SoCalGas, California agencies funding $9M RFP to develop ultra-low NOx heavy-duty natural gas engines

Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas), the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD), the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District (SJVAPCD) and the California Energy Commission (CEC) are jointly funding a request for proposals (RFP) (P2013-22) issued by SCAQMD to support the development of ultra-clean natural gas engines for a variety of heavy-duty vehicle applications in the South Coast Air Basin (SCAB) and San Joaquin Valley Air Basin (SJVAB).

The initiative, funded up to $9 million by the participating agencies together with $500,000 in matching funds from SoCalGas, aims to demonstrate natural gas engines capable of achieving aggressive, near-zero emission standards for on-road, heavy-duty vehicle applications suitable for refuse, goods movement, drayage, transit, or school bus applications.

The purpose of the RFP is to provide financial assistance to contractor teams to develop near-zero NO_x heavy-duty natural gas engines; integrate the engines into heavy-duty vehicles chassis; and evaluate the performance of the vehicles in a variety of heavy-duty vehicle applications in the South Coast and San Joaquin Valley Air Basins.

The principal RFP emission target is 0.02 grams per brake horsepower-hr (g/bhp-hr) NO_x; this represents a 90% reduction from the current EPA 2010 standard of 0.2 g/bhp-hr NO_x. Other targets are 0.01 g/bhp-hr particulate matter (PM); 0.14 g/bhp-hr hydrocarbon (HC); and 15.5 g/bhp-hr carbon monoxide (CO) or lower as determined by the heavy-duty engine Federal Test Procedure (FTP)-comparable to the EPA 2010 limits.

Proposals that address methods to achieve 10 ppm or lower NH₃ emission will score higher, and similarly those that address methods to achieve minimal or zero fuel economy penalties when compared to similar 2010 certified diesel engines, will score higher.

To reach the low NO_x emission target and keep the PM, HC, and CO at current or lower emissions levels, proponents may propose all or combinations of:

• optimized combustion chamber technology;
• advanced fuel delivery system;
• air handling system;
• advanced electronic controls; and
• exhaust after-treatment technologies.

Proponents will be required to build prototype heavy-duty natural gas engines and exhaust after-treatment technology, and to perform transient engine dynamometer tests of the prototype engines to assess fuel consumption, gaseous emissions, and particulate matter emissions.

Production-intent or production engines with exhaust after-treatment technology will then be built based on the prototype engines and integrated into an on-road heavy-duty prototype vehicle chassis suitable for refuse, goods movement, drayage truck, transit, or school bus applications and further developed to ensure adequate transient performance and drivability.

At least three production-intent or production vehicles will then be deployed and demonstrated in commercial services to evaluate performance, reliability, and emissions expectations. A heavy-duty chassis dynamometer will be needed for prototype vehicle development and in-use emissions testing.

Proposals are due by 24 July 2013.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/06/gas-20130613.htm

Methane Leaks Could Negate Climate Benefits of US Natural Gas Boom: Report

Reduction in carbon emissions triggered by America's shift from coal to gas is being offset by a sharp rise in methane.

wcn247/Flickr

Methane leaks could undo the climate change benefits of America's natural gas boom, a new report said on Tuesday.

The report, produced by the Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), said America's shift from coal to gas had produced important climate gains.

Carbon dioxide emissions fell last year to their lowest point since 1994, according to the Department of Energy. Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions were 12% below 2005 levels.

But the report said those reductions were not enough, on their own, to escape the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.

To keep reading, click here.

http://climatedesk.org/2013/06/methane-leaks-could-negate-climate-bene

New open-source lifecycle analysis tool for oil production using field characteristics

Schematic chart showing included stages within OPGEE. El Houjeiri et al., Supplemental Information. Click to enlarge.

