Sign in or 
Share this
Template for First Assignment
Title:
Ventilation Air Methane: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Authors:
Jan Wongchuking and Shing-Yin (Allen) Wang
Image:
Technology Summary:
The paper discussed about the processes of Ventillation Air Methane and how it is effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Subcomponents of this technology will be discussed such as Thermal and Catalytic Oxidazation systems. Pros and cons of methane reducing technology will be discussed.
Draft Text:
The arrival of Deng Xiaopeng to power a few years after Mao’s death in 1976 changed the economic landscape in China. He introduced the ideology Socialism with Chinese characteristics by keeping Socialism as a whole while introducing market forces. For example, this was first done by an infrastructure of a centrally planned economy by technologically proficient bureaucrats. Material incentives were promoted at the micro-level rather than political ideologies as farmers sold the produce of their private plots at free markets. More importantly, municipalities and provinces were allowed to invest in high growth industries and thus emphasized investments in light manufacturing. This indicated a shift in China’s economic strategy to light industry and high-export growth. Revenues from light industry were reinvested into more technologically advanced production and further capital expenditures and investments. The investments were not required by the government and most of the investments to capital came from mainly the banking system and from consumer deposits. Profit distribution was prevented except for taxation purposes or through financial institutions. As a result, an industrial revolution occurred in China through the late 1980s and much of the 1990s. Estimates show that China has the second largest economy in the world by about 10.21 trillion dollars.
China’s economic growth has also led to problems that could hinder its future development. The degradation of its own environment is one such problem. Statistics that show this point out that air pollution is blamed for the numerous deaths in China each year. About 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water. A World Health Organization study estimates that 750,000 die prematurely every year because of respiratory diseases. Coal Mine Methane emits up 13 billion cubic meters every year and only 5% of it is used. There are situations where in many of China’s cities; children rarely see the sun, children killed or sickened by lead poisoning or other types of local pollution, a coastal swamp of algal red tides that large portions of the ocean no longer sustain underwater life. China’s pollution problems also pose as externality problems for nations such as Japan and South Korea as sulfur and nitrogen oxide emitted from China’s coal fired power plants produce acid rain for these nations. With the 2008 Olympics around the corner, policies have been enacted that curb pollution. Export subsidies for heavy polluting industries have been phased out and campaigns have been started to shut down illegal coal mines and some heavy polluting factories. Major initiatives have been introduced whose goal is to develop clean energy sources such as solar and wind power. The greatest single problem why these initiatives are underdeveloped is because China has been unwilling to use market forces and tax policies that have worked well in many industrialized nations due to high costs faced by many of China’s firms.
The introduction of a new technology initiative by an American diplomat I feel can help make a long way in curbing China’s pollution problems. The initiative is called The Pollution Prevention and Energy Efficiency Initiative (P2E2) and it urges businesses to reduce energy use and improve polluting factories without incurring front-up costs for businesses. This initiative is widespread in many industries but due to paper requirements; our paper shall limit the discussion only to methane gas-powered generators that capture the methane and convert it into electricity. This is important because methane is one of the major greenhouse gases. A discussion of the methane reducing technology is the topic of the next few pages.
Originally, Methane is a constituent of natural gas, but it is also a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for about 9 to 15 years. In contrast with other greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane is almost 21 times better than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere over a 100 year period. It is a highly explosive gas that emits from different natural and human influenced resources such as landfills, natural gas, coal mining, wastewater treatment and mobile combustion. In 2007, The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency announced that China is well-aware of the negative effects that methane gas can bring to the social environment. Back in 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, China was one of the first countries to formulate and carry out sustainable development strategy. Understanding the severity of the problem; both the private and public sector started to work on inventing new technologies that try to convert this harmful gas into an alternative energy source. It’s called Ventilation Air Methane (VAM). For example in industries such as coal mining, methane is viewed as a hazard to the mine workers. The problem in dealing with methane is using its low concentration form into reusable energy with current technologies. Oxidation technologies have long been in use for organic compound emissions, but rarely explored with coal mine methane. Oxidizing technologies therefore provides a way for reducing methane emissions and at the same time using the methane emitted for energy purposes. The main types of oxidation technologies are Thermal and Catalytic. These oxidation technologies both use a regenerative heat exchanger in where airflow reverses direction periodically. Each operates on a range of airflow rates and dilute mechanic concentrations. The excess thermal energy that is excreted is then used for electricity generation, heating, cooling and/or drying processes. This technology will not only reduce the greenhouse gas significantly, but also improve the local power grid capacity and enhance the safety in the mine.
