Mathematics puzzles in modelling technology for energy

Suppose you need to calculate the amount of carbon in coal for someone who was pondering creating hydrogen from it. 

One way is as follows: 

1. Find out how much CO₂ a coal-fired power station emits for each megawatt-hour of electricity it sends out. 

2. Find out how many tonnes of coal the same coal-fired power station burns for each megawatt-hour of electricity it sends out. 

3. From the above pieces of information, calculate how much CO₂ is produced from each tonne of coal the power station burns. 

4. Calculate the amount of carbon in the CO₂ that is produced from each tonne of coal that is burned. 

The Australian Government's National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting site provides a sample of some of the information -

Australian Government's National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting
Yallourn Power Station

Energy Australia provided the corresponding information for coal consumption Yallourn Power Station on its web site a few years ago. This is a sample retrieved from the WayBack Machine - 

Coal consumption at Yallourn coal-fired power plant

 

The above information is sufficient for the calculations suggested above - 

1. CO₂ per MWh : 1.34 tonnes.

2. Coal per MWh : (1,480 MWh from burning 2,400 tonnes of coal) => 1.62 tonnes per MWh. 

3. The amount of CO₂ for each tonne of coal? 

1.34 tonnes of CO₂ are produced from burning 1.62 tonnes of brown coal. 

So burning 1 tonne of coal produces 0.83 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

4. The formula weight of carbon dioxide shows that 44 grams of carbon dioxide is made of 12 grams of carbon and 32 grams of oxygen. In other words the amount of carbon in carbon dioxide is (12/44) times the mass of the carbon dioxide.

So the carbon in 0.83 tonnes of carbon dioxide is 0.225 tonnes. (= 0.83 tonnes x (12 / 44).)

0.225 tonnes is 225 kgs of carbon in each tonne of brown coal burned at Yallourn Power Station. 

This should not be a controversial or surprising answer. 

The calculations to estimate that there are 225 tonnes of carbon using publicly available information about Victorian brown coal are not terribly complex. 

These following calculations are surprising:

1. In a 2019 report "Evaluation of options for production of low-cost CO₂ - free hydrogen from Victorian brown coal" the details for option 4: "Brown coal gasification plant using oxygen blown entrained flow gasifier followed by shift reactor for H2 production " given on page 35 are listed in the table below. 

The two lines of special interest are the ones showing -

• Wet coal of 893 tonnes per hour and 
• Total CO₂ generation of 518 tonnes per hour. 

A few calculations show that each tonne of coal in this modelling exercise is assumed to produce 0.58 tonnes of carbon dioxide, and

This means that the coal for the purpose of this model have only 160 kgs of carbon in each tonne. 

Target production of H₂

Wet coal requirement

Dry coal

Excess char to refinery

Tar production

Total CO₂ generation

CO₂ capture efficiency

Steam requirement 

32.1 tons/hour

893 tons/hour

332 tons/hour

Nil

Nil

518 tons/hour

88%

344 tons/hour

If the calculation of carbon coal burned by the Yallourn power station - 225 kgs per tonne - is correct, then the carbon in 427 tonnes of wet brown coal is sufficient to produce 32 tonnes of hydrogen by reaction with steam. 

This is less than half of the 893 tonnes of wet brown coal the 2019 modelling exercise found to be needed. 

2. The web site for the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain pilot project says that it is to use 150 tonnes of brown coal to produce 3 tonnes of hydrogen. 

This is an even greater amount of coal per tonne of hydrogen than the 2019 modelling reported. 

The Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain project also estimated that it would produce 100 tonnes of carbon dioxide in producing the hydrogen. This is about double the rate of carbon dioxide produced per tonne of hydrogen that the 2019 modelling reported. 

That estimate has since been greatly increased to around 140 tonnes.

The assumptions and calculations in these two examples - the 2019 report, and the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain project - cannot be reconciled with the information available about the use of coal by the Yallourn Power Station.

