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Showing posts with label #csg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #csg. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Microbial corrosion of coal seam gas wells

In March 2019 EIN Presswire published an article on corrosion in Queensland's coal seam gas wells...

It had been at this link https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/480473562/xpand-able-patches-to-extend-the-life-of-corroded-csg-wells-in-queensland-australia

Corrosion in coal seam gas wells seems systemic in Queensland


The now-deleted article included -

Xpandable Patches to extend the life of corroded CSG wells in Queensland, Australia

Charles Albouy, EINPresswire.com

  • Full-covered Xpandable Patches successfully isolated bacterial corrosion in coal seam gas wells;
  • Microbiologically-influenced corrosion seems to be systemic in the region, and other operators might encounter similar issues in their CSG wells.

Saltel Industries was approached in 2016 by one of Australia’s leading natural gas producers, to tailor a solution for their unusual problem: in some of their CSG wells in Queensland, the 7in production casing must cope with severe and localized external corrosion, developing at shallow depth. These corrosion cases are suspected to be caused by bacteria growing under specific pressure and temperature environments. ...

The corrosion damage can occur at very shallow depths (e.g., as little as a few metres below the wellhead), and corrosion damage can leave less than 80% of the casing metal thickness. In this situation, traditional patch setting methods that require high-pulling or explosive alternatives are complicated and risky for the casing and involve serious HSE downhole hazards. ...


Posted by Askgerbil at 7:02 PM 0 comments
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Thursday, September 20, 2018

Fossil fuel industry opposes innovation

The World Coal Association ignores innovations to reduce electricity prices, raise efficiency and reduce emissions.

Technology now available allows reliable electricity to be generated with just one-third of the coal burned in "High Efficiency, Low Emission" (HELE) coal-fired power plants.

The World Coal Association had called for investment in development of technology for cleaner coal in 2015. Now that technology is available, the World Coal Association has slammed a moratorium on its use.


The natural gas industry also opposes innovations to reduce energy bills and avoid the need for ever more costly drilling and fracking.
Beyond HELE - thermal power generation technology
Beyond HELE - thermal power generation technology
Carbon from many different substances can be combined with hydrogen to produce methane.
When methane is used to fuel an Ultrahigh Temperature Gas Turbine Combined Cycle power station, carbon dioxide emissions are 310 grams per kilowatt-hour.

The amount of carbon needed for each kilowatt-hour from any power station can be calculated if the carbon dioxide intensity is known. Each 44 grams of carbon dioxide contain 12 grams of carbon. The other 32 grams are oxygen.

The Ultrahigh Temperature Gas Turbine Combined Cycle power station needs methane made with 310 x (12 / 44) grams of carbon for each kilowatt-hour of electricity. That is 85 grams of carbon for each kilowatt-hour.

Some other power station technologies need a lot more carbon for each kilowatt-hour of electricity generated.

When coal is used to fuel a high-efficiency low-emission "HELE" ultra-supercritical coal-fired power station, carbon dioxide emissions are 900 grams per kilowatt-hour. The amount of carbon in the coal needed for each kilowatt-hour of electricity generated is 900 x (12 / 44) grams. That is 245 grams of carbon for each kilowatt-hour.

Some other common materials contain carbon that can be used to produce methane.

Each 28 grams of waste polyethylene plastic (C2H4)n contain 24 grams of carbon and 4 grams of hydrogen.

Each kilogram of wheat straw with about 7% moisture content is made of 48% cellulose by weight (of which carbon is 44%) and 25% is lignin by weight (of which carbon is 65%) ... (((1000 x (48 / 100) x (44 / 100)) + (1000 x (25 / 100) x (65 / 100))). That is 374 grams of carbon in each kilogram.

Choosing whether to burn 245 grams of carbon in coal or just 85 grams of carbon in methane to produce each kilowatt-hour of electricity seems to have only one obvious answer.

The World Coal Association simply refuses to answer this question.

Representatives of the gas industry also refuse to answer this question.

So-called "intermittent" renewable energy can be used in two or more ways to make synthetic methane from any material (straw, waste plastic, coal, etc) containing carbon.

