Australia to have 100% Renewable Energy by 2020

Australia is on a path to rely on 100% on renewable energy sources by 2020. It was based on the research by Melbourne University’s Energy Research Institute through its Evironmental group Beyond Zero Emissions which was presented to the Australian Parliament.

The Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy report claims at a price of A$37bn ($32.4bn) a year Australia can totally replace fossil fuel baseload electricity using renewable energy technology that is already available today.

Technically, the strategy aims at a mix of 60% of energy from solar thermal with molten salt storage and 40% from wind power with possibility of advanced solar photovoltaic (PV) to hit grid parity between 2015-20.

US Energy Company Raising Money for First US Oil Sands Project

Earth Energy Resources Inc., a Canadian company has been granted a government's approval to launch the very first US oil sands project in a 62 acre pit in Uintah County, Utah.

The project would be able to produce 2,000 barrels of oil a day by extracting oil out of sands using a proprietary solvent. Earth Energy requires $35 million to fund the project.

Oil Companies Venturing to Solar, Led by Chevron

With the expected upcoming government policy changes to force oil companies to curb greenhouse gas emissions, big oil companies are looking at emerging renewable technologies. Chevron’s latest one-megawatt concentrating solar photovoltaic project in New Mexico, is a testimony of the situation.

Chevron will be utilizing technology from Concentrix Solar, whose CPV solar system will be used in the facility at Chevron Mining’s molybdenum mine in Questa, New Mexico expected to begin construction in spring 2010

New Technologies Create Oil Industry Boom in North Dakota

Recent technology advancement in drilling techniques has enable bigger oil wells to be developed with faster drilling and lower costs. Such things have turned North Dakota massive oil reserve to be economically able to be tapped.

The two miles underground Bakken Shale deposit has been known and tapped on occasion for decades. This year however is entirely new since technological improvements made it extremely economically and quickly becoming United State's fastest-growing oil-producing areas.

In 2009 alone the oil production has jumped to 80 million barrels, a figure that will be fast growing in 2010 especially since the Bakken Shale could contain up to 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

Sasol - Petronas Joint Feasibility Study on Uzbekistan GTL

Sasol is in the stage of doing feasibility study with Petronas for a Gas-to-Liquid (GTL) proposition in Uzbekistan. The two giants, Sasol which is the biggest producer of motor fuels from coal and Petronas, one of the seven sisters will be doing the study overseen by a joint-venture company.

The GTL plant which will be using Sasol's technology is rumoured to produce 1.3 million tonnes of fuel components including diesel, kerosene and liquefied petroleum gass similar to Sasol's GTL plant in Qatar.

Malaysian Researchers Looking at New Biofuel Technology

Malaysia University of Science and Technology (MUST) is developing new ways of using oil palm-related products to produce renewable fuels, in what is seen as a response to European Union concerns in food and environment-related carbon balance. 

The MUST university is collaborating with a German research organization, Fraunhofer to work on directly processing oil palm biomass into biodiesel, instead of bidiesel being produced from crude palm oil. However, the MUST-Fraunhofer research is focusing on making the fuel from non-CPO biomass. This is to alleviate the mass requirement for oil palm plantations where only 10% of the biomass comprises CPO (Crude Palm Oil) and the rest includes fibers, empty fruit bunches, shells, fronds and tree trunks. 

Much of the reasearch will be to turn non-CPO biomass into gas and liquefied gas for usage as gasoline and biodiesel which will see bigger commerical gassification plant in Malaysia from palm oil. MUST is in the hope that the technology to be developed for commercial use in 2-3 years.

Technology to Convert Waste to Fertilizer

Two Illinois companies have been awarded a $1m from United States federal grant to look into ways to produce nitrogen fertilizer from wastes.

US Department of Agriculture (USDA), is funding the research on a process derived from N-Ovation and Fluidic MicroControls, which in theory can derive nitrogen from a gas created by cooking crop residue. The gas comes from cooking farm waste, which then turned into nitric acid by introducing a spark of electricity.

The protoype is already existing and the companies are looking at efficient way and to create a machine that capable of supplying 1000 acre of farm fertilizer. This will revolutionize the way fertilizers are made which currently extensively from petrochemical plants.

