue hydrogen must also be used during a transitional phase. Blue hydrogen is hydrogen that is produced from natural gas where CO2 emissions are captured and stored.

But, first of all, the German government will have to recalculate the country's future electricity requirements. Now even Chancellor Angela Merkel considers the previous assumptions that the demand for electricity will not increase to be "probably not future-proof."

It is expected that the European Union will come up with some new regulations on climate protection in July. Then, all EU countries will have to adapt their own measures to comply with rules that may be a lot tougher than before.

This article was adapted from the original German.

BIOFUELS
Nonfossil Fuel Sources Accounted For 21% Of U.S. Energy Consumption In 2020

By U.S. Energy Information Administration

Published4 days ago


Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review

Primary energy consumption totaled 93 quadrillion British thermal units (quads) in the United States in 2020, or 7 quads less than in 2019. Fossil fuels — specifically petroleum, natural gas, and coal — accounted for 79% of total U.S. energy consumption in 2020. About 21% of U.S. energy consumption in 2020 came from nonfossil fuel sources such as renewables and nuclear — the highest share since the early 1900s, according to data in our Monthly Energy Review.

During 2020, responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and other economic factors significantly reduced energy use in the United States. The 7 quad decline in U.S. energy consumption last year was the largest annual decrease on record. Almost all of this decline came from less consumption of fossil fuels, especially petroleum used for transportation and coal used for electricity generation. In 2020, U.S. fossil fuel energy consumption, totaling 73 quads, was at its lowest level since 1991.


Among U.S. nonfossil fuel energy sources, renewable energy consumption increased slightly from 11.4 quads in 2019 to a record high of 11.6 quads in 2020. Renewable energy was the only U.S. fuel source whose share of total energy consumption increased in 2020. Increases in consumption of renewables used for electricity generation, including wind and solar energy, were partially offset by declines in biofuel consumption in the transportation sector. U.S. nuclear energy consumption totaled 8.2 quads in 2020, the lowest level since 2013.

Petroleum has been the most-consumed energy source in the United States since surpassing coal in 1950. U.S. petroleum consumption remains below its 2005 peak, and in 2020, it totaled 32.2 quads. U.S. natural gas consumption totaled 31.5 quads in 2020, a slight decline from the previous year but the second-highest level of natural gas consumption in the United States on record.

U.S. coal consumption fell to 9.2 quads in 2020, the lowest level in 116 years. U.S. coal consumption has fallen by more than half since its peak in 2005; reduced use in the electric power sector has driven much of this decline.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review

Our Monthly Energy Review’s pre-1949 estimates of U.S. energy use are based on two sources: Sam Schurr and Bruce Netschert’s Energy in the American Economy, 1850–1975: Its History and Prospects and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Circular No. 641, Fuel Wood Used in the United States 1630–1930.

Appendix D of our Monthly Energy Review compiles these estimates of U.S. energy consumption in 10-year increments from 1635 through 1845 and 5-year increments from 1845 through 1945. Data for 1949 through the present day are available in the latest Monthly Energy Review.

Principal contributor: Owen Comstock

Courtesy of U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

Net zero goals need revival of ‘forgotten giant’ hydropower, IEA

June 30, 2021 EnergyNow Media

The Mooserboden water reservoir of Austrian hydropower producer Verbund is seen near Kaprun, Austria, August 31, 2016. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

June 30 (Reuters) – Low-carbon hydropower capacity is vital for a faster integration of wind and solar power, but its growth is set to slow by 23% this decade without a sweeping policy and investment push, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday.

“Hydropower is the forgotten giant of clean electricity, and it needs to be put squarely back on the energy and climate agenda if countries are serious about meeting their net zero goals,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol in a statement.

In addition to producing massive quantities of low-carbon electricity, many hydropower plants can ramp generation up and down very rapidly, allowing for the integration of more intermittent wind and solar power output, the Paris-based agency said when presenting its Hydropower Special Market Report.

But new projects often face long lead times, lengthy permitting processes, high costs and risks from environmental assessments, as well as opposition from local communities, it said.

In 2020, hydropower supplied one sixth of global electricity generation and more than all other renewables combined, meeting the majority of electricity demand in 28 emerging and developing economies with a total population of 800 million, the IEA added.

Global hydropower capacity is expected to increase by 17% or 230 gigawatt (GW) between 2021 and 2030, led by China, India, Turkey and Ethiopia, but this was nearly 25% slower than expansion in the previous decade, according to the report.

Around half of hydropower’s economically viable potential worldwide remains untapped, especially in emerging and developing economies, the IEA said.

Policymakers needed to address the hurdles and set robust sustainability standards to ensure projects were economically viable and garnered investor interest. Doing so could unblock existing project pipelines and potentially lift capacity additions by 40% through 2030, the agency said.

Still, hydropower would need to grow twice as fast through 2030 to meet renewables targets outlined by the IEA’s recent report on reaching net zero emissions by 2050.