One way is to use renewable energy when supply exceeds demand to power a plasma gasifier.

Another way is to use renewable energy to produce hydrogen by electrolysis of water - and combine that hydrogen with carbon from one or more sources.

As well as industry refusing to answer simple questions about innovation, the Australian Government tries to sell gas exploration rights to the gas industry even though this old method of obtaining natural gas - which is mostly methane - is no longer needed.



The Western Australian Government is also reviewing this obsolete method of obtaining methane in considering whether to sell "fracking" rights over large swathes of Western Australia.

Small-scale biomass gasifiers are one more renewable energy generation option for Australian farms that need affordable, reliable 24 hour a day electricity supplies. For example, a seller on Alibaba in China has a biomass gasifier offered for $500 - $1,000 per unit.
Posted by Askgerbil at 9:17 PM 0 comments
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Friday, December 22, 2017

Snowy Hydro 2.0 has competition

There are many ways to store renewable energy.

A problem with Snowy Hydro 2.0 is that it won't work without a large investment in additional 'poles and wires'. This is needed to move renewable energy to the centralised storage facility and to deliver it to consumers when needed. This very large outlay will add to already high electricity prices in Australia.

Another option reduces the need for spending on 'poles and wires' and cuts electricity prices: installing energy storage along-side solar PV systems owned by electricity consumers. See Affordable reliable electricity the easy way for a discussion on this option.

A different option for energy storage has even more advantages...

The Australian Government and other coal lobbyists express concerns with a fifty percent renewable energy target such as the one proposed by the Australian Labor Party:
"50% Renewable Energy by 2030 ...The Climate Change Authority has found that for Australia to achieve its bipartisan agreement to limit global warming by less than 2°C, renewable energy will need to comprise at least half of Australia’s electricity generation by 2030." 
Opponents make claims such as:
"Labor’s energy policy to deliver $200 bill shock ...Labor’s policy of a 50 per cent ­renewable energy target by 2030 would require the closure of 75 per cent of existing coal-fired power in Australia."
It's not as challenging a problem as some people think. Instead of using renewable energy to pump water uphill in a Snowy Hydro 2.0, it can be converted to despatchable fuel in two steps:
  1. Produce hydrogen by electrolysis of water.
  2. Use the hydrogen from the first step to manufacture methane from brown coal. 
The resulting fuel contains 50% renewable energy and 50% fossil fuel energy. If biomass was gasified in place of the coal, the fuel would be 100% renewable, despatchable energy.

The advantages include:
  • There is no need for fracking to produce coal seam gas.
  • There is no shortage of natural gas for the domestic market.
  • Inefficient old brown coal power stations that produce over 1,100 kilograms of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour are replaced by efficient combined-cycle gas turbine power stations that produce only 330 kilograms of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour. 
The reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from over 1,100 kilograms to just 330 kilograms per megawatt-hour points to a fairly remarkable benefit:
  • For Snowy Hydro 2.0 only about 2 megawatt-hours of renewable energy are returned for each 3 megawatt-hours of renewable energy that are stored... 
  • Carbon in brown coal is only being converted into electricity at an efficiency of about 25% in existing coal-fired power stations.
  • After this carbon is used to make methane with hydrogen from renewable energy, it is converted into electricity with an efficiency of 60% in combined cycle gas turbine power stations. 
  • This change means the amount of coal needed for the same amount of electricity is cut by over 70%. Output is increased, not reduced in this option.
E.on launches power-to-gas plant
E.on launches power-to-gas plant
The unit uses wind power to run electrolysis equipment that transforms water into hydrogen

The conversion of coal and biomass into high energy synthetic gases suitable for use as fuels focused attention on the hydrogasification reaction: C + 2H2 ⇄ CH4.

Because this reaction is highly exothermic and requires the presence of hydrogen, it has been suggested that it be integrated with endothermic hydrogen-producing reactions such as the steam/carbon gasification reaction, C + H20 ⇄ C0 + H2, and the methane/steam reforming reaction, CH4 + H20 ⇄ C0 + 3H2, to conserve heat and reduce the amount of hydrogen which must be provided.