Japan Energy Venturing Into Petrochemicals from Plastics

Japan Energy has become the Japanese first refiner to use processed waste plastic as a thermal cracking fuel at its Mizushima refinery. The technological breakthrough is seen as a great potential for the company as petrochemical feedstock is skyrocketing and plastic wastes will not only save feedstock cost but it might as well be counted as negative cost due to save on waste management.

The nation’s sixth largest refiner has the capacity to turn 1,000 kilolitres/year of liquefied waste plastic to petrochemical products using the hydrogenation refining unit at Mizushima. Most of the refined products will be naphtha. Currently there is an abundance of plastic wastes in which Japan generates 10 million tonnes of waste plastic in 2006. Only 5,000 kilolitres of liquefied plastic was produced for refiners from the total of 10,000 tonnes processed.

PETRONAS Buys Stakes in Santos Australia LNG

Malaysia's State Oil Company, Petronas is buying a 40 percent stake in Australian energy firm Santos Ltd's Gladstone for $2.51 billion. Santos Gladstone is in the liquefied natural gas project in Australia.

Petronas' investment in the project will help to fasten the usage of coal seam gas as a feedstock as Petronas is seen as the ideal partner to help develop Santos' coal seam gas to LNG strategy.

Santos was quoting that Petronas will inject capital investment of $2.01 billion followed by remaining for the second LNG train at the Gladstone, Queensland. The key strategic alliance is due to marketing power of Petronas, the third-largest LNG producer in the world. Santos shares jumped 10.12 percent to a record high of A$20.90 by 0325 GMT, a proud achievement for both Santos and Petronas.

Other oil and gas companies such as Exxon Mobil are also taking lead in LNG project in Papua New Guinea with Santos for a race amid rising prices and a forecast surge in global demand.

India Developing Bioethanol Technology

India's Praj Industries has set up a bioethanol R&D (research and development) centre looking at nullifying the impact of energy feedstock on food and animal feed which has lead the R&D centre to achieve a breakthrough in technology for production of bioethanol from lignocellulosic feedstock. Praj Industries is currently in the midst of commercialising its patented technology of producing ethanol from sweet sorghum with interested oil companies.

New Biodiesel and Glycerine Process by Nippon Shokubai

Japanese chemical producer, Nippon Shokubai has developed a new mainstream catalytic process to produce biodiesel and glycerine that generates much lesser waste than current technology.

Nippon Shokubai's new method process technology also reduces the cost to build and maintain the plant by as much as 10%, and also improved the ratio of converting vegetable oils into fatty acid ester, a biodiesel fuel, by 3% and on top of that, the byproduct glycerine produced by this method is very high in purity (over 98wt%). At 98% wt purity, the glycerin could be used as a feedstock for other chemicals without any refining.

First Jatropha Plant By Wartsila Finland

Finland company, Wartsila has won a $11 million contract to build a 9 megawatt combined heat and power (CHP) plant in Belgium that will run on vegetable oil from the jatropha plant and to produce both electricity and heat.

This will be the first Jatropa facility in the world using carbon dioxide neutral fuels that do not compete with food crops since Jatropha oil was a liquid biofuel with great potential as it could be harvested outside the world’s rainforest areas, even near deserts.

Commissioning of the plant is expected to begin in February 2009 operated by Greenpower NV, a joint venture of Thenergo and four local agricultural companies and a private investor.

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Sasol Producing First Ever Synthetic Jet Fuels

Sasol has made a history when the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and other authorities have approved Sasol's coal-to-liquids (CTL) synthetic jet fuel, the first evert synthetic jet fuel approved for commercial airplanes which will be produced at Sasol's Synfuels plant in Secunda, South Africa.

The plan has long been considered but only recently the authorities realised the need to develop aviation fuel from feedstocks other than crude oil in current escalating demand. Sasol's synthetic jet fuels has less emissions due to its limited sulphur making it an environmental friendly fuel.

MTO Projects Spur in Inner Mongolia

China’s Inner Mongolia is spurring with methanol investments through methanol-to-olefins (MTO) projects due to its cheap and abundant coal supply with estimated of nearly 10 million tonnes/year of methanol will be produced by the next 5 years.

