In the US and UK the numbers of people saying they’re more likely to be loyal to brands cutting carbon approach 60%…

Every bit of technical knowhow needed to make heavy truck transport electric (and reduce carbon emissions from transportation) is already available.

Perhaps nowhere else is the immediacy of carbon emissions apparent than in the world’s oceans. Just a minor change in the ocean’s PH balance means mass death for these species.

Photo by Chris Willis/CC

Airports need lots of room for planes to leave and land. And airplanes spew a lot of greenhouse gases. Idea: Grow crops on airport property to power the planes, and maybe help offset carbon emissions. It’s an idea that may be taking off in Michigan. Yep, taking off. …Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo: Flickr, CC

Wind Power is Still a Maturing Technology
University of Adelaide acoustics researchers are investigating the causes of wind turbine noise with the aim of making them quieter. “Wind turbine noise is controversial but there’s no doubt that there is noise. Finding ways of controlling and reducing this noise will help us make the most of this very effective means of generating large amounts of electricity with next to zero carbon emissions.”…Read the full story on TreeHugger

Tom Konrad CFA

Containerized shipping is the most
efficient way to move goods, but few ships are nearly as efficient as
they could be.  One company is steaming ahead of the pack.

It seems obvious that more international trade increases greenhouse gas
emissions.  After all, if we buy local products rather than
products made halfway around the world, we will save all the carbon
emissions required to ship them to us.  It also seems to make
sense that rising fuel prices will lead to a decrease in international
trade, as companies reduce fuel use by assembling things closer to
markets.

This facile intuition can lead us to some very inaccurate conclusions. 
The manufacture of materials typically href="http://www.thefuturebuild.com/carbon-tracking/page.html">accounts
for far more of their embodied carbon than their transport, and the
mode of transport will also have a big impact on embodied carbon.

Here is a chart showing the associated CO2 emissions of various modes
of transport ( href="http://timeforchange.org/co2-emissions-shipping-goods">source):

With trucks emitting far more CO2 per mile than cargo ships, a consumer
in Los Angeles will have lower emissions from transport of an iPad href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/geographyalltheway_photos/5218597435/">shipped
in from China than he would if he could buy the same item assembled
in Indiana. (That is, if Apple were to assemble iPads in Indiana.)

Contrary to the obvious assumption, rising fuel prices might actually
cause the use of ships for freight, as manufacturers reduce fuel use
not by shipping things shorter distances, but by relying more heavily
on efficient sea freight at the expense of less efficient land- and
air-based modes of transport.  Efforts to reduce carbon emissions
might also end up increasing international trade and shipping, as href="http://www.economist.com/node/18618451?story_id=18618451">countries
with strict carbon emissions shift production (and emissions) to
countries with less strict caps (or no caps at all.)

Ship Shape

While rising fuel prices and greenhouse reduction goals may end up
favoring the shipping industry as a whole, they will also do a lot to
re-shape the industry.  Fuel, after all, is not just a source of
emissions for the shipping industry, it is a cost, so higher fuel
prices mean that more efficient shippers will have a greater cost and
profitability advantage.

There are many highly economical measures that a ship owner can take to
improve the efficiency of their vessel, many of which were discussed in
a panel on shipping at the Carbon
War Room‘s Creating
Climate Wealth Conference on May 4th.  According to Peter
Boyd, the Carbon War Room’s COO, there is the potential to save 30% of
shipping fuel just by applying measures with paybacks of three years or
less.  Such measures include hull coatings, sails, using fans to
force air bubbles under the ships hull, making the ship ride higher in
the water, and waste heat recovery from the ship’s engines.  The
economics of such measures are further improved because href="http://www.scandasia.com/viewNews.php?coun_code=sg&news_id=8797">some
ports give discounts or special privileges to more fuel efficient
(and less polluting) ships.

The problem is that approximately two thirds of the shipping fleet is
leased, not owned, by its operators.  This creates a
split-incentive, because the ship owner (who would pay for the
upgrades) does not get the benefit of savings on fuel
consumption. 

Ship operators who own more of their ships will therefore have an
advantage in terms of reducing fuel use.  The largest operator of
container ships, A.P. Moeller-Maersk (Copenhagen: MAERSK-A, href="http://www.altenergystocks.com/comm/content/maersk/">MAERSK-B),
has such an advantage, since they own approximately half of the ships
they operate.  Furthermore, Maersk has shown a commitment to fuel
efficiency, providing data on all their ships (even the poorly
performing ones) to ShippingEfficiency.org,
doing retrofits on their existing fleet, and aggressively incorporating href="http://www.maerskline.com/link/?page=news&path=/news/news20110221">
fuel saving technologies into the new ships they order.

Ship operators who lease most of their ships only have one easy option
to save fuel: slow steaming.  Just as you get better gas mileage
by driving 55 than driving 70, ships can also unlock substantial fuel
savings with “slow steaming.”  Maersk is also a href="http://www.energyboom.com/transportation/slow-steaming-transport-ships-better-environment-and-better-business">leader
in its commitment to slow steaming.  While any operator can
choose to run its ships slower to save fuel, this, too, provides a
hidden advantage for ship owners: Lowering ship speeds effectively href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-19/container-ship-rates-rising-as-fuel-prices-slow-vessels-freight-markets.html">lowers
the global fleet’s carrying capacity, increasing the demand (and prices)
for ships.