It has been found that this can be done by reacting the coal or other carbonaceous material with steam and hydrogen in a hydrogasification zone to produce a methane-rich gas, passing at least a portion of this gas stream through a methane reforming zone where it is contacted with steam to reduce part of the methane and form hydrogen, and then recycling hydrogen and carbon monoxide recovered from the steam reformer overhead gas to the hydrogasification zone.

Coal char or other carbonaceous solids are circulated between the hydrogasification and reforming zones to provide heat integration.
Posted by Askgerbil at 10:09 PM 0 comments
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Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Gas Vision 2050 by 2025

Gas Vision 2050 is an Energy Networks Australia report produced on December 18, 2017. Australia’s peak gas industry bodies prepared it to "demonstrate how gas may continue to provide Australians with reliable and affordable energy in a low carbon energy future."

The scope of the report is to "outline how Australia’s gas supply and infrastructure can be a national advantage as our energy mix continues to evolve."


The reports author's missed the option being explored across Europe: make us of Australia’s gas supply and infrastructure as an energy storage system.

This new purpose for Australia’s gas supply and infrastructure has the potential to make a substantial contribution to the economy. For instance, a proposal for a multi-billion dollar development of pumped hydro energy storage "Snowy Hydro 2.0" is years away from becoming a reality. The gas supply infrastructure can begin providing this function almost immediately.

The report describes three technologies under the heading "Decarbonisation Pathways" -
  • Biogas production – Biogas consists of methane and is already produced from municipal solid waste.
  • Hydrogen: Hydrogen can be produced from natural gas or through electrolysis. Hydrogen creates opportunities for clean energy for households, businesses or transport and can also generate zero emissions electricity using fuel cells or gas turbines.
  • Carbon capture and storage (CCS) refers to the process of producing decarbonised hydrogen from gas, coal, or biogas to remove carbon dioxide from the carbon cycle.
There is a fourth technology that has significant potential to accelerate decarbonisation of Australia's gas supply. So much so that the goal the report sets for 2050 may be achieved much sooner.

Biogas can be produced from a great many carbon-containing materials such as farm crop waste, municipal waste, sewage sludge, animal waste and timber waste. In each case about half the carbon combines with hydrogen from water in the mixture to form methane and the remaining carbon combines with the oxygen "left over" from the creation of methane to form carbon dioxide.

The result is a gas that is about 50/50 methane and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide needs to be removed before the methane is suitable for injection into gas supply pipelines.

Hydrogen can be produced using surplus renewable energy to split water by electrolysis. This is a method of energy storage. Hydrogen may be injected directly into gas supply lines, but the proportion can be no more than 10 percent by volume.
The fourth technology that isn't mentioned in the Gas Vision 2050 report tackles both of the above issues:
Waste materials containing carbon can be reacted with hydrogen. In this process ALL the carbon is converted into methane and NO carbon dioxide is created. So there is nothing to separate from the biogas before it can be injected into natural gas pipelines. The 10 percent limit on the proportion of hydrogen that can be safely mixed with natural gas is no longer an issue...
The biomethane produced via this pathway is achieving two purposes:
  • It is replacing natural gas with carbon-neutral biogas. 
  • It is storing renewable energy in the form of methane for use as required.
Production of Biogas/Methane by Biomass Hydrogasification


This needn't be a permanent part of a zero-emission energy system. While battery capacity investment is ramping up, excess wind and solar power can be stored and distributed as hydrogen and/or methane in the existing natural gas system.

Burning natural gas in heating appliances will eventually be discontinued, but for now, a large number of these appliances are being used. It will be some time before they are all replaced.

Small distributed gas-fueled electricity generation can be up to 60% efficient. These do the job that batteries and pumped hydro will eventually do - when enough of them have been built.

Farmers can replace coal seam gas industry by manufacturing methane from crop waste that is combined with hydrogen made to store  renewable energy.