MTO projects such as by Datang International Power has capacity of 1.7 million tonne/year methanol with around 1.5m tonnes will be converted to propylene using Lurgi’s technology as feedstock to make around 500,000 tonnes of polypropylene (PP).

The cost of polypropylene made from this route is expected to be cost competitive, given the low price of coal in Inner Mongolia using coal gasification technology from Shell with 3 tonnes of methanol are needed to produce 1 tonne of propylene through the process.

Japan Offers Coal-to-Gas Technology for Gas Supply

Japan, one of heavy energy users, offering Indonesia with technology that would allow it to produce gas from coal, in exchange for a stable supply of liquefied natural gas to Japan. The offer comes from Japan Gas Association especially since Indonesia is the largest liquefied natural gas exporter to Japan by volume and recently has been saying that it may cut LNG exports to Japan to meet its own domestic demand.

Indonesia's state-owned energy company, Pertamina, will reduce LNG exports to Japan to 3 million-5 million tons a year from 2011 from about 12 million tons a year now.

The development of the coal-to-gas technology for commercial use in turn can save Japan from the energy crisis. Indonesia is known to have an abundance source of coal.

BASF Puts-off Coal to Gas Petrochemical Plan

BASF has put off plans for a massive $2.5 billion coal gasification project due to uncertainties over the costs of Europe's emission trading scheme. The petrochemical complex would produce gas from coal as widely practiced in China to make methanol and ammonia, initially planned to be built either at BASF’s base in Ludwigshafen, Germany, or elsewhere.

Coal is regarded as cheap feedstock compared to natural gas for key raw material to the petrochemical industry.

New Dow/BASF HHPO Technology Plant Delayed

Dow/BASF joint-venture for a 300,000 tonne/year capacity hydrogen peroxide-to-propylene oxide (HPPO) plant at Antwerp, Belgium is delayed until the second part of 2008 which was previously scheduled to come on-stream in May 2008. This will be the first HPPO petrochemical plant in the world incorporating the JV technology by Dow and BASF. It was claimed that the process technology is more economical and environmentally friendly.

China Welcomes Green Technology

China is set to become a world leader in environmentally friendly technologies due to its high impact on global influence of the Chinese economy.

Analysts are expecting that by 2020, China will not be just a global economic giant, but a leader on many of the world's fields, including technology.

Shell & Virent Develop New Biogasoline Fuel Technology

Shell and in collaboration with US biofuels company Virent is developing a new biogasoline fuel and blend components directly from plant sugars without the need for fermenting sugars into ethanol. Virent’s catalytic process will be used which is a proven biomass-derived feedstocks to biogasoline production. Researchers claimed that the new biogasoline molecules will have a better fuel efficiency than ethanol. Furthermore, the new biogas can eliminate the need for new engine designs.

Sibur Polypropylene Using INEOS Technology

INEOS has been selected for a contract to provide 200,000 tonne/year Polypropylene plant in southwest Siberia process technology for Sibur's proposed plant in Tomsk, Russia. The construction is expected to start commissioning in 2012.

This will be Sibur's second polypropylene plant using INEOS process technology. Previously, Sibur used INEOS’ Innovene polypropylene process technology for a proposed 500,000 tonne/year PP plant at Tobolsk, Russia.

MMA Plant Via Ethylene Route by Lucite

The first ethylene route methyl methacrylate production facility by Lucite is on its way in Singapore. The petrochemical plant has the capacity of 120,000 tonne/year of MMA and will be the first petrochemical plant using Lucite's proprietary ICI technology. The feedstocks for the MMA plant will be mainly ethylene, carbon monoxide and methanol.

Construction is expected to complete September with MMA production will gradually ramp up from 15,000-20,000 tonnes in the fourth quarter. Lucite's latest MMA technology is expected to reduce production cost of MMA as opposed to other MMA producers using methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) or acetone with methanol as feedstock as widely practiced by MMA producers worldwide such as Sumitomo Chemical, Mitsubishi Rayon Co., Formosa Plastics and LG MMA.

Titan's Metathesis Unit Producing Propylene

Titan's metathesis unit at Pasir Gudang Malaysia which has a capacity of 115 thousands tonnes per annum of propylene starts delivering on-spec propylene which will enter the market soon.