In order to convert methane gas into electricity, we need assistance from VAM Oxidization Systems. First, for Thermal Oxidization Technology, the regenerative heat principle between a gas and a solid bed of heat medium exchange is used (shown below). Air and Methane Gas go inside to the upper and lower valves and into different heat exchange mediums. Then, heat is exchanged between these mediums until the methane is oxidized. The heated product then loses heat as it reaches the far side of the system. Eventually, the byproduct that is formed consists of air, carbon dioxide, water, and heat energy. The excess heat is transferred for local heating needs or electricity production. As for Catalytic Oxidization System, the processes are similar but the only difference is that they have a combustion chamber with catalysts inside.
The picture below shows us the inner workings of a coal plant and how methane is transformed into reusable energy. Methane is extracted from holes in the coal seam and coal strata. The extracted methane gas is then transferred to a methane drainage plant via pipelines for storage. When it is needed, it is transferred to Methane Gas-Powered generators. On the other hand, fresh air enters the mine and mixes with the rest of the methane gas that wasn’t drilled out. Then, this low methane concentrated gas is emitted through a mine fan. Part of it goes into the generator. The Methane Gas from the mine fan is mixed with the gas from the drainage plant in the generator and starts to produce electricity.
According to a study by the US Environmental Protection Agency, China has a potential of 1365 megawatts power capacity that can be generated by converting methane to electricity. In addition, there is a power capacity of 2979 megawatts globally. We hope that methane gas powered generators can be widely spread and greatly applied over the world because the level of methane mission will decrease dramatically. Besides acting as a resource for generating electricity, methane can also be fuel as it burns cleaner than gasoline; it can be one of the components of biodiesel fuel and can be a useful raw material for production of different products. Luckily, methane technology has started to spread out in China as China increases its annual coal bed methane output to 10 billion cubic meters in 2010.
Realizing that methane technology can greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there are a couple large programs and organizations trying to expand this technology worldwide. Asia- Pacific Partnership, Pollution Prevention & Energy Efficiency (P2E2), and Methane to Market (M2M) are programs that try to build up a global network in order to promote a cleaner environment and a sustainable economic growth efficiently. These programs have connected different countries (both developed and developing), government agencies, non government agencies, and companies working together to achieve the common good. For example, P2E2 is a creative environmental financing program and private-public partnership which is heavily supported by the US government. P2E2 enables commercial banks to make working capital loans or lease to Environment Service companies (EESCO) in order to attract more companies to join the program. It can not only reduce the cost of production as it converts methane gas into alternative energy, but also have a dramatic effect on the improvement of the environment. It boosts the clean energy development globally, especially in China. Also, Methane to Markets(M2M) is quite similar to P2E2, it is a partnership that brings the private sector,multilateral development banks, governmental and nongovernmental organizations in different countries together to working ondeveloping and promoting methane technology on landfill and coal mines, etc. 15 countries and over 90 organizations have already join this partnerships. (see below). These programs are trying to make the methane technology become both economically and environmentally sustainable.
The introduction of VAM technologies is already making positive contributions to China’s economy. In Jincheng City in China’s Shanxi Province, the Sihe coal methane power plant is in the process of installing 60 Methane Gas-Powered Generators installed by an American company called Caterpillar, which can produce up to 120 megawatts capacity. From Caterpillar Inc news, "Sihe is trying to cut back greenhouse gas emissions by 4.5 million tons over 20 year period. The returns were impressive as the installation of these power plants have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by about 40,000 tons of carbon equivalent per year. About 90,000 households and various industries will be served with a minimum of 166 million cubic meters of coal mine per year." It is also estimated that 410,000 people in Jincheng will directly benefit from cleaner energy that reduces indoor and outdoor pollution. From an economic perspective, the project created 1200 jobs during construction and 845 during construction.