When there are enough batteries and pumped hydro storage to eliminate the need for natural gas energy resources in Australia, this bio-methane can be used as feed stock in chemical industries to replace coal seam gas. It can also be exported as LNG, substituting for Australia's coal and coal seam gas energy exports.
Posted by Askgerbil at 12:13 PM 0 comments
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Friday, May 19, 2017

Renewable natural gas

The Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association - "the voice of [one part of] Australia's oil and gas industry" - held its annual conference in Perth recently. The Twitter feed about the conference is under hash tag #APPEA2017

Approaches for increasing the supply of natural gas were on the agenda, but renewable energy production of natural gas didn't get a mention. The absence of Bioenergy Australia which is holding a Bioenergy Business Breakfast in Adelaide next week left the struggling oil and gas industry bereft of a host of ideas to address the intractable problem of rising costs of extracting natural gas. The problem it faces is that there aren't any more low-cost natural gas reserves to exploit.

New methods for producing natural gas from renewable energy are being developed and refined, continually lowering costs and improving efficiency.

At the same time:
  1. The cost of extracting coal seam gas is constantly increasing.
    Unconventional gas production involves significantly higher capital expenditure
  2. The domestic price of natural is continuing to rise.
    The wholesale price of natural gas in Australia has risen steeply
    The wholesale price of natural gas in Australia has risen steeply
These factors are making it more commercially attractive to produce natural gas from renewable energy. 

There are 3 underlying processes for making renewable natural gas no matter how the various technologies achieve them:
  1. Carbon dioxide can be converted into carbon-containing compounds and oxygen by algae and other plants using sunlight to drive photosynthesis.
     
  2. Carbon dioxide can also be converted into natural gas and water using hydrogen produced from electrolysis of water using electricity from renewable energy generation. Oxygen is produced as a by-product as in the first process.
     
  3. Any carbon-containing compounds including those produced by algae and plants in the first process described above along with farm waste and municipal waste, can be converted into a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide. About half the carbon in the input feed stock is converted into methane, and the other half into carbon dioxide. After the carbon dioxide produced as a by-product is separated, it can be converted into methane by recycling it into either of the first two processes. No "carbon capture and storage" required, avoiding a susbstantial cost of using natural gas from fossil fuel reserves.
     
    • Long established technologies use methane-producing bacteria that create methane and carbon dioxide in anaerobic fermentation ponds or tanks.
    • More recently plants have become available that use supercritical water as a gasification medium to create methane and carbon dioxide. These complete the gasification process more quickly and so don't need large tanks where methane-producing bacteria gradually transform the feed stock. This newer technology is especially well-suited for wet feed stock as there is no need to dry it.

These more recent technologies can also efficiently convert low-grade coal with high moisture content into natural gas. Existing coal-fired power could use this option to improve efficiency and lower emissions until it is feasible to decommission them.

Researchers at ENN Group, China and Carleton University, Canada recently investigated supercritical water lignite gasification technology. See "Coal-based Clean Energy Production", Advances in Energy Engineering (AEE) Volume 1 Issue 4, October 2013.

Supercritical Water gasification of wet biomass and low-grade coal
Supercritical Water gasification of wet biomass and low-grade coal


More recently the Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland, completed an assessment of the option of Australia becoming a major exporter of renewable energy to Asia - making use of the Queensland LNG export facilities - to ship natural gas made with renewable energy. See "Can Australia Power the Energy-Hungry Asia with Renewable Energy?"
Posted by Askgerbil at 5:34 PM 0 comments
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Thursday, May 4, 2017

Commercial viability of coal seam gas

Australian coal seam gas is expensive to extract: about $4 to $5 a gigajoule. 
Rising cost of extracting coal seam gas
Rising cost of extracting coal seam gas
 The U.S. wholesale gas price is only $3 a gigajoule.
U.S. natural gas price
U.S. natural gas price
One option for increasing the natural gas supply in Australia, though it isn't the preferred option, is to import LNG from the U.S. 
The point to take away from this is that coal seam gas in Australia, facing competition from the U.S. that is rapidly expanding its LNG export capacity, is unlikely to be commercially viable within a few years. 
Expanding the unconventional gas industry that  has little prospect of long-term commercial viability isn't a good investment.
Another option for increasing the supply of natural gas is to make it from coal. Black coal in Australia is being sold into an over-supplied export market where the price is falling to around $2 a gigajoule.
Brown coal costs only about 50 cents a gigajoule.
 