The propylene produced largely will be for internal consumption of captive downstream polypropylene (PP) plants with limited cargoes going away in the region.

E85 Cadillac in the Market 2009 by General Motors

General Motors (GM) plans to sell its biofuel E-85 Cadillacs in 2009. E-85 is a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. GM is estimating that half of its annual vehicle production will be E-85 or biodiesel capable by 2012. General Motors is actively in research for biofuels and renewable source for cars which has also plans in hybrid and hydrogen technology.

UOP to Develop More MTO Technology Plant

UOP is in the midst to expand its MTO technology projects. The Methanol-to-Olefins technology will be widespread in China, Middle East and North Africa looking at coal-based MTO plants in China.

This is after their first Eurochem MTO project in Nigeria is successful for construction and is due on stream in 2012. UOP is under way for another three projects in the Middle East and North Africa.

European Companies Urged to Grow in Specialty Chemicals

Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) chemical companies were urged to grow in specialty chemicals. European specialty market’s production value expected to rise 7% a year until 2012, compared to only 4% for the commodity market.

Long gone the commodities game of sustainable long-term success with a focus on operational excellence, the money now is in specialty markets as value-added chemicals.

CEE companies should venture into huge strong domestic demands for specialty chemicals such as titanium oxide (TiO2), soda ash, methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI), toluene di-isocyanate (TDI), specialty plastics and adhesive.

In general, CEE companies have great advantage in terms of highly qualified and motivated workforce with solid experience and tradition in running petrochemical plants. The biggest obstacle currently is probably sourcing of oil and gas, which most CEE companies are dependant on Russia.

Cellulosic Ethanol for Biorefineries Hitting US

US is investing $114m for cellulosic ethanol projects to explore cellulosic ethanol feedstock options and production processes for biorefineries. The investment is for four years development of funding of four pilot plants before contribution from private sector. The government funding is seen as part of US goal of making cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive with gasoline by 2012 under the President Bush administration.

The pilot plant will be able to produce about 2.5m gal/year of cellulosic ethanol in a plant to build a commercial ethanol plant with annual output capacity of around 25m gallons or 75,000 tonnes.

There are as yet no commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol production units in the US. Current technologies explored under study for cellulosic ethanol production includes conventional cellulosic conversion technologies, biogenetic and microbiotic conversion of cellulosic feedstock into cost-effective fuels.

Cellulosic Ethanol Production Route from Biomass

Incentives to go with ethanol is pressured under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 which requires the US to produce at 100m gal/year of cellulosic ethanol by 2010 and 500m gal/year by 2012 in the route to achieve 36bn gal/year of renewable fuels in 2022.

Membrane-cell Chlor Alkali Plant in Texas by Dow

Dow is planning to build a new chlor alkali plant in Freeport, Texas using a membrane cell expected completion in 2011. The unique investment scheme for the chemical plant is utilizing Shintech, a vinyl producer to partly invest in the chemical plant while Dow in return will supply a steady amount of vinyl feedstock vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) from Dow.

During construction, the existing chlor-alkali complex that will be replaced with the membrane cell will result in chlorine and caustic soda production in the US in the amount of 3.6 mil tonnes of chlorine and 4 mil tonnes of caustic soda capacity per year.

The membrane-cell technology is expected to greatly decrease the production cost through efficient energy use replacing the diaphragm-cell production process in currently in Freeport.

Glycerol Technology by Rohm and Haas, Novasep

Rohm and Haas, a US specialty chemical company has struck a deal with Novasep to market and sell a new biotechnology that will purify crude glycerol, a by-product from biodiesel processing. The technology purifies crude glycerol through a separation processes developed by Novasep and Ambersep BD50, a resin produced by Rohm and Haas. The technology would be able to reduce the production cost significantly unlike the conventional purification process through distillation.

Currently, there is an abundance of crude glycerol available at disposal due to the rapid growth of biodiesel production. Rohm & Haas and Novasep most likely will license the glycerol purification technology in late 2008 or 2009.

Nigeria Planning MTO Project Using UOP Technology

Nigeria will be home to 1.3 mil tonne per year capacity olefins complex using MTO technology by UOP in Lagos. The project is the first MTO technology that would be constructed at commercial-scale including olefins cracking process technologies by EuroChem.