Community Batteries

"A community battery is a relatively new concept in Australia. It is a shared battery solution located in a local neighbourhood and allows customers and the wider community to share in the multiple benefits that batteries can provide." (See Ausgrid "Community Batteries")

Margaret River trials unique community battery

Labor’s Community Battery policy will reduce power bills and emissions for hundreds of thousands of Australians.

Good climate policy is good economic policy. pic.twitter.com/XiMV0OfldV

— Chris Bowen (@Bowenchris) April 1, 2021

Being able to aggregate data at a "community level" will be very helpful.
Consider this data at the level of a single dwelling:
5kW peak demand, 24 kWh / day total.
Now: 5 kW generation and grid capacity needed, mostly unused.
Storage: Only 1 kW of capacity needed.

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) April 2, 2021

Under ideal conditions, only 1 kW of generating capacity and grid capacity is needed to provide the total of 24 kWh per day used by the above single dwelling. The "community battery" provides the peak demand of 5 kW from time to time during each day as appliances switch on and off.

The battery can be an alternative infrastructure item, potentially replacing 4 kW of generating capacity and grid capacity for the single dweliing in this example.

Even if there is no rooftop solar PV systems in some communities, the ability to charge a community battery overnight - when generation and grid capacity is otherwise idle - can help to lower peak capacity needed the following day.
Policy to raise grid investment to be reviewed?

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) April 2, 2021

Discussion of Hydrogen - Boron 11 fusion

University of New South Wales researchers led by Emeritus Professor Heinrich Hora have made important breakthroughs recently in developing clean nuclear energy technology.

When a proton (a Hydrogen nucleus) fuses with a Boron-11 nucleus it produces 3 alpha particles (Helium nuclei).

That's it. No radioactive fuels. No radioactive waste.

See "Pioneering technology promises unlimited, clean and safe energy" for a recent University of New South Wales report.

Hydrogen Boron-11 fusion

The Hydrogen - Boron 11 "fusion reaction" fuses the two nuclei to briefly form a Carbon 12 nucleus.
The Carbon nucleus then breaks into 3 Helium nuclei.
1.008 grams of Hydrogen + 11.009 grams of Boron 11
=> 12.008 grams of Helium + 232 MWh (or 837 gigajoules).

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) May 15, 2020

The energy comes from mass deficit. It is a two-stage reaction. The fuels undergo fusion. The intermediate product splits apart.
The energy from the mass deficit, fortuitously, exits as kinetic energy of fast helium ions.
Kinetic energy may be converted directly to electricity.

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) May 15, 2020

The Hydrogen has one proton and the Boron 11 has 5 protons and 6 neutrons.
Combined, these create Carbon 12 which has 6 protons and 6 neutrons.
BUT the molar masses of the hydrogen and boron 11 are 12.017 grams. Stable Carbon 12 has a molar mass of exactly 12.0 grams.

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) May 16, 2020

The excess of 0.017 grams ends up divided between the mass of 3 Helium nuclei AND the kinetic energy (speed) of those Helium nuclei - that fly apart as the Carbon 12 breaks apart.
The molar mass of the three Helium nuclei is 12.008 grams, leaving 0.009 grams => energy.

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) May 16, 2020

In some alternate physics, the Carbon 12 atoms with the excess molar mass of 12.017 grams might conceivably get rid of that excess mass by emitting high energy gamma radiation. This would be a greater amount of energy, but we have no technology for converting it to electricity🙁.

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) May 16, 2020

Wait, isn't that 12g/mol, not 12g per nucleus?

Also, the breakup should be asymmetric with a 4He cluster followed by a systematic 2x4He split. The mass difference is probably due to QCBE not be stable, perhaps the reason for the breakup.