New processes are available that can make methane from coal relatively cleanly. 
Supercritical Water (SCW) gasification of coal and wet biomass
Supercritical Water (SCW) gasification of coal and wet biomass

 Coal mixed with water and heated to 400 centigrade with solar thermal energy reacts to form approximately equal quantities of carbon dioxide and natural gas. 
Another way to heat the mixture is to add hydrogen produced by wind turbines or solar PV systems. With sufficient hydrogen, all of the carbon in the mixture reacts with the hydrogen to form natural gas and no carbon dioxide is created.
Posted by Askgerbil at 6:29 PM 0 comments
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Saturday, March 4, 2017

Fossil fuel energy is unreliable

Natural gas power is increasingly unreliable in Australia.

A simple law of physics explains why natural gas power stations are unreliable:
6 gigajoules of natural gas are needed to generate 3.6 gigajoules of electrical energy in a combined-cycle gas turbine power station.

Each 3.6 gigajoules of electrical energy (which is 1 megawatt-hour or 1 MWh) has a price of about $50 in the Australian Energy Market Organisation's National Electricity Market.

The natural gas used to generate this electrical energy costs about $9 per gigajoule in the Australian Energy Market Organisation's Wholesale Gas Market.

The result:
It costs about $54 for the natural gas used as fuel to generate each megawatt-hour of electricity. This has a wholesale price of only $50.

Rising domestic gas prices

In terms of production costs, over the last decade the finding and development costs for the petroleum industry have increased six-fold. And, in the three years to 2013, total Australian finding and development costs averaged $4.16/GJ, which was 2.7 times the average for the three years to 2007. These rising costs are partly explained by the fact that unconventional gas production involves significantly higher capital expenditure than that of conventional off-shore wells, given that CSG requires multiple wells to be drilled in order to access equivalent volumes of gas.

SANTOS July 2, 2015
Public Submission to ACCC East Coast Gas Inquiry

Natural Gas price in the U.S. - 1 million BTUs = 1.055 gigajoules
Natural Gas price in the U.S. - 1 million BTUs = 1.055 gigajoules


The projected US exports of around 7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, or about 140 million tonnes of LNG is almost double the projected Australian exports of 85 million tonnes of LNG per year.

1 metric ton liquefied natural gas (LNG) = 48,700 cubic feet of natural gas.
1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas is about 20 million tonnes of LNG.

Given the much higher cost of producing coal seam gas in Australia, the ramping up of US LNG exports to 2020 is likely to bring the enthusiastic expansion of coal seam gas in Australia to a sudden end.


Posted by Askgerbil at 10:14 PM 0 comments
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Friday, May 16, 2014

Why the energy industry resists innovation

When workers oppose technology change it is put down to efforts to protect jobs by opposing innovation that boosts productivity.

When industries resist technology change very little comment is heard.

In the energy resources industry new technology boosts efficiency of converting resources into energy. This reduces demand for resources and lowers the cost of energy. It also reduces revenue of the energy resource industry.

The price of natural gas relies both on limiting supply and maintaining demand.

The economic benefits and prosperity created by access to cheap energy are being sacrificed to the short-term commercial interest of energy producers.
The energy industry is not only slow to innovate, it actively resists innovation.
The Luddite Movement in the 21st Century
The Luddite Movement in the 21st Century

A natural gas producer in Australia is accused of manipulating the export market for liquified natural gas (LNG) so that it can increase the book value of coal seam gas reserves on its balance sheet.

The report, which was presented to the NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (Ipart) on Tuesday, analyses Santos’s $19bn liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility at Gladstone, known as GLNG.

Credit Suisse’s report says “quite clearly at face value this has been a materially unappetising project”.

The report adds: “Santos now argues that its aim in GLNG was always as much about raising the domestic gas price, and therefore re-rating large parts of the portfolio outside of GLNG, as it was about the project.’


New technology and processes increase the efficiency of converting resources into energy. This reduces demand for resources and lowers the cost of energy.

Santos and another natural gas producer, AGL, are ignoring U.S. technology that can produce natural gas without the costs of drilling for coal seam gas.
GreatPoint Energy produces clean, low cost natural gas from coal, petroleum coke, and biomass utilizing its bluegas™ catalytic hydromethanation process.