A team from Stanford University and the California Air Resources Board (ARB) has developed a new open-source lifecycle analysis (LCA) tool for modeling the greenhouse gas emissions of oil and gas production using characteristics of specific fields and associated production pathways. The team describes the Oil Production Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimator (OPGEE) in a paper in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Existing transportation fuel cycle emissions models are either broad-i.e., lacking process-level detail for any particular fuel pathway-and calculate nonspecific values of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from crude oil production, or are not available for public review and auditing, the authors note.

Emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from crude oil production vary significantly depending on production practices and crude oil qualities. The use of energy-intensive secondary and tertiary recovery technologies can have significant impacts on emissions. Other major factors are venting, flaring and fugitive (VFF) emissions, which are difficult to measure and estimate. Previous studies show that upstream, well-to-refinery gate (WTR) emissions vary by a factor of 10 from low emissions to high emissions fields. This variability highlights the importance of having the capability to assess the different types of crude oil production operations and under different conditions.

Regulatory approaches, such as the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) and European Fuel Quality Directive (EU FQD), seek to regulate the life cycle GHG emissions for transport fuels.

...To advance the modeling of crude oil production GHGs in a transparent manner, the Oil Production Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimator (OPGEE) has been developed. OPGEE is built with the goals of achieving more accuracy and better transparency in the assessment of life cycle GHG emissions from crude oil production. OPGEE calculates the energy use and emissions from crude oil production using engineering fundamentals of petroleum production and processing. This allows the model to flexibly estimate emissions from a variety of oil production emissions sources.

-El-Houjeiri et al.

In their paper, Hassan El-Houjeiri and Adam Brandt from Stanford, and James Duffy from ARB, introduce OPGEE and its structure, modeling methods, and data sources, then run it in default mode and on a small set of fictional fields (based on real California fields) selected to have varying characteristics and meant to represent a variety of possible operations. These serve to anchor the sensitivity analysis. The results show the GHG emissions breakdown and the sensitivity of emissions to selected input parameters.

The functional unit of OPGEE is 1 MJ of crude petroleum delivered to the refinery entrance (a well-to-refinery, or WTR system boundary), with emissions presented as gCO₂ equiv GHGs per MJ of crude at the refinery gate. This functional unit is held constant across different production processes included in OPGEE. The energy content of crude oil at the refinery gate is calculated based on API gravity (no account of effects of other crude oil characteristics such as sulfur content). OPGEE defaults to lower heating value (LHV) basis for all calculations, but model results can also be presented on higher heating value (HHV) basis.

Basic structure of OPGEE. Credit: ACS, El-Houjeiri et al. Click to enlarge.

OPGEE calculations use a bottom-up engineering-based approach. OPGEE relies on dozens of calculations across all stages of oil production, processing and transport.

Data for the four fictional fields used in the paper (A, B, C, D) are derived from the online production and injection database and technical reports from the California Department of Conservation, Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR).

Field A uses steam injection to decrease crude viscosity. Field B is characterized by very high water-oil ratio (WOR), which represents an inefficient lifting process and significant energy use to manage large amounts of water at the surface (e.g., treatment and re-injection). Field C is characterized by average depth and moderate WOR. Field D is characterized by low depth, low WOR, and higher gas‚àíoil ratio (GOR). The "generic" case uses only the default parameters used to run OPGEE when no data are available.

WTR GHG intensity of California fields compared to OPGEE default. Field A has high GHG because of the use of energy-intensive steam injection. Field B is depleted, with WOR = 40 (e.g., it produces 40 bbl of water per bbl oil). Lifting and handling this amount of fluid is inefficient and consumes large amounts of energy. The water produced is assumed to be re-injected into the reservoir to maintain pressure, increasing the energy intensity of production. Fields C and D have relatively low GHG intensity because they do not use energy-intensive secondary and tertiary production technologies and have moderate to low WOR. Click to enlarge. Credit: ACS, El-Houjeiri et al.

The researchers explored variation in GHG outcomes due to WOR; field depth; oil production volume; steam-oil ratio (SOR); application of a heater/treater in surface oil‚àíwater separation; and flaring rate. OPGEE found that that upstream emissions from petroleum production operations can vary from 3 gCO₂/MJ to more than 30 gCO₂/MJ using realistic ranges of input parameters. Significant drivers of emissions variation are steam injection rates, water handling requirements, and rates of flaring of associated gas.