Despite the positive impact that VAM technologies are making to the Chinese environment, there are major drawbacks that prevent VAM from being sustainable. Firstly, there is insufficient infrastructures in processing, transmitting, and utilizing. China lacks the technological capabilities to identify methane rich zones with high extraction probability. The pipeline network has also been completely underdeveloped. Although the pipeline network has been under construction, it can only deliver to the cities closest to it currently. Secondly, there is little training by firms to their workers about operating VAM facilities. Therefore, those workers have little understanding about the relationship between mining processes and methane gas emissions. There are some that argue that methane itself is not sustainable because of its effects on the environment.
China’s government should take into heavy consideration policies favoring VAM. Many have argued that China’s problems in part from China’s political climate. China has no energy ministry and China’s Energy Bureau of Natural reform and Natural Development only has 100 full-time members compared to the US Department of Energy’s 110,000 full-time members. Furthermore, a culture of corruption was also developed during Deng Xiaoping’s tenure as local communist party leaders gained powers in areas such as banking, taxes, regulation, and land use. The party leadership would evaluate them based on how local leaders improved the economy in their respective jurisdictions. This sets up a political situation favoring the communist part establishment as non-government organizations and private individuals have limited dissent or else face imprisonment. Other than these drawbacks, VAM technology can be a sustainable and economical once these drawbacks have been removed.
Research Links
http://www.asiapacificpartnership.org/APPProjects/Coalmining/CLM-06-11.pdf
http://www.epa.gov/cmop/docs/thermal_oxidizer.pdf
http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/factsheets/project/Proj248.pdf
http://bcs-hq.com/ppts/grandjunction4_12_05.ppt
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/12/29/world/asia/choking_on_growth_10.html
http://www.methanetomarkets.org/events/2006/coal/docs/china.pdf http://www.pserie.psu.edu/academic/science/degrees/biology/energyfieldtrips/methaneIndex.htm
http://www.automation.com/store/p1030details17687.php?x=1&pagePath=
Ventilation Air Methane: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Authors:
Jan Wongchuking and Shing-Yin (Allen) Wang
Image:
Technology Summary:
The paper discussed about the processes of Ventillation Air Methane and how it is effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Subcomponents of this technology will be discussed such as Thermal and Catalytic Oxidazation systems. Pros and cons of methane reducing technology will be discussed.
Draft Text:
The arrival of Deng Xiaopeng to power a few years after Mao’s death in 1976 changed the economic landscape in China. He introduced the ideology Socialism with Chinese characteristics by keeping Socialism as a whole while introducing market forces. For example, this was first done by an infrastructure of a centrally planned economy by technologically proficient bureaucrats. Material incentives were promoted at the micro-level rather than political ideologies as farmers sold the produce of their private plots at free markets. More importantly, municipalities and provinces were allowed to invest in high growth industries and thus emphasized investments in light manufacturing. This indicated a shift in China’s economic strategy to light industry and high-export growth. Revenues from light industry were reinvested into more technologically advanced production and further capital expenditures and investments. The investments were not required by the government and most of the investments to capital came from mainly the banking system and from consumer deposits. Profit distribution was prevented except for taxation purposes or through financial institutions. As a result, an industrial revolution occurred in China through the late 1980s and much of the 1990s. Estimates show that China has the second largest economy in the world by about 10.21 trillion dollars.
China’s economic growth has also led to problems that could hinder its future development. The degradation of its own environment is one such problem. Statistics that show this point out that air pollution is blamed for the numerous deaths in China each year. About 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water. A World Health Organization study estimates that 750,000 die prematurely every year because of respiratory diseases. Coal Mine Methane emits up 13 billion cubic meters every year and only 5% of it is used. There are situations where in many of China’s cities; children rarely see the sun, children killed or sickened by lead poisoning or other types of local pollution, a coastal swamp of algal red tides that large portions of the ocean no longer sustain underwater life. China’s pollution problems also pose as externality problems for nations such as Japan and South Korea as sulfur and nitrogen oxide emitted from China’s coal fired power plants produce acid rain for these nations. With the 2008 Olympics around the corner, policies have been enacted that curb pollution. Export subsidies for heavy polluting industries have been phased out and campaigns have been started to shut down illegal coal mines and some heavy polluting factories. Major initiatives have been introduced whose goal is to develop clean energy sources such as solar and wind power. The greatest single problem why these initiatives are underdeveloped is because China has been unwilling to use market forces and tax policies that have worked well in many industrialized nations due to high costs faced by many of China’s firms.