GreatPoint Energy's coal gasification technology appeals to China because it allows them to keep using cheap domestic coal, but in a much cleaner manner.

In 2012, GreatPoint announced a $1.25 billion deal to build the first of 34 coal gasification plants in a remote, coal-rich part of China.

The total project will cost an estimated $20 - 25 billion and will supply a trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

This represents a massive leap in the scale of domestic production for China, which last year produced only 107 billion cubic feet of natural gas.

The deal includes an equity investment of $420 million, the largest ever by a Chinese corporation into a venture-capital-funded U.S. company.

Cheaper energy will benefit the Australian economy and the economies of countries that import energy from Australia.

However for Santos new technology that it could use to produce cheap natural gas means the book value of coal seam gas reserves on its balance sheet falls dramatically.


This situation raises questions of energy policy.

It is an example of market failure - the economic benefits and prosperity created by access to cheap energy are being sacrificed to the short-term commercial interest of energy producers reluctant to write-off reserves rendered worthless by innovation.



Further reading -

Technology change resisted by energy industry

Innovations to solve political disputes

The coal lobby scores an own goal

The coal industry's "War on Coal" campaign is all spin

Posted by Askgerbil at 4:11 PM 0 comments
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Thursday, May 1, 2014

Technology change resisted by energy industry

When workers oppose technology change it is put down to efforts to protect jobs by opposing innovation that boosts productivity.

When industries resist technology change very little comment is heard.

In the energy resources industry new technology boosts efficiency of converting resources into energy. This reduces demand for resources and lowers the cost of energy. It also reduces revenue of the energy resource industry.

The price of natural gas relies both on limiting supply and maintaining demand.

AGL has revealed that it is expanding production of coal seam gas in New South Wales even though it has NOT evaluated new technology able to rapidly and cheaply increase the supply of natural gas. This new method of producing natural gas would lift supply rapidly and suppress the sharp price rises AGL wishes to obtain from NSW consumers.

On 28 April AGL was asked via its community engagement web site about new technology developed since 2008 and that is being used in China to make natural gas from cheap coal. (See Question 1 below)

Two days later AGL gave AN ANSWER, but it was not an answer to the question it was asked. . (See AGL Answer to Question 1 below)

Two follow-up requests to AGL to give an answer to the question actually asked were handled by AGL as follows:

  1. The first follow-up request with information of which AGL was evidently unaware was ignored. In addition AGL removed this follow-up request from its web site.... (See Question 2 below)
  2. The second follow-up request for an answer taking into account the further information was eventually answered.. (See Question 3 below) AGL's answer is a bald assertion that "coal seam gas production is the best available source to meet the needs of the NSW market".. (See AGL Answer to Question 3 below)

It is clear from the answer AGL gave on 30 April 2014 that it is unaware of the superior technology China has adopted to make natural gas cheaply from coal.. (See AGL Answer to Question 1 below)

AGL is proceeding its push to expand coal seam gas throughout New South Wales without due diligence. This approach is unfortunate:
  1. The environmental damage created by coal seam gas is avoidable.
  2. The financial return to AGL investors will be diminished by using a technology that is no longer the best available for obtaining a supply of natural gas. 
  3. The New South Wales economy will be damaged from the waste of existing coal transport infrastructure, investment in coal mining and loss of jobs. These resources and jobs exist now and can be used to make natural gas.

AGL is not the only Gas Giant ignoring new technology





Question 1

From:  Your Say AGL
Date: 28 April 2014 15:41
Subject: Your question on Your Say AGL website
To:  Askgerbil

Hi there,
Thanks for taking the time to visit Your Say AGL and asking us a question.
You asked:
'China is now using GreatPoint Energy's hydromethanation process to make natural gas from cheap coal. With coal prices low and falling, for how long can AGL's coal seam gas remain competitive? Has AGL conducted an evaluation of this new technology?'
We will get back to you as soon as possible with a response.