Results from OPGEE show clear evidence that assuming a single value for the GHG intensity of oil production is problematic because of significant variation in emissions from different operations. This is particularly the case for regulations aiming to reduce WTW GHG intensity of fuels. Future efforts to better understand and characterize this variation are clearly required. Additional efforts will also focus on improving data availability and the data basis for model defaults.

Future work on OPGEE will address scope limitations and coverage of technologies. Coverage will expand to include oil sands operations, as well as heavy oil and other EOR technologies. Supporting technologies, such as hydraulic fracturing and stimulation, will be included to better represent modern production practices.

-El-Houjeiri et al.

The work was funded by ARB.

Resources

• Hassan M. El-Houjeiri, Adam R. Brandt, and James E. Duffy (2013) Open-Source LCA Tool for Estimating Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Crude Oil Production Using Field Characteristics. Environmental Science & Technology doi: 10.1021/es304570m

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/05/new-open-source-lifecycle-anal

Frackers Are Losing $1.5 Billion Yearly to Leaks

Leaky pipes are the "super low-hanging fruit" of climate change.

Sean Garrett/Flickr

Of all the many and varied consequences of fracking (water contamination, injured workers, earthquakes, the list goes on) one of the least understood is so-called "fugitive" methane emissions. Methane is the primary ingredient of natural gas, and it escapes into the atmosphere at every stage of production: at wells, in processing plants, and in pipes on its way to your house. According to a new study, it could become one of the worst climate impacts of the fracking boom-and yet, it's one of the easiest to tackle right away. Best of all, fixing the leaks is good for the bottom line.

According to the World Resources Institute, natural gas producers allow $1.5 billion worth of methane to escape from their operations every year. That might sound like small change to an industry that drilled up some $66.5 billion worth of natural gas in 2012 alone, but it's a big deal for the climate: While methane only makes up 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions (20 percent of which comes from cow farts), it packs a global warming punch 20 times stronger than carbon dioxide.

Courtesy WRI

"Those leaks are everywhere," said WRI analyst James Bradbury, so fixing them would be "super low-hanging fruit."

The problem, he says, is that right now those emissions aren't directly regulated by the EPA. In President Obama's first term, the EPA set new requirements for capturing other types of pollutants that escape from fracked wells, using technology that also, incidentally, limits methane. But without a cap on methane itself, WRI finds, the potent gas is free to escape at incredible rates, principally from leaky pipelines. The scale of the problem is hard to overstate: The Energy Department found that leaking methane could ultimately make natural gas-which purports to be a "clean" fossil fuel-even more damaging than coal, and an earlier WRI study found that fixing methane leaks would be the single biggest step the US could take toward meeting its long-term greenhouse gas reduction goals.

What's more, the solution to the problem doesn't rely on some kind futuristic, expensive technology: It's literally a matter of patching up leaky pipes.

So what's the holdup? For one thing, Bradbury says, that $1.5 billion in savings wouldn't necessarily go to the companies making investments in fixing pipes: Gas inside a pipeline is owned by the producer, but the pipeline itself is owned by an independent operator who might not see any advantage in preventing methane leaks. The other issue is detection: Methane is colorless and can be odorless, so there's no way to know when it's escaping, where, and how fast, without special equipment. Gear to simplify the detection process is beginning to crop up on the market, but without a government mandate there's less incentive for companies to invest in it. And without hard data on much methane they're losing, companies are disinclined to address the problem-especially across all of the nation's 300,000 miles of natural gas pipelines.

Or simply unwilling: A recent (debunked) report from the American Natural Gas Alliance claims the methane emissions risk is way over-hyped; an industry spokesperson said current practices were already enough to ensure that "people don't need to trade protection of air, land and water for economic advancement."