The introduction of a new technology initiative by an American diplomat I feel can help make a long way in curbing China’s pollution problems. The initiative is called The Pollution Prevention and Energy Efficiency Initiative (P2E2) and it urges businesses to reduce energy use and improve polluting factories without incurring front-up costs for businesses. This initiative is widespread in many industries but due to paper requirements; our paper shall limit the discussion only to methane gas-powered generators that capture the methane and convert it into electricity. This is important because methane is one of the major greenhouse gases. A discussion of the methane reducing technology is the topic of the next few pages.
Originally, Methane is a constituent of natural gas, but it is also a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for about 9 to 15 years. In contrast with other greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane is almost 21 times better than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere over a 100 year period. It is a highly explosive gas that emits from different natural and human influenced resources such as landfills, natural gas, coal mining, wastewater treatment and mobile combustion. In 2007, The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency announced that China is well-aware of the negative effects that methane gas can bring to the social environment. Back in 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, China was one of the first countries to formulate and carry out sustainable development strategy. Understanding the severity of the problem; both the private and public sector started to work on inventing new technologies that try to convert this harmful gas into an alternative energy source. It’s called Ventilation Air Methane (VAM). For example in industries such as coal mining, methane is viewed as a hazard to the mine workers. The problem in dealing with methane is using its low concentration form into reusable energy with current technologies. Oxidation technologies have long been in use for organic compound emissions, but rarely explored with coal mine methane. Oxidizing technologies therefore provides a way for reducing methane emissions and at the same time using the methane emitted for energy purposes. The main types of oxidation technologies are Thermal and Catalytic. These oxidation technologies both use a regenerative heat exchanger in where airflow reverses direction periodically. Each operates on a range of airflow rates and dilute mechanic concentrations. The excess thermal energy that is excreted is then used for electricity generation, heating, cooling and/or drying processes. This technology will not only reduce the greenhouse gas significantly, but also improve the local power grid capacity and enhance the safety in the mine.
In order to convert methane gas into electricity, we need assistance from VAM Oxidization Systems. First, for Thermal Oxidization Technology, the regenerative heat principle between a gas and a solid bed of heat medium exchange is used (shown below). Air and Methane Gas go inside to the upper and lower valves and into different heat exchange mediums. Then, heat is exchanged between these mediums until the methane is oxidized. The heated product then loses heat as it reaches the far side of the system. Eventually, the byproduct that is formed consists of air, carbon dioxide, water, and heat energy. The excess heat is transferred for local heating needs or electricity production. As for Catalytic Oxidization System, the processes are similar but the only difference is that they have a combustion chamber with catalysts inside.
The picture below shows us the inner workings of a coal plant and how methane is transformed into reusable energy. Methane is extracted from holes in the coal seam and coal strata. The extracted methane gas is then transferred to a methane drainage plant via pipelines for storage. When it is needed, it is transferred to Methane Gas-Powered generators. On the other hand, fresh air enters the mine and mixes with the rest of the methane gas that wasn’t drilled out. Then, this low methane concentrated gas is emitted through a mine fan. Part of it goes into the generator. The Methane Gas from the mine fan is mixed with the gas from the drainage plant in the generator and starts to produce electricity.
According to a study by the US Environmental Protection Agency, China has a potential of 1365 megawatts power capacity that can be generated by converting methane to electricity. In addition, there is a power capacity of 2979 megawatts globally. We hope that methane gas powered generators can be widely spread and greatly applied over the world because the level of methane mission will decrease dramatically. Besides acting as a resource for generating electricity, methane can also be fuel as it burns cleaner than gasoline; it can be one of the components of biodiesel fuel and can be a useful raw material for production of different products. Luckily, methane technology has started to spread out in China as China increases its annual coal bed methane output to 10 billion cubic meters in 2010.
