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Australia looks
into burying carbon dioxide
Australia
will invest $120 million to develop affordable
solutions, including carbon sequestration, to deal
with greenhouse gas emissions from domestic power
generation.
Carbon sequestration involves
the deep underground storage of carbon dioxide and
near zero emissions technologies. Federal minister
for science Peter McGauran announced Australia's
commitment to research the feasibility of this
technology in his presentation to the Carbon
Sequestration Leadership Forum in Washington last
Friday.
Australia sent a 27-strong delegation from the
federal and state governments, industry and
research organisations to Washington. McGauran
offered to host the next ministerial-level meeting
of the forum, suggesting it could be held in
conjunction with the World Energy Conference in
Sydney in September 2004.
source:IEAust enews, July
4
ENtri overwhelmed by
project & granting successes...
New
appointments for Principal Research Fellow, Senior
Research Fellow, 2 Research Fellows, Technical
Officer and 5 new APAI supported PhD candidates in
progress, to staff up new
activities.....
Contact: mailto:v.rudolph@cheque.uq.edu.au
(ph 3365 4171)
ENtri commences $2.5m project on
sequestration of CO2 in deep coal.
The project is supported by commercial sponsors, the
Illinois State
Geological Survey, the Queensland EPA, the
ARC-Linkage program and the University of
Queensland. It makes use of our unique,
dynamic coal permeameter, which can simulate 3D
stress conditions up to several km underground, on
cubic samples up to 200mm side
length.
PhD scholarships are available to work on
aspects of this project (APAI conditions
apply).
Contact: mailto:v.rudolph@cheque.uq.edu.au
(ph 3365 4152)
victorr@cheque.uq.edu.au
The goals of this project are to
develop an experimental foundation of information
for a variety of coals, to form the basis of a
comprehensive predictive model enabling the use of
coal seams for CO2 sequestration
combined with enhanced coal-bed-methane
production. The key objectives and tasks of
the project are designed to investigate
fundamental engineering and coal selection issues
that will help address the technical feasibility
of the proposed sequestration process. There
are four major experimental areas and related
experimental tasks that the project seeks to
address, incorporating issues related to
capacity of a reservoir to sequester; long
term viability in terms of understanding
the interactions of coal and CO2 over
very extended periods; gas recovery and injection
rates which are key to the economic
practicality; sampling scale and
characterization which enable suitable
reserves to be identified quickly and
cheaply. The project tasks seek to deliver
the following information and products, addressing
each of these 4 main
requirements:
-
Task
1:
Competitive sorption isotherms of
CH4, CO2, N2,
H2O on a selection of whole
bituminous coals;
-
Task
2: An
assessment of the chemistry and physics of
coal-CO2 interactions, including
microtomographic information before and after
long term, accelerated exposure trials.
These will also provide structural information
on the actual coal samples whose permeabilities
have been tested;
-
Task
3:
Experimental information under replicated
in-situ conditions leading to a
correlation between relative permeability,
saturation and coal-bed shrinkage/swelling due
to desorption/adsorption under realistic
underground conditions (i.e. up to 28MPa
stress). An important technical and
practical aspect is permeability evolution, as
molecules, for example CO2 or
CH4 are inserted or removed from the
coal matrix; and
-
Task
4:
Detailed petrochemical and petrophysical
characterization of the coal samples and
geologic analysis of the sites that they were
taken from.
ENtri
commences work on $1m project
modeling multicomponent gas transport in
coal, in conjunction with Illinois State Geological
Survey. The project is supported by
the ARC, the University of Queensland and
ISGS.
Contact: gxwang@cheque.uq.edu.au
(ph 3365 3928)
victorr@cheque.uq.edu.au
The understanding of multi-component
gas flow in coal underlies the use, management and
optimization of deep coal as an economic resource
for methane recovery, CO2
sequestration, pipeline gas storage and
underground gasification. Reservoir flow
modelling for coal is particularly difficult
because the complexity of the behavior of the coal
matrix under asymmetric dynamically changing
internal and external stresses during
multi-component gas release or injection.