This is where the EPA needs to step in, Bradbury says. Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA could regulate all greenhouse gas emissions, which would cover not only methane but also the main climate change culprit, CO2. It could, at a minimum, require companies to monitor these emissions. And it could reward companies that take action via recognition in its fracking best-practices program, Natural Gas STAR. Finally, the EPA could provide better support to the state-level agencies that are ultimately responsible for enforcing Clean Air Act rules.

If the president is serious about tackling climate change from the Oval Office, Bradbury said, there could hardly be a better place to start than here.

"We need to be focused on solutions and not take a wait-and-see approach," he said. "You want to get these rules in place at the front end; we're already playing catch-up."

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/04/ypfdow-20130405.htm

http://climatedesk.org/2013/04/frackers-are-losing-1-5-billion-yearly-

The Impact Of Fracking On America's Economy... From Space

See that cluster of lights by North Dakota? That's the result of fracking. Six years ago that light cluster did not exist. The reason is over the past years natural gas extraction though the use of fracking has increased exponentially as a result of the push for alternative fuel use and technological achievements.

Fracking is the controversial method of extracting natural gas from shale rock using a chemical and water mixture. Depending on the methods used, some 29% of the gas being extracted can go to waste-or rather, into creating this light show.

That light cluster is fire of natural gas burning as companies work all night to extract resources from the Bakken formation under North Dakota; a place whose citizens now call the "Kuwait on the prairie".

The natural gas rush has been so sudden that North Dakota now has the lowest unemployment rate in the country - more than 41,000 workers got jobs there between 2008 and 2012. Additionally, seven years ago, the U.S. was importing 60% of its oil. Now oil imports are down to 42%. The Bakken fields play a major role in this.

Natural gas is indeed making an impact, be it for better or for worse, and an impact that is now visible from space! The picture was taken by NASA's Earth Observatory, which orbits the planet twice a day some 512 miles up.

Source: news.yahoo.com

Andrew Meggison was born in the state of Maine and educated in Massachusetts. Andrew earned a Bachelor's Degree in Government and International Relations from Clark University and a Master's Degree in Political Science from Northeastern University. Being an Eagle Scout, Andrew has a passion for all things environmental. In his free time Andrew enjoys writing, exploring the great outdoors, a good film, and a creative cocktail. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AndrewMeggison

The post The Impact Of Fracking On America's Economy... From Space appeared first on Gas 2.

http://gas2.org/2013/01/25/the-impact-of-fracking-on-americas-economy-

Anti-ethanol Propaganda isn't 100% Wrong, Just 100% Crazy

Yesterday, I found myself clicking around a website that called itself "smarter fuel future". The distortion of facts to fit fictions and lies by omission committed throughout the site would be laughable, if they weren't so readily accepted by some of the mental midgets (mental little people?) that frequent this site's comments section from time to time.

I welcome the wingnut contingent, though. I'd like to say something here about keeping things honest and objective, but the reality is that a pageview's a pageview, right?

Right.

SO, in the interest of calling the anti-ethanol people out on their ridiculous bullshit keeping things honest, let's address some of the nonsense I read on the "smarter fuel" website. People with an IQ below 90, prepare to comment sarcastically without understanding the logic of what you are about to read.

The specific link that came to my attention from an ad on Gas 2 that was emailed to me by a confused reader. It linked to this page that talked about vehicles and small engines, so let's start there.