— ☢Anti-Protons☢🏳️‍🌈📎⚧🐱🇺🇸🌈🌊 - Call me Ishtar (@Antiproton_com) May 16, 2020

Yes. Molar masses... 12g/mol for Carbon12.
Carbon 12 is the international standard for atomic mass units.
It is defined as having a molar mass of exactly 12.0 grams per mole which is 12.0 atomic mass units per (amu) atom. https://t.co/X8YuJF1PgF

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) May 17, 2020

The excess mass of 0.01713 grams per mole has to go somewhere....
=>Each Carbon 12 nucleus may be thought of as being in an energy excitation state of 15.96 MeV. In that excited state each nucleus breaks into 3 x Helium 4 nuclei and the new mass deficit shows up as kinetic energy

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) May 17, 2020

Yes. Reaction mechanism details are a research topic.
In 2011: "Weller and his colleagues took a fresh look at the hydrogen-boron reaction at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory...The team found the collision yields two high-energy alphas" https://t.co/Ye79jWh6KQ

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) May 17, 2020

That might be it.

The end result is (basically) the same from the purposes of resulting energy for power.

It seems promising to me, as far into it as I have read. I wonder if there is gamma emission and what the flux density is. That (and neutrons) are issues with D+T fusion

— ☢Anti-Protons☢🏳️‍🌈📎⚧🐱🇺🇸🌈🌊 - Call me Ishtar (@Antiproton_com) May 17, 2020

April 4, 2011: Overturned scientific explanation may be good news for nuclear fusion

"Researchers have been developing reactors to slam hydrogen at high speeds into boron-11, a collision that yields high-energy helium nuclei, or alpha particles. Those alphas then spiral through a tunnel of electromagnetic coils, transforming them into a flow of electrons, or electricity."

June 12, 2020: Ultra-Fast High-Precision Metallic Nanoparticle Synthesis using Laser-Accelerated Protons

The technique of using high-energy lasers to accelerate hydrogen (aka protons) is finding wide application beyond fusion with Boron11.

Ultra-Fast High-Precision Metallic Nanoparticle Synthesis using Laser-Accelerated Protons https://t.co/wVV3DfiKzf pic.twitter.com/CGQr1cQkq9

— BlackPhysicists (@BlackPhysicists) June 16, 2020

Clean nuclear energy with a simple electricity output stage

University of New South Wales researchers led by Emeritus Professor Heinrich Hora have made important breakthroughs recently in developing clean nuclear energy technology.

When a proton (a Hydrogen nucleus) fuses with a Boron-11 nucleus it produces 3 alpha particles (Helium nuclei).

That's it. No radioactive fuels. No radioactive waste.

Hydrogen Boron-11 fusion

And another result: For each 11 grams of Boron-11 (one mole) converted to Helium, the energy produced is around 230 megawatt-hours.

At the level of individual nuclei, the mass of the three Helium nuclei produced is about 17 electron masses less than the mass of the Hydrogen nuclei (a proton) and the Boron-11 nuclei that undergo fusion to create them. It is this "missing" mass that appears as energy. Specifically this energy is kinetic energy imparted to the Helium nuclei.

Laser-boron fusion now ‘leading contender’ for energy

"The fuels and waste are safe, the reactor won't need a heat exchanger and steam turbine generator, and the lasers we need can be bought off the shelf," says Warren McKenzie, managing director of HB11, which owns the patents to the new technology.

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

To generate 230 megawatt-hours of electricity in a "HELE" coal-fired power plant coal containing over 56 tonnes of carbon would need to be burned. It would be converted into almost 210 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Yes. 
That's right. 
56 TONNES of carbon vs 11 GRAMS of Boron-11 for the same electrical energy output.

Coal power plants have another serious handicap. The energy produced when coal is burned is heat energy. Extremely high pressure boilers and turbines are required to spin large generators to convert the heat energy into electricity.

With proton-Boron-11 fusion, the energy produced is in the form of fast-moving positively charged Helium nuclei. This kinetic energy of charged particles can be converted directly into electricity. There is no need for steam boilers, turbines and generators.