The project would produce 10000 tonnes per day of methanol capacity from natural gas due for completion in 2012 and the MTO technology is expected to be more cost effective than traditional olefins production from crude oil-derived feedstocks.

Upon completion, the MTO plant would give a competitive edge against other petrochemical producers using normal technology such as steam cracker and dehydrogenation.

Biodegradable Plastics Need Organics Disposal Program

Biodegradable bags which have been in discussion for many years, seem to have grown at slower pace with development expected to happen due to the growth of organic recycling in the US as predicted by BASF.

Biodegradable bags are now extensively used as organic waste collection bags, can liners and lawn and leaf bags in the US, Canada and Europe. The long waited biodegradable into grocery bags is yet to happen. Grocery bags are one of the major used of plastics in the bags segment. Currently polyethylene bags (PE Bags) are used.

The conversion of biodegradable bags, is only feasible if an organics collection program is available, since the technology is in place but it needs implementation to fully close the life cycle.

Recently, BASF has launched its Ecovio, a biodegradable plastic using foam. Ecovio is made from BASF’s biodegradable polyester Ecoflex and polyactic acid.

New Acrylic Acid Process Route

US biofuels player and ethanol producer Cargill is in the collaboration with Novozymes to develop a new breakthrough technology that would create acrylic acid through 3-hydroxypropionic acid (3HPA) using sugar. Engineered biological micro-organisms will be used to make 3HPA from fermented sugar. Bio-

China Joins the World for Carbon Reduction

Unlike some of the developed countries who disregard the importance of working together for carbon emission reduction, China plans to reduce emission levels by 10% between 2006 and 2010. 10% is considered as a big number for carbon emission reduction especially for a country that is developing at a rapid pace. China's use of renewable fuels would be expected at 15% by the year 2020, predicted by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

To achieve this, analysts are expecting some tighter automobile standards to reduce carbon emissions from

Biodiesel from Chicken Fat

Chemical engineering researches at University of Arkansa, United States have found ways to convert chicken fat into biodiesel fuel via supercritical methanol method. The yield is expected to be higher than 90%. Supercritical methanol treatment dissolves and causes the components to react at high temperature and

Gulf Petrochemical Uses Mitsubishi CO2 Recovery Technology

Bahrain’s fertilizer and petrochemicals maker, Gulf Petrochemical Industries Co (GPIC) has reportedly using Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) license for carbon dioxide (CO2) recovery technology which application would be to recover CO2 from GPIC petrochemical plants.

The CO2 are emitted from the flue gas emitted which now can be use to capture material to increase urea and methanol production. As much as 450 tonnes per day capacity of CO2 (the world’s largest) is captured for the chemical application unit.

MHI is also looking at adapting the technology for production of dimethyl ether (DME) plus other chemical plants applications.

ExxonMobil’s Coal to Fuel Technology Applied in US

Coal to Fuel technology which widely utilized in the GTO (Gas to Olefins) technology uses coals to produce syngas that is used for production of methanol which can either be used for DME for gasoline blending or as feedstock for petrochemicals (olefins).

DKRW Advanced Fuels has reportedly being another US company which will use ExxonMobil’s methanol to gasoline technology for the gasoline blending, reducing the sulphur and benzene content of the fuel as well.

The project will be implemented in Medicine Bow, Wyoming with capacity of 15,000 barrels per day of gasoline expected to be commissioned in 2012. DKRW will only use ExxonMobil’s technology for Methanol to Gasoline but the syngas will be produced by DKRW for the methanol production.

Gas to Olefins and Fuel is catching popularity and earlier, DKRW has announced its coal to diesel plant utilizing Rantech technology.

GTO is popular in China due to cheap available coals in the country as well as China’s announcement earlier to not be dependent on external oil.

New Ethanol Technology Will Cut Energy Cost

New technology for Ethanol production energy reduction by reducing emissions and improving overall energy balance wwas presented by Interstate Power and Light Co. (IPL), a subsidiary of Alliant Energy Corporation, Harris Companies, a mechanical contracting firm; and AE&E - Von Roll, Inc., a technology provider of steam generating systems. Currently the licensor for the patent is managed by FCStone Carbon, LLC. The technology is claimed to enable producers to produce Ethanol at significant cost reduction which will place the owners at great competitive advantage.