Please click the link and notice the heading "Decreased Fuel Economy". The "smarter fuel" site reminds us that "smarter" is a relative term almost immediately here, committing 2 logical fallacies at once. The "smarter fuel" website (like most ethanol detractors) points to the 100% correct fact that ethanol contains about 30% less energy by volume than petroleum gasoline. They specifically say "vehicles fueled with ethanol cover fewer miles per gallon than those running on conventional gasoline. The higher the ethanol blend, the lower the fuel economy, meaning consumers must fill up at the pump more frequently." The first fallacy in the "Decreased Fuel Economy" argument is here: the informal fallacy of equivocation, or "the misleading use of a term with more than one meaning or sense (by glossing over which meaning is intended at a particular time)." In this case, "fuel economy" and "miles per gallon" can mean many things, since "fuel" is a vague and intentionally misleading term, and "miles per gallon" implies "miles per gallon of gasoline". Think about the statement another way: if you substitute the vague term "fuel" with the specific term "petroleum gasoline", I think (hope) that arguments made against ethanol from a basis of "decreased petroleum gasoline economy" becomes a laughable objection to ethanol. They are literally saying "the higher the ethanol blend, the lower the amount of petroleum gasoline will be used", and there, RIGHT THERE, is their core complaint ... because they are either oil company employees or the idiot pawns of oil company marketers who never took (or, more likely, passed) a formal logic class.

Education FTMFW, amirite?

Beating a dead horse just a bit, I'd like to point out that (even if you accept that whoever wrote it simply too stupid to realize their logic is horribly flawed) this is strictly an appeal to short-sighted convenience, and places "more trips to the pump" ahead of concerns about foreign oil dependence, environmental damage that comes from extracting oil from the ground, the huge amounts of resource-draining government oil subsidies, the wars fought over a finite (non-renewable) energy source, and the numerous health problems associated with burning petroleum fuels. In scientific terms: all this anti-ethanol hysteria is crazy-talk.

Moving on, let's talk about the next heading, "Damage to Vehicles and Performance". The site says "Beyond the damage to your wallet, ethanol can also damage vehicles and affect performance - corroding metals, causing rubber to swell and causing engines to break down more quickly. Some ethanol blends should not be used on certain engines and motors at all. EPA's E15 waiver covers only 2001 and newer motor vehicles." All of that, by the way, is 100% true. Alcohols can dry out the organic rubber o-rings and fuel lines in many automotive fuel systems, causing them to crack, leak, and require replacement. If not enough fuel is getting to your engine because of a fuel leak, your car will stop running and require maintenance. You may need to replace several feet of rubber fuel lines with ethanol-safe line, at a retail cost of about $6/ft. O-rings cost a few cents.

That doesn't sound quite as scary as "break down", does it?

Those of you who are not too young or too senile to have long memories will recall that a lot of this bickering and fear-mongering sounds pretty similar to the hubbub raised in the 70s when the US government banned the use of lead as an octane-boosting fuel additive. The transition away from leaded fuels was fought by the oil companies, who didn't want to have to find new ways to refine fuel for higher octane. Claims were made that vehicles designed to run leaded fuel would experience knock conditions that could damage engines' efficiencies and hurt fuel economy, even leading to break downs.

Sound familiar?

As with ethanol, the claims made against unleaded gas were true. The changeover was long, lasting form 1975-1986, and it was expensive. Automakers had to build engines with tighter tolerances that ran hotter to burn the unleaded fuel, while oil companies had to find newer and cheaper ways to make higher-octane fuels available to the public. Change costs money, and the people who will have to spend that money will fight doing so, tooth and nail, long after reason has failed them.

Why was lead used in the first place? Leaded gasoline was discovered on Dec. 9, 1921, at the General Motors research labs in Dayton Ohio. GM researchers had been testing fuel blends since 1916, trying to stop engine "knock." Knock is caused by early detonation of fuel inside a combustion chamber due to compression, which pushes the engine "backwards" causing a knock-like sound. Knock was a hug problem in early internal combustion engines, and was a problem that was preventing the development of higher efficiency, higher compression engines that could generate more power. GM researchers tried many different additives and found quite a few that worked well. Ethyl alcohol (ethanol) from cellulosic materials became Detroit's strong preference. "Of course," Thomas A. Midgley of GM wrote in a memo to his boss, GM research vice president Charles Kettering, "alcohol is the fuel of the future." Oil companies, however, resisted the use of alcohol, and pushed for lead - which was (all together now) cheaper.

That's right, kids. We knew 100 years ago that alcohol was the way forward, but we decided to put all that aside in favor of a substance that was known to be toxic just because it was cheaper.