A new clean energy technology being developed by @UNSW researchers is a game-changer. See this thread: https://t.co/CJgEtWGomH

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) March 11, 2019

While the nuclear reactor is being developed, the technology to create electricity from fast-moving charged particles can be done in parallel. For instance, the ion propulsion test facility at the Australian National University could produce streams of ionised gases to use in developing the electricity production technology.

Professor Christine Charles is Head of the Space Plasma, Power and Propulsion laboratory at the Australian National University.

Professor Christine Charles is internationally recognised for her research on ion acceleration in expanding magnetised plasmas and its applications to a new generation of space engines and advanced material processing.

---

Update - 5 July 2019 

Progress in research in seemingly unrelated fields may lead to sudden advances, solving tasks that are steps to manufacture small commercial laser-driven fusion electricity power modules.

From this article "Self-Torque: Physicists Discover New Property of Light" on 1 July 2019 for instance -

In 1992, it was realized that light can also possess orbital angular momentum (OAM) when the spatial shape of the beam of light rotates — or twists — around its own axis.
...
In order to realize an entirely new property of light, manifested as a time-varying OAM along the light pulse, JILA physicist Kevin Dorney, University of Salamanca’s Dr. Laura Rego and their colleagues exploited the quantum physics inherent to the high harmonic generation (HHG) process.

“To create that high harmonic generation with light, an intense, femtosecond laser pulse is upshifted to high frequencies of the driving laser by essentially creating a nanoscale radiating antenna from an atom that is in the process of being ionized,” they explained.

“When properly phase-matched, bright, coherent laser-like beams can be generated that span from the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) to the soft X-ray regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.”

Saving $1 million allocated to reinvent the wheel

The Australian Government announced it was allocating another $1 million for research into ways to make something useful from brown coal reserves in Victoria.

Senator the Hon Matt Canavan
Minister for Resources and Northern Australia

Investing in brown coal research and development

31 August 2018

The Coalition Government continues to focus on harnessing the economic benefits that can come from the nation’s vast brown coal resources by making $1 million in funding available to Brown Coal Innovation Australia (BCIA).

BCIA will use the funding to focus on advancing Australia’s economic prosperity by researching low emissions technologies for both electricity generation and products derived from brown coal.

Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Matt Canavan said BCIA was at the forefront of research into low-emissions, low-cost, coal technologies and novel, high-value products derived from brown coal. Since 2009, the Government has provided more than $7 million to BCIA through the Commonwealth’s funding of the Australian National Low Emissions Coal Research and Development initiative.
...
This funding comes on top of the $620 million already being administered by the Australian Government to accelerate the deployment of low emission fossil fuel technologies.

Australian Governments have been "investing" in "harnessing the economic benefits that can come from the nation's vast brown coal resources" long before 2009.

For over thirty years no progress has been made.

Victoria's brown coal in the Latrobe Valley still has a moisture content of more than 50%:

Research is still fixated with the presumption that before any value can be made of this vast resource that "coal drying is essential":

In 2012 the US granted a patent for converting 'wet carbonaceous material' (such as "brown coal") to methane:

Method and apparatus for steam hydro-gasification with increased conversion times

 Patent: US8143319B2

Abstract

A method and apparatus for converting carbonaceous material to a stream of carbon rich gas, comprising heating a slurry feed containing the carbonaceous material in a hydrogasification process using hydrogen and steam, at a temperature and pressure sufficient to generate a methane and carbon monoxide rich stream in which the conversion time in the process is between 5 and 45 seconds.

It could be applied in a plant with a design such as the following, or one that uses hydrogen produced by electrolysis from renewable energy in place of the steam reforming unit, or one that produces any combination of hydrogen and/or synthetic natural gas:

Converting brown coal - without drying - to methane (and/or hydrogen)

Transition from thermal coal exports

Australia exports 200 million tonnes of thermal coal each year.

Japan is the largest importer, importing 80 million tonnes per year. In planning to eliminate its reliance on fossil fuel imports, Japan is looking to CO2-free hydrogen to replace its imports of coal and LNG, used primarily for electricity generation, and oil, used primarily for road transport.

