shell & ucg in vic, australia

Very interesting article.

Gives you an idea of where clean coal technologies are headed in the future when the big boys start to move in imo.

I extracted this bit out of the article; "The roll-out of these tech- nologies, particularly coal gasification and carbon capture and storage, is becoming critical because official fore- casts project a 60% increase in global primary energy demand over the next 30 years. These forecasts also suggest that fossil fuels remain one of the primary sources of energy, which means that the aggressive adoption of new and less carbon-intensive technologies is key to reducing CO2 emissions."

Investors need to look at emerging clean technologies that produce cleaner energy to meet the ever increasing needs of consumers at reasonable prices.

http://www.worldenergymedia.com/News20282_Carbon-sequestration-technologies-for-new-CTL-plant.htm

Carbon sequestration technologies for new CTL plant

October 21,2010 in Clean Coal

Global oil giant Shell and diversi- fied mining company Anglo American, in a joint venture known as Monash Energy, are developing a clean coal-to-liquids (CTL) plant in the Latrobe Valley, in Australia, which will use low-emission coal and carbon sequestration technologies.The plant, which will be commissioned in 2016, will use carbon sequestration to store about 13-million tons a year of carbon dioxide (CO2) offshore, beneath depleting oilfields in the Bass Strait."The technologies chosen by Monash Energy enable separation of a concen- trated stream of CO2 that can be transported to injection wells in deep underground geologi- cal formations for secure storage," the company states.The roll-out of these tech- nologies, particularly coal gasification and carbon capture and storage, is becoming critical because official fore- casts project a 60% increase in global primary energy demand over the next 30 years. These forecasts also suggest that fossil fuels remain one of the primary sources of energy, which means that the aggressive adoption of new and less carbon-intensive technologies is key to reducing CO2 emissions.The Monash Energy plant will use local brown coal as a fuel source, which has a moisture content of more than 60%. Vaporising the moisture when the coal is used for power generation leads to an energy loss that results in higher CO2 emissions for each unit of electricity generated (around 50% higher than using black coal). This is a significant challenge for Victorian power generators, with the expected start of carbon emissions trading looming in the near future.The first commercial plant is expected to produce about 60 000 bbl/d of synthetic fuel, 80% of which is high- quality diesel. The company has also considered producing hydrogen at the plant. The output of the plant has an indicative price of $50/bl and the Gippsland Basin brown coal resource is sufficient to support several such plants, each operating for 50 years.Monash Energy?s focus on the production of liquid fuels, such as low-zero sulphur synthetic diesel, is also relevant to the emerging debate around energy security. The project will be one of the largest single investments undertaken in Australia. Its size and complexity dictate that the plant will take ten years, from 2006 to 2016, from initiation to commercial production, the company concludes.

Outlet: Mining Weekly