Thankfully, someone got their head out of their ass long enough to put pen to paper and legislate lead out of our fuels. That move away from lead in gasoline was motivated by public health. It was expensive, to be sure, but it was money well spent. Cases of lead poisoning are way down, and the average lead content in Americans' blood is much lower than it was in the 70s and 80s.

Today, the move away from gasoline is similarly motivated by public health. Carbon emissions cause heart attacks and respiratory problems and kill millions every year. Thousands of soldiers - American and otherwise - die in land wars over oil. Inconceivable fortunes in government spending subsidize oil companies and lobbyists, and pay them to produce twaddle like the "smarter fuel" site, all in an effort to convince the most impressionable among us that their vote should be cast this way or that, so that they can save their fortune just a little while longer. "Don't think too much about the future," they say. "In the future, we'll be dead."

Sorry, oil-advocate douchebags. My kids will be alive in the future. They're pretty cute, so they'll probably breed and then their kids will be alive in the future. I'd like for them to have some clean air to breathe, some water to drink, and maybe some scenery that isn't shimmering purple from oil slicks. As such I would like to ask, sincerely, that all you anti-ethanol hysterics douse yourself in your precious gasoline and die in fires. (this is the part where we all send letters to the men and women in congress who opposed the EPA's move and tell them we hate them)

Sources: Smarter (ha!) Fuel Future, Radford University, and a bunch of others, linked-to in the text.
The post Anti-ethanol Propaganda isn't 100% Wrong, Just 100% Crazy appeared first on Gas 2.

http://gas2.org/2013/01/20/anti-ethanol-propaganda-isnt-100-still-100-

Oil From Algae: The Goal 10,000 Barrels A Day By 2018

Sapphire Energy has built the world's first large-scale farm to grow algae and produce crude oil. If all goes according to plan, commercial production of perhaps 10,000 barrels a day will begin in 2018.
Algae have major potential, even the U.S. military is looking into algae as fuel source. Algae grow fast, do not need food, and build up oil in their cells after being exposed to sunlight and CO2. Algae is grown is salty ponds, so algae farms can be built on land where not much else will grow - thus the land is readily available and inexpensive. Into each pond go genetically engineered single-celled algae that mature in five days. The mature algae is then taken from the pond and put through a thermo-chemical "wet extraction" process that separates the oil.
Sapphire Energy has spent $60 million on 70 algae ponds that are each the size of a football field and a refinery for oil separation. The site sits on 2,200 acres of land in Columbus New Mexico. Oil refining began in the summer of 2012 and the first barrels of oil have aired hit the market.
Sapphire Energy's chief executive is Cynthia Warner. Ms. Warner's previous job - head of global refining at oil giant BP. To date Sapphire Energy has raised about $300 million to fund their operation.
So what is the problem; why is algae oil not a mainstream product? Simply put, it is expensive to make. Reports say it costs around $5,000 to produce 1 ton of algae. If there is 30% oil embedded in that ton, then that converts into around $50 per gallon of oil. And that is before extraction and conversion. Additionally, the energy needed to produce the oil from the algae costs more than the algae would put out.
Yes production costs are a problem. However, that does not mean that there is not potential in this new form of green oil production. Sapphire Energy plans for commercial production of 10,000 barrels of oil from algae a day beginning in 2018.
Source: money.cnn.com
Andrew Meggison was born in the state of Maine and educated in Massachusetts. Andrew earned a Bachelor's Degree in Government and International Relations from Clark University and a Master's Degree in Political Science from Northeastern University. Being an Eagle Scout, Andrew has a passion for all things environmental. In his free time Andrew enjoys writing, exploring the great outdoors, a good film, and a creative cocktail. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AndrewMeggison
The post Oil From Algae: The Goal 10,000 Barrels A Day By 2018 appeared first on Gas 2.

http://gas2.org/2013/01/14/oil-from-algae-the-goal-10000-barrels-a-day