This project seeks to develop a fundamental
understanding of fluid flow and mass transport of
multi-component gases in porous materials with
particular reference to coal-beds under realistic
deep underground conditions. Specific aims
are to:
-
develop a model that will integrate
fluid dynamics, mass transfer, structure and
stress evolution of the porous coal matrix for
prediction and simulation of processes
associated with gas recovery and storage in deep
coal;
-
understand the influence of key
properties such as porosity, permeability and
relative permeability on flow rates of various
gases in bulk coal under realistic triaxial
stress conditions. We have already
accumulated a substantial amount of such data,
but lack a suitable model for interpreting its
significance;
-
experimentally extend the range of
data as necessary, including getting single gas
permeability data for CO2, and
relative permeability for mixtures of
CO2, CH4, N2
and water;
-
elucidate the mechanisms,
particularly CO2 and CH4
in mass transport and adsorption, to determine
enhancement of CH4 release and the
sequestration capacity of CO2 in
various coals.
ENtri
lands $300k support from
Hokkuriku Power Corporation, HEPCO (Japan) and CRIEPI (Japan) for sodic and
saline soil reclamation and CO2 sequestration by
agroforrestry.
Undergraduate research projects available
to work on aspects of this project.
Contact:
victorr@cheque.uq.edu.au
(ph 3365 4171)
The aim of the project, which is
sponsored and supported by HEPCO and CRIEPI as a
part of their many environmental initiatives, is
to demonstrate in Australian conditions the
feasibility of afforestation of sodium affected
land using FGD gypsum from a Japanese power
plant. Afforestation provides many benefits,
including returning the land to long term and
sustainable productive use, providing a carbon
sink, improving environmental amenity and
supporting biodiversity. The project
includes a field trial of about 1000 trees, backed
up by extensive laboratory testing and
modeling.
ENtri
gains support for enhanced
bioreactor landfill research. The $
930 000 project, in conjunction with Thiess as
corporate sponsor, and supported the ARC and the
University of Queensland, involves monitoring,
development and optimization of bioreactor
landfills at the Ipswich Landfill, supported by
pilot laboratory work.
Ms
Peta Radnidge has commenced a PhD associated with
this project.
Contact:
billc@cheque.uq.edu.au
(ph 3365 6464)
victorr@cheque.uq.edu.au
The aim of this
project is to apply a technology for rapidly
digesting the organic fraction of municipal solid
waste (MSW) in a landfill setting. The
technology, based on over 7 years of research at
the University of Queensland, is based on
buffering and recirculating excess liquid (i.e.,
leachate) that drains from the base of static beds
of the MSW. This technology departs
significantly from the common landfill practice of
leachate recirculation, where no fresh water is
intentionally added to wet the waste. The
inventory of drained leachate beyond the field
capacity of the waste in a conventional landfill
is no more than 0.05% of the volume of the waste
bed, based on the size of sumps in modern landfill
designs. In comparison, the technology
presented in this proposal requires a liquid
inventory that is 5 to 10% of the waste bed
volume. Additionally, the intensity of
biological activity induced by high moisture
levels requires the addition of buffering
agents. Essentially, the waste bed is
converted to a digester that requires higher
levels of monitoring and control, commensurate
with the level of control required in commercial
size invessel digesters that are operating in
Europe. The potential of this technology is
that it can rival the digestion rates of these
invessel processes, but at a premium of less than
20% of the cost of invessel
digestion.
ENtri
wins $40k to provide
support to BioDry Ltd for assistance in
development of new bagasse drying
technology. Mr Michael Heinz, a visiting
scholar from Germany has commenced working on the
project which includes the development of a
pilot/demonstration plant.
Contact:
victorr@cheque.uq.edu.au
Funding for continuous biodiesel from
tallow project in ENtri
sights. The $700 000
project which has gained ARC support is now being
contractually set up with an Industry supporter.
A PhD
scholarship will be available to work on aspects
of this project (APAI conditions apply)
Contact: yinghe@cheque.uq.edu.au (3365 4218)
victorr@cheque.uq.edu.au
At present, there
are no suitable and developed transesterification
technologies that can handle cheap, low quality
feedstocks including waste animal fats and spent
cooking oils. These feedstocks contain high
percentages of water and free fatty acids which
are extremely detrimental to the yield and
reaction rates of the transesterification
processes. This project is directed at
developing heterogeneous catalysts and a
continuous process that can use low grade tallows
and hydrous ethanol for biodiesel
production.
This newsletter highlights
only new projects commencing
in ENtri .
For current projects or
further details see the ENtri
website:
http://www.cheque.uq.edu.au/research/entri/
July 9th, 2003
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