One step in the 20-year transition timetable is to invest in large solar PV installations in Saudi Arabia and construction of a 'hydrogen pipeline" to deliver hydrogen produced by electrolysis to Japan.

Another step is the construction of combined-cycle gas turbine power stations that have integrated gasification plants to convert imported coal to gas to fuel them. These plants can later run on hydrogen when sufficient supply is available.

Australia and Japan could co-ordinate projects in this transition of Japan's energy systems.
One of the benefits of co-ordination is that Australia's industry and workforce has a planned transition in how it prepares energy for export, adapting employment skills and infrastructure as the plan progresses.

Another of the benefits is that part of the infrastructure development is undertaken by Australia, sharing the effort so that Japan can focus its investments on the most efficient technology to use the energy it imports.

The long-term transition would see Australia's coal export terminals replaced with hydrogen export facilities and the fleet of bulk ore carriers replaced with specialised hydrogen shipping vessels. The coal mining workforce would gradually be replaced with a workforce that constructs and operates hydrogen production plants.

During the early years of the transition it may be beneficial to convert hydrogen and coal to methane and make use of existing natural gas pipelines, LNG export terminals and LNG tankers to transport the hydrogen to Japan's existing LNG import facilities.

One benefit for Japan would be to avoid the time and cost of building integrated coal-gasifiers with new combined-cycle gas turbine power stations and fuel cell generators. The gasification can be carried out in Australia before exporting the coal with hydrogen as LNG.

Large-scale solar farms are currently built with inverters that are a significant part of the cost.
The inverters change direct-current electricity produced by the solar panels into alternating-current electricity for distribution on the electricity grid.

Inverters aren't needed when the goal is to produce hydrogen by electrolysis with the electricity generated.

A second income-stream from renewable electricity production will assist farmers struggling with drought near coal-mining regions. Solar PV installations could be designed to be "stock-friendly" for Australian livestock producers, and not copies of European installations where fields are covered with closely-spaced solar panels just above ground level.

Cattle and solar PV systems

The renewable energy generated would be fed to electrolysis units creating hydrogen.
The hydrogen is to be transferred into methanation units that have pulverised coal handling equipment where the hydrogen and coal is transformed into methane, ready for transfer to LNG export terminals.

Thyssenkrupp coal handling system

Gasification technologies

See Thyssenkrupp Australia - "Power-to-gas: Storing wind and sun [energy] in natural gas"

The 2015 Japanese government report "Overview of Assessment by Power Generation Cost Verification Working Group", Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ) explained that renewable energy costs are higher in Japan than in other countries, and showed Australia has a comparative advantage in large-scale wind and solar installations.

"Unit construction costs for solar PV and wind power generation systems in Japan are higher than in other countries. ...Apparent factors behind the cost gap include higher personnel costs, complex topography and FIT scheme introduction backgrounds in Japan." (at pages 8-9)

"Saudi Arabia and Japan's SoftBank expanded their partnership on Tuesday, announcing the world's biggest solar power generation project at a press conference in New York."
The 200 gigawatt solar power project was estimated to cost $200 billion. https://t.co/MOsH9HvsMG

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) August 10, 2018

"This new material provides superior hydrogen production with lower energy requirements. This enables hydrogen production from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind generated power." @UNSW https://t.co/rZBIg7PDjz #ausbiz #jobs #ausunions @CFMEU_ME

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) August 7, 2018

Related posts:

Australian energy exports

Keeping waste plastic out of landfill

 

Australian energy exports

Japan intends to establish a "hydrogen pipeline" to replace its existing imports of energy from Australia and elsewhere.

To speed up the development of a "hydrogen pipeline" for Japan, Australia may be able to adapt existing energy infrastructure for the purpose.

Hydrogen produced by renewable energy creates a number of challenges for special-purpose overland transport and shipping. An interim processing strategy can skip over these challenges and re-use existing infrastructure, saving time and money. A little chemistry explains how this can work...