Regards
AGL
AGL Answer to Question 1

From:  Your Say AGL
Date: 30 April 2014 11:21
Subject: Response to your question on Your Say AGL website
To:  Askgerbil
 
Hi there,
Thanks for taking the time to visit Your Say AGL and asking us a question.
You asked:
'China is now using GreatPoint Energy's hydromethanation process to make natural gas from cheap coal. With coal prices low and falling, for how long can AGL's coal seam gas remain competitive? Has AGL conducted an evaluation of this new technology?'

An updated response has now been posted on the site.
Our response:

'Hi Askgerbil, thanks for your question.
Coal seam gas is the best available source to meet the needs of the NSW market, in terms of both production capability and minimising environmental impacts.
The concept of hydromethanation has been in the public domain for decades, however, compared to the process of producing natural gas from coal seams, it has a much larger environmental footprint.
There is also some uncertainty around the technology as the industry is still in the early stages of development.'
Please let us know if you have any more questions or if anything needs to be clarified.

Regards
AGL
Question 2

From:  Your Say AGL
Date: 30 April 2014 20:07
Subject: Your question on Your Say AGL website
To:  Askgerbil

Hi there,
Thanks for taking the time to visit Your Say AGL and asking us a question.
You asked:
'Thank you for AGL's view on GreatPoint Energy's technology for making natural gas from coal.

However, the AGL answer (below) is about a "concept in the public domain for decades", and does not answer my question that begins "China is now using GreatPoint Energy's hydromethanation process [patented in the last 5 years] ... "

### AGL's Answer ###
a. "The concept of hydromethanation has been in the public domain for decades"
b. "Compared to the process of producing natural gas from coal seams, it has a much larger environmental footprint."
c. "There is also some uncertainty around the technology as the industry is still in the early stages of development."
###

Please consider an answer to my question, taking into account:
a. GreatPoint Energy's technology is the subject of a collection of patents dating from 2008. It has not been in the public domain for decades.
(Some examples:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/8192716.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2012/0305848.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2013/0042824.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2010/0121125.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2009/0260287.html
)

b. GreatPoint Energy's technology does not have a larger environmental footprint than the process of producing natural gas from coal seams.
See GreatPoint Energy's 2011 video at http://vimeo.com/18745900 | "Nothing goes up the stack into the atmosphere".
(Note that a GreatPoint Energy coal gasification plant built at an existing coal-fired power station would need NO additional infrastructure for coal-mining and transport - having less environmental footprint and capital outlay when compared to a large numbers of coal seam gas wells and above ground pipelines.)

c. GreatPoint Energy's technology is not surrounded by uncertainty and is in commercial use in China.'
We will get back to you as soon as possible with a response.

Regards
AGL
Question 3

From:  Your Say AGL
Date: 1 May 2014 09:19
Subject: Your question on Your Say AGL website
To:  Askgerbil

Hi there,
Thanks for taking the time to visit Your Say AGL and asking us a question.
You asked:
'Can AGL add to its answer to my question on GreatPoint Energy's natural gas from coal technology? AGL's first answer only considers an older hydromethanation process and not the specific process developed since 2008 by GreatPoint Energy now being used in China.'
We will get back to you as soon as possible with a response.

Regards
AGL

AGL Answer to Question 3

From:  Your Say AGL
Date: 2 May 2014 11:04
Subject: Response to your question on Your Say AGL website
To:  Askgerbil

Hi there,
Thanks for taking the time to visit Your Say AGL and asking us a question.
You asked:
'Can AGL add to its answer to my question on GreatPoint Energy's natural gas from coal technology? AGL's first answer only considers an older hydromethanation process and not the specific process developed since 2008 by GreatPoint Energy now being used in China.'

Our response has now been posted on the site.
Our response:
'Hydromethanation is still in the early stages of development. GreatPoint Energy reports that laboratory and pilot plant tests have shown the process can work for a range of feedstock, which is the driver behind the company’s joint venture to construct a full scale facility in China.
With NSW facing a shortage of gas supply from 2016, coal seam gas production is the best available source to meet the needs of the NSW market.' 
Please let us know if you have any more questions or if anything needs to be clarified.

Regards
Neil - YourSayAGL
Posted by Askgerbil at 11:12 AM 0 comments
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