Typical process of Ethanol production

The new patented technology utilizing Ethanol in the product stream for the steam generation cutting the fuel gas consumption by 50% which save energy and reduces plant emissions.

As ethanol production has more than doubled in the past eight years, energy balance is a key issue. This technology will help producers reduce energy consumption while increasing the efficiencies of ethanol production.

Energy costs for a typical 50-million-gallon-per-year ethanol plant represent approximately 20 percent of the plants total annual operating costs. For every gallon of ethanol produced, 29 cents is spent on natural gas and four cents is spent on electricity.

Analysts are expecting that Ethanol producers will eventually adapt the technology for the cost benefit impact and better environmental image for ethanol plants.

In a separate news: DuPont has announced that it is investing $300 million for biofuels development. DuPont, a US chemical major player is planning to invest US$300 million in biofuels development which includes bio-butanol expansion and cellulosic ethanol technological acceleration development. The investment plan is set to start in the next 12 to 18 months. 

Shell Gasification Technology Licensed to Vinachem

Oil major, Shell has licensed its coal gasification to produce syngas to Vietnam National Chemical Group (Vinachem). The syngas produced for the coal gasification will be used for the Binh Fertilizer Petrochemical Plant to produce ammonia for urea production which utilizes 1300 tonnes/day of coal.

Coal gasification or sometimes known as partial oxidation, converts carbon-containing fuel sources which in this case, coal, into syngas at high temperatures. The Shell technology is a clean way of transforming coal into syngas for use in the manufacture of fertilizer, chemicals and power generation.

Chemical Technology: Methanol to Olefins

What is Methanol to Olefins?

Methanol to Olefins is a technology which can convert methanol to olefins (ethylene, propylene, butylenes, isobutylenes, and heavier olefins). Methanol to Olefins (MTO) technology can be considered as new technology in petrochemical processing since propylene and ethylene are usually obtained through conventional processes such as steam cracking, FCC and other available options.

Chemical Information and Process Technology

The process is to produce selective production of ethylene and propylene from methanol. MTO process converts methanol to ethylene and propylene at nearly 80% carbon selectivity in a fluidized bed reactor. The MTO reaction is exothermic.

Carbon or coke accumulates on the catalyst and must be removed to maintain catalyst activity. The coke is removed by combustion with air in a catalyst regenerator system. Other co-products include very small amounts of C1-C4 paraffins, hydrogen, CO and CO2, as well as ppm levels of heavier oxygenates that are removed to ensure that the product olefins meet polymer-grade specifications.

The ratio of propylene/ethylene product can range from less than 0.8 to more than 1.3. When combined with the Total Petrochemicals/UOP Olefin Cracking process (to be discussed later) to convert the heavier olefins, the overall yields of ethylene plus propylene increase to between 85 to 90 % and propylene/ethylene product ratios of more than 1.5 are achievable. MTO is part of a two-step process, which converts natural gas or coal to methanol followed by the conversion of methanol to light olefins.

Market Information/ Economics

MTO projects are driven by the desire to monetize natural gas or coal and the market demands for ethylene and propylene and their derivatives. Stranded natural gas prices are generally independent of crude oil and naphtha market prices so MTO provides another means for olefin derivative producers to diversify the cost structure for their feedstocks. MTO can provide much lower costs of production and higher returns on investment than naphtha crackers especially when crude oil market prices are high. MTO can also provide much lower costs of production and higher returns on investment than ethane crackers using ethane or natural gas liquids extracted from natural gas at prices above $3 to 4 per million Btu (e.g. North America). MTO plants can be located near or integrated with a methanol plant or they can be located separately with a methanol plant located near the gas source and the MTO plant located near the olefin markets or olefin derivative plants. In either case the methanol plant is located with access to low cost natural gas or coal. If there is local demand for a portion of the light olefins or their derivatives, then it can be desirable to locate the MTO unit at the same location as the methanol unit. If all of the light olefins or their derivatives are to be exported, then it may be preferable to ship methanol to an MTO unit that is located near the olefin or olefin derivative markets.