When hydrogen is combined with carbon dioxide to form methane and water, the energy content in the methane is about the same as the energy that was present in just the hydrogen:

CO2 + 4H2 → CH4 + 2H2O

In the above reaction half of the hydrogen combines with oxygen from the carbon dioxide to form water. The other half of the hydrogen combines with the carbon from the carbon dioxide to form methane. This is known as the "Sabatier reaction". It is used commercially by Audi to create "e-gas" for its Compressed Natural Gas vehicles.

Natural gas is essentially methane with smaller amounts of other gases such as carbon monoxide and ethane. Methane made from hydrogen can be transported through natural gas pipelines and shipped as LNG - liquefied natural gas - from Australia to Japan using existing LNG terminals and LNG tankers.

When methane is combined with water to form hydrogen and carbon dioxide, the energy content in the hydrogen is about the same as the energy that was present in just the methane:

CH4 + 2H2O → 4H2 + CO2

In the above reaction oxygen from the water combines with carbon from the methane to form carbon dioxide. All the hydrogen that was part of both the methane and water is separated. This is known as "Steam Methane Reforming". It is widely used in industry to manufacture hydrogen from natural gas.

The carbon dioxide produced in the above reaction may be liquefied in Japan and returned to Australia on the empty LNG ships that delivered the methane.

This allows the carbon dioxide to be re-used indefinitely in Australia to convert hydrogen to methane for shipping to Japan using existing natural gas pipelines, LNG terminals and tankers.

National Energy Guarantee and known pitfalls

A Japanese study released in October 2017 warns of costly European policy mistakes when investment in renewable energy is increasing.

Though details of the National Energy Guarantee policy are still under discussion, the Japanese study is worth checking so that Australia doesn't fall into any of the pitfalls it warns of.

This is an extract with some of the warnings in the Japanese study.

The Ways Forward for Japan EPCOs in the New Energy Paradigm

October 2017

Renewable Energy Institute, The Ways Forward for Japan EPCOs in the New Energy Paradigm (Tokyo: REI, 2017), 76 pp.

at https://www.renewable-ei.org/en/activities/reports/20171006.html

…

Executive Summary

…

Japan electric power companies(EPCOs) have essentially been focusing on their domestic market so far. Yet, business opportunities also exist overseas. ... Critical to successful internationalization of Japan EPCOs business will be their ability to deploy cost efficient Renewable Energy (RE).

To make their way through this new energy paradigm, Japan EPCOs have the chance to learn critical lessons from their European peers.

European EPCOs have already faced similar challenges to those Japan EPCOs are now confronted with. And European EPCOs have failed to adapt quickly. Japan is lagging behind, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, it means that Japan EPCOs may benefit from their European peers painful experiences.

Struggling, several European EPCOs posted record losses and saw their market capitalization collapse in recent years. They were victims of low wholesale electricity prices resulting from sluggish electricity demand and dramatic expansion of wind and solar power with lower marginal cost, leading to overcapacity and pushing fossil power plants out in the competitive market merit order. (page 1)

…

Key Challenges Faced by Japan’s EPCOs

In the past two years RE accounted for the majority of new power capacity globally driven by dramatic cost reductions in wind and solar, and globally for the past three years the increase in RE electricity generation has been higher than the increase in fossil electricity generation. (Page 15)

…

European EPCOs Failed to Adapt Quickly

These overall negative performances result from the European EPCOs failure to quickly adapt to the energy transition, at the generation level especially. While electricity consumption stagnated, significant expansion of close to zero marginal cost wind and solar power, in which European EPCOs did not sufficiently invest, took place in Europe. The latter helped lowering wholesale electricity prices due to the merit order effect. At the same time, conventional power capacity did not significantly decrease which combined with stagnating electricity consumption and the expansion of RE resulted in overcapacity further reducing wholesale electricity prices (Chart 31). European EPCOs conventional power plants were thus outcompeted due to their higher marginal costs and suffered from low wholesale electricity prices, thus significantly affecting European EPCOs profitability. (page 26-27)