Realizing that methane technology can greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there are a couple large programs and organizations trying to expand this technology worldwide. Asia- Pacific Partnership, Pollution Prevention & Energy Efficiency (P2E2), and Methane to Market (M2M) are programs that try to build up a global network in order to promote a cleaner environment and a sustainable economic growth efficiently. These programs have connected different countries (both developed and developing), government agencies, non government agencies, and companies working together to achieve the common good. For example, P2E2 is a creative environmental financing program and private-public partnership which is heavily supported by the US government. P2E2 enables commercial banks to make working capital loans or lease to Environment Service companies (EESCO) in order to attract more companies to join the program. It can not only reduce the cost of production as it converts methane gas into alternative energy, but also have a dramatic effect on the improvement of the environment. It boosts the clean energy development globally, especially in China. Also, Methane to Markets(M2M) is quite similar to P2E2, it is a partnership that brings the private sector,multilateral development banks, governmental and nongovernmental organizations in different countries together to working ondeveloping and promoting methane technology on landfill and coal mines, etc. 15 countries and over 90 organizations have already join this partnerships. (see below). These programs are trying to make the methane technology become both economically and environmentally sustainable.
The introduction of VAM technologies is already making positive contributions to China’s economy. In Jincheng City in China’s Shanxi Province, the Sihe coal methane power plant is in the process of installing 60 Methane Gas-Powered Generators installed by an American company called Caterpillar, which can produce up to 120 megawatts capacity. From Caterpillar Inc news, "Sihe is trying to cut back greenhouse gas emissions by 4.5 million tons over 20 year period. The returns were impressive as the installation of these power plants have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by about 40,000 tons of carbon equivalent per year. About 90,000 households and various industries will be served with a minimum of 166 million cubic meters of coal mine per year." It is also estimated that 410,000 people in Jincheng will directly benefit from cleaner energy that reduces indoor and outdoor pollution. From an economic perspective, the project created 1200 jobs during construction and 845 during construction.
Despite the positive impact that VAM technologies are making to the Chinese environment, there are major drawbacks that prevent VAM from being sustainable. Firstly, there is insufficient infrastructures in processing, transmitting, and utilizing. China lacks the technological capabilities to identify methane rich zones with high extraction probability. The pipeline network has also been completely underdeveloped. Although the pipeline network has been under construction, it can only deliver to the cities closest to it currently. Secondly, there is little training by firms to their workers about operating VAM facilities. Therefore, those workers have little understanding about the relationship between mining processes and methane gas emissions. There are some that argue that methane itself is not sustainable because of its effects on the environment.
China’s government should take into heavy consideration policies favoring VAM. Many have argued that China’s problems in part from China’s political climate. China has no energy ministry and China’s Energy Bureau of Natural reform and Natural Development only has 100 full-time members compared to the US Department of Energy’s 110,000 full-time members. Furthermore, a culture of corruption was also developed during Deng Xiaoping’s tenure as local communist party leaders gained powers in areas such as banking, taxes, regulation, and land use. The party leadership would evaluate them based on how local leaders improved the economy in their respective jurisdictions. This sets up a political situation favoring the communist part establishment as non-government organizations and private individuals have limited dissent or else face imprisonment. Other than these drawbacks, VAM technology can be a sustainable and economical once these drawbacks have been removed.
Research Links
http://www.asiapacificpartnership.org/APPProjects/Coalmining/CLM-06-11.pdf
http://www.epa.gov/cmop/docs/thermal_oxidizer.pdf
http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/factsheets/project/Proj248.pdf
http://bcs-hq.com/ppts/grandjunction4_12_05.ppt
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/12/29/world/asia/choking_on_growth_10.html
http://www.methanetomarkets.org/events/2006/coal/docs/china.pdf http://www.pserie.psu.edu/academic/science/degrees/biology/energyfieldtrips/methaneIndex.htm
http://www.automation.com/store/p1030details17687.php?x=1&pagePath=
DerekLomas |
Latest page update: made by DerekLomas
, Apr 29 2008, 12:28 PM EDT
(about this update
About This Update
Moved from: public wiki
- DerekLomas
No content added or deleted. - complete history) |
|
Keyword tags:
None
More Info: links to this page
|
There are no threads for this page.
Be the first to start a new thread.