Conclusion

If you, like me, believe that current high oil prices are not just a
blip, you should also believe that shipping companies with a proven
commitment to efficiency will outperform their peers in the years to
come.  Since the shipping fleet takes decades to turn over, energy
efficiency first movers will retain a long term advantage, even if
other firms belatedly wake up to the advantages.

What is less clear is how the shipping industry as a whole will fare as
a result of long term increases in the price of fuel.  Shipping
will probably gain market share from less efficient modes of transport,
but higher fuel prices may also cause the entire transportation pie to
shrink.  This uncertainty suggests that a long position in Maersk ( href="http://www.altenergystocks.com/comm/content/maersk/">MAERSK-B)
might best be hedged with a short position in a broad transport ETF,
such as the iShares Dow Jones Transportation Average ( href="http://seekingalpha.com/symbol/iyt">IYT.)

DISCLOSURE: No Positions.

DISCLAIMER: Past performance is
not a guarantee
or a reliable indicator of future results.  This article contains
the current opinions of the author and such opinions are subject to
change without notice.  This article has been distributed for
informational purposes only. Forecasts, estimates, and certain
information contained herein should not be considered as investment
advice or a recommendation of any particular security, strategy or
investment product.  Information contained herein has been
obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but not guaranteed.

At the bustling intersection of renewable energy mandates, carbon emissions regulation, economic growth and legacy infrastructure lies untapped potential for producers of bio natural gas (BNG). It’s new. It’s important. It’s certainly not to be confused with plain biogas. And particularly if you work or have invested in solar, wind or energy storage, you need [...]

Enhanced Well Recovery Basics

Oil and Gas recovery isn’t all that hard to understand. It’s not that it’s easy, it’s just fairly simple to describe. We’ll explain how it works without making it more technical than it needs to be in this article. In depth and incredibly complex scientific and field research is underway to make EOR (enhanced oil recovery) more effective, but the concept won’t change all that much. Enhanced recovery is the last in line when it comes to getting more oil out of a well, but it can also produce much higher yields. Oil Well Recovery Levels

* Primary – natural processes * Secondary – Water or Gas injection * Tertiary (enhanced recovery) – use of expanding or dissolving gases, chemicals or thermal techniques

Oil wells will normally yield around 10% of their total reserves due to natural processes. The secondary stage can coax a well to give up another 20 to 40%. Tertiary enhanced recovery options can yield an additional 30% to 60%. In other words EOR can effectively double oil production from a well. And up until this point we’re only talking about oil. Using C02 fracturing for enhanced well recovery for natural gas is also highly effective. How It Works

We won’t spend much time talking about liquids and thermal processes since they make up such a small portion of the market, especially in the western half of the US. Most wells, both oil and gas will use CO2 as the primary agent. Since we talk a lot about CO2 emissions here at Efrac, it’s important to note that we’re not just fans of enhanced recovery because we provide services to the process, but that we actually think the process produces a long chain of win-win-win-win-win situations.

Enough beating around the bush then. CO2 well recovery works by injecting CO2 deep underground near a well site. The CO2 expands and displaces oil and gas in the nearby rock or sand formations which pushes the oil or gas up and out. CO2 in, more oil and natural gas out. Sure it’s a simple idea, but it takes a whole team of skilled engineers to pull it off. Anyone can pump gas into a hole, making it push something out of another hole is quite a different story.

At Efrac we specialize in making gas well recovery more profitable for production companies that own the wells and also the environment. CO2 injection for EOR is fairly straightforward since most of the carbon dioxide is permanently trapped once injected. But since gas wells don’t work the same way CO2 injection can lead to venting huge amounts of methane and carbon. We solve that problem with membrane separation to separate the methane from the carbon – returning the natural gas to the well owners. How Enhanced Recovery Helps Everyone Win

Much higher profits from well fracturing is one win for producers. It’s also a win for the environment since methane rates seven times more potent than CO2 on the greenhouse gases list. Capturing that methane prevents natural gas from being vented to the atmosphere after a well frac. Better well production from enhanced recovery can also lead to lower prices for natural gas – a win for consumers.

But the wins don’t stop there. Using CO2 for EOR also provides a very effective means of sequestering CO2 underground. Carbon captured from a variety of sources is perfect for EOR. Taking all that carbon that would have simply been allowed to vent into the air and using it to do something quite useful instead is a big win. It not only keeps it out of the atmosphere and traps it far underground, it also helps produce more domestic oil.

EOR is just one of those things with very few drawbacks. It helps us produce more from our domestic oil reserves while reducing our carbon emissions at the same time. It aids producers of oil and gas to yield more product to consumers with minimal cost and effort which raises production – steadying markets, reducing foreign oil consumption and even stabilizing rising petroleum costs in the long term.

There is still much more research and development to be done on EOR before it becomes a major part of the oil and gas industry. But as prices for materials and labor for CO2 injection falls, and its effectiveness rises; it’s only a matter of time before this segment of the energy production sector booms. We’re proud to be a part of taking care of the environment and our economy – one well at a time.

Efrac is dedicated to finding new and innovative ways to make enhanced oil recoverywork. To learn more about what you can do to help visit efracsystems.com

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