…

In Europe, several EU Member States including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK, notably, have introduced rewards for making capacity available, in the form of capacity mechanisms. However, capacity mechanisms are considered problematic because they risk distorting electricity markets. Inappropriate designs of mechanisms may for instance result in existing uneconomic power plants receiving financial support and disturbing the transition to a low-carbon economy – a failure. ³¹  The UK and Germany offer telling examples of far from perfect capacity mechanisms. (page 28)

…

In Germany, from this year 2.7GW of largely inflexible and high-emitting lignite capacity will be placed into an emergency stand-by reserve, only to be used as back-up when required for a period of four years, after which these plants will be permanently retired. ³³  This comes at an estimated cost of €1.6 billion to the German government to compensate for lost revenues from the electricity market during these years of security stand-by. ³⁴

These flawed designs are unsurprising insofar as it has been found that many of EU Member States did not adequately assess the need or cost-effectiveness before introducing such mechanisms. ³⁵

In addition, it has also been recognized that capacity mechanisms implementation must be accompanied by appropriate market reforms. ³⁶

Thus, before adding gigawatts of new conventional power plants and/or pushing for the implementation of a capacity mechanism in Japan, Japan EPCOs should thus be well aware of these painful lessons learnt in Europe (page 29)

ENDNOTES

³¹   European Parliament, “Capacity mechanisms for electricity – May 2017” (accessed 28 August 2017)  

³³   The Economist Intelligence Unit, “Is Germany’s Energiewende cutting GHG emissions? – 20 March 2017” (accessed 31 August 2017)

³⁴   Overseas Development Institute, Rethinking Power Markets: Capacity mechanisms and decarbonisation (London, United Kingdom: ODI, 2016), 46 pp

³⁵   European Parliament, op. cit. note 31

³⁶   Ibid.

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."

Summary report: Decarbonising Australia’s gas networks https://t.co/ExfzLTjH4T #ausenergy #gas pic.twitter.com/fSLT6VmcHj

— Energy Networks (@EnergyNetworkAu) December 18, 2017

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.

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.

Energy storage and meeting peak demand

The cost of storing energy and meeting peak demand can be cut dramatically with a good combination of technologies and judicious use of available assets.

Depleted gas fields in South Australia have provided a return on investment over a number of years and when reused for new purposes, save the need for investment in locating and tapping similar geological structures.

Subsurface geological conditions which may be suitable for underground gas storage have been identified in the Two Wells - Port Wakefield area of the Northern Adelaide Plains. This area is within 100km of Adelaide. (See "Underground Gas Storage", Department of the Premier and Cabinet, South Australia)

A cutaway view of Solar Turbines' Taurus 70 engine, which is similar to a jet engine, but is used to generate electricity in power plants on the ground.

In a solar thermal turbine compressed air is heated by concentrated solar energy...

CSIRO Solar Air Turbine Project

Heat energy in a solar thermal turbine can be supplemented with natural gas when there is partial cloud cover. At night natural gas can take over from solar thermal heating.

Whether a turbine engine is run on natural gas or solar thermal energy, about half the energy available from the turbine is used to power the compressor, leaving the other half to run a generator to supply electricity.

That is, a gas turbine power station with a nameplate rating of 100 MW is actually able to produce 200 MW of energy - if it did not have to drive a compressor.

Energy from renewable energy generators may be stored by driving compressors to compress air that is stored in depleted gas fields.

Compressed Air Energy Storage

The compressed air energy storage can deliver electricity to the grid when it is required by supplying it to a gas turbine generator, relieving the generator of the need to drive a compressor while it is being supplied with compressed air.

A solar thermal power station can store energy in a compressed-air energy store and use the compressed air at night to significantly reduce the amount of stored thermal energy or natural gas needed for operation.

