Chemical & Process Technology

Earth hour is an effort by WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature/World Wildlife Fund) to create awareness on global warming and the need to take action on climate change. All of us can participate in this annual event. Last year 2009, Chemical & Process Technology has participate as well..."Earth Hour - Simple Effort Minimise Global Warming".

In 2009 hundreds of millions of people around the world showed their support by turning off their lights for one hour. You may see the following video clips showing what happened in 2009.

April 22, 2009... Annual EARTH DAY... An effort to inspire appreciation for the earth's environment and awareness of issues that threatening Earth - One and only one where we are now... preserving is responsibility of everyone of us...

Earth Day in March 25, 2009 has called to turn off all non-essential electrical appliance for 60 minutes. Chemical Process Technology would call to minimize paper consumption (Check out world paper consumption). Whenever you just about to print some documents or article in hardcopy... Ask yourself the following questions :

Earth Hour, an annual international event created by the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature/World Wildlife Fund) is coming back on March 28, 2009 to create awareness on global warming and the need to take action on climate change. The event has no boundary and is extended from individual to large organization, from households to business. Every living can participate...

We in Chemical & Process, Oil and Gas industries known as one of the major "contributor" in global warming. Why not take this opportunity to do something ?

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Recommended :Natural gas is used in industry and household to provide heating energy. It is explored from gas well, treated transported to customer via large and long pipeline. It is become non-cost effective once the pipeline length is exceeded 3000 - 3500 km. Thus, another mode of transportation, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is considered cost effective. Liquefied Natural gas (LNG) is a process of cooling down the natural gas to form liquid for easy storage and transportation. A LNG is normally contains of Methane (CH4) which is more than 90% and other light hydrocarbon such as Ethane (C2H6), Propane (C3H8), Butane (C4H10) and Nitrogen (N2) inert gas. LNG is non-corrosive, non-toxic, non-carcinogenic, odorless and colorless. However, it is flammable and explosive and create greenhouse effect to environment. With the tremendous high oil price and dropping in oil reserve, this has pushed many energy company shifting their business towards LNG. No doubt LNG is one of the energy alternative, many peoples who are safety, environment & security concerns, not agreeing with the implementation of LNG production.

Three main issues are their concerns : Safety, Environment and Security.

Safety
For the past 40 years, there are more than 25 accidents related to LNG from production plant, storage and transportation.

1. Methane Princess Spill, 1965
2. Jules Verne Spill, May 1965
3. La Spezia, Italy, 1971
4. Montreal East, Quebec, Canada, 1972
5. Staten Island Tank Fire, USA, 1973
6. Massachusetts Barge Spill, July 1974
7. Aquarius Spill, September 1977
8. Das Island, United Arab Emirates, March 1978
9. Cove Point, Maryland, 1979
10. Mostafa Ben Bouliad Spill, April 1979
11. Pollenger Spill, April 1979
12. Bontang, Indonesia, 1983
13. Nevada Test Site, Mercury, NV, 1987
14. Bachir Chihani, Hull Cracking, 1990
15. Mediterranean Off Gibraltar
16. Algeria, LNG Facility Explosion, January 19, 2004
17. Trinidad Tobago, June 13, 2004
18. Belgium, July 31, 2004
19. Norway, September 20, 2004
20. USA, March 2005
21. Nigeria, August 2005
22. Savannah, GA March 14, 2006
23. Trinidad & Tobago May 18 & May 21 & June 6, 2006
24. Jordan July 13, 2006
25. Cape Cod February 11, 2008
    

This has raised an serious alarm to many energy company. Serious safety review are conducted for each LNG related project. As the attraction of LNG business, high energy demand, pressure from government in sourcing energy, many new LNG production and receiving projects still in the planning and implementation phase. Serious and additional safety review are in place to minimize safety risk.