During peak demand periods, output from existing gas turbine generation plant can be quickly increased by reducing the energy used to drive compressors while supplying them with compressed air from storage.

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.
   
2. The domestic price of natural is continuing to rise.

   

   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.

  Making renewable natural gas from wet biomass, no #CSG -
  1/ https://t.co/cbAnvLLgQi
  2/ https://t.co/bA1a1XcUY1
  3/ https://t.co/Xyy79DHFEo

  — Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) 3 April 2017

  Waste and cheap coal in hot water. The produced gas is rich in hydrogen. Reforming in supercritical water. #energy https://t.co/Og47qUDG8Y

  — Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) June 17, 2017

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

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?"

Improving old coal-fired power stations

Existing coal-fired power stations using low-grade coal might continue to generate particulate and sulphur dioxide emissions until they are decommissioned. Some are fitted with scrubbers and other post-combustion filters to reduce these emissions. This approach reduces the efficiency of already inefficient coal-fired power stations:

The heating value of Indian coal is, on average, about 60 percent of the heating value of coal burned in the United States. This increases the amount of coal that must be burned to generate a given heat input, implying higher auxiliary electricity consumption to run coal grinding equipment, conveyors, and pumps.

Auxiliary generation... will also increase if electricity is used to run pollution abatement equipment, such as electrostatic precipitators ( ESPs ) and flue-gas desulfurization units ( scrubbers ) . We note although coal-fired power plants in both countries have ESPs, only three plants in India currently have scrubbers.¹

In the meantime there are options to increase efficiency and reduce harmful emissions until it is feasible to decommission these coal-fired power stations.

One of these options is to pre-process the low-grade coal before combustion. The technology available to do this has several advantages. It eliminates the particulate and sulphur dioxide emissions and, more importantly, increases the efficiency of these coal-fired power stations. Scrubbers and other post-combustion filters are no longer needed.

Low-grade coal contains relatively high levels of contaminants and moisture content. The moisture content reduces the energy available for power generation when its burned because energy is wasted converting the moisture into water vapour. The contaminants increase the energy that is used to run pollution abatement equipment.

To understand the available technology this simplified model gives a reasonable approximation of what takes place; Consider a process in which carbon and water are placed in a reaction vessel and an environment is created to promote a desired reaction that uses little or no external energy. The reaction breaks down some of the water into oxygen and hydrogen. The oxygen reacts with half of the carbon to form carbon dioxide and the hydrogen reacts with the remainder of the carbon to create methane. The energy released by the reactions with carbon provide the energy needed to break down water  into oxygen and hydrogen.

The methane can be separated to use in place of low-grade coal in the existing coal-fired power stations. There are no particulates or sulphur dioxide to be removed from the exhaust gases. When methane burns, about half the energy is produced by the reaction of carbon with oxygen to produce carbon dioxide, and about half is produced by the reaction of hydrogen with oxygen to form water vapour. Note that the total amount of energy is the same as would have been produced if all of the carbon had been burned and not pre-processed into carbon dioxide and methane. The moisture content that was present in the low-grade coal has been separated, as water, before combustion. No energy is wasted converting that moisture into water vapour.

Research on this technology was conducted in several countries interested in producing methane from biomass that contains significant amounts of water. That research has advanced into at least three commercially available products. These can be adapted to carry out the desired pre-processing of low-grade coal into methane:

Making renewable natural gas from wet biomass, no #CSG -
1/ https://t.co/cbAnvLLgQi
2/ https://t.co/bA1a1XcUY1
3/ https://t.co/Xyy79DHFEo

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) April 3, 2017

Upgrading low-grade coal to methane

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1 Chan, Hei Sing (Ron), Maureen L. Cropper, and Kabir Malik. 2014. "Why Are Power Plants in India Less Efficient Than Power Plants in the United States?" American Economic Review, 104(5): 586-90. DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.5.586

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

 The U.S. wholesale gas price is only $3 a gigajoule.

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

 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.