Environment Impact
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is known to create severe greenhouse effect and contribute serious global warming. Many efforts such as Co2 capture and sequestration are in research and implementation in order to minimize release of Co2 to atmospheric. It is aware that 1 mole of methane is about 21 time CO2 equivalent. Those any similar quantity of LNG release would seriously results severe global warming. Again, serious safety, facilities and operational review in place to minimize the potential of LNG release to atmospheric.

Security
Following the terrorist attack to twin tower in 911 case, many security agent has postulated the danger of similar attack to plant with flammable product i.e LNG plant. This is another push to minimize LNG plant implementation. Having say that, similar risk is still applicable to other plant i.e refinery, petrochemical plant, etc. Are we going to stop implementation of all these facilities due to this factor ?

Following are some video clip related danger of LNG.

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Now you may have your own fuel filling station in your garage. You may brew your own ethanol from beets, corn, sugar cane, alcohol, leftover beer, wine, booze, etc. Produced ethanol will be stored and ready to mix with gasoline in your car gasoline tank. Together with the E-fuel carbon credit program, it is cost saver which possibly reduce the cost down to US$0.1 - US$1.0 per gallon of fuel. Apart from fuel cost reduction, ethanol also reduces C02 emissions by 85% when used in vehicles in place of gasoline. This significant helps to reduce greenhouse effect and global warming.


E-Fuel 100, a self-contained ethanol micro-refinery will produce ethanol to top up their gasoline tank with the aim to reduce fuel cost. E-Fuel is typically conventional alcohol brewing unit which consists of fermentation unit, distillation unit, condensation unit, storage and pumping unit and control unit.

With high energy price and tremendous pressure on pushing environmental friendly green technology, this E-fuel invention is expected to gain serious attention from consumer and law maker.

Source : "Ethanol Is The New Homebrew", Design News

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According to a study by the United States Department of Agriculture, an average person's respiration generates approximately 450 liters (roughly 900 grams) of carbon dioxide (CO2) per day. This roughly equivalent to 900 [g CO2/day] / 1000 [kg/g] x 365 days / year = 328.5 kg CO2 / year (724.2 lb Co2 /year)

Following tabulates average quantity of CO2 sequestered in a year (different species) :

• Calliandra calothyrsus (10 years old, 15 feets tall, 8 inches diameter) - 38.3 lbs CO2/tree/year
• Grevillia robusta (10-year-old, 45 feet tall, 6 inches diameter) - 64.6 lbs CO2/tree/year
• Acacia angustissima (2.5 years old, 15 feet tall, 3 inches diameter) - 21.5 lbs CO2/tree/year
• Albizzia lebbek (15 years old, 30 feet tall, 12 inch) - 68.9 lbs CO2/tree/year
• Pine and eucalyptus (mature) - 73.3 lbs CO2/tree/year

Let take the maximum average quantity of CO2 sequestered in a year : Pine and eucalyptus (mature) - 73.3 lbs CO2/tree/year

Mathematically to balance the CO2 emitted by a person is 724.2 / 73.3 ~ 10 nos of Pine & eucalptus (mature). 10 Tree per person is required to ensure the CO2 balance !!!.

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Above figure has not included the methane release by tree and person decaying process where CO2 equivalent for 1 mole of methane is about 21 time !

Increasing growth rate of human being, high development and natural sources have reduced quantity of trees available for CO2 balance. Lets assume there is NO reduction of tree in the world and NO other activities (i.e. fossil fuel burning) generates CO2. This implies that we are still running in "deficit".

Can we really stop greenhouse effect (GHE) ?

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CO2 known as one of main contributor to global warming and greenhouse effect. Nowadays, CO2 sequestration and re-injection into disposal well is one of the common way to reduce CO2 emission into atmosphere. In earlier post Several Concerns in High CO2 Field Development, one of the effort taken was to separate CO2 from well gas and re-inject it back to disposal well.


Another direction in reducing CO2 emission to atmosphere is to convert CO2 to useful and valuable product. Sandia’s Sunshine Laboratory has invented a prototype device called the Counter Rotating Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator (CR5), breaks carbon-oxygen (C-O) bonds in carbon dioxide (CO2) to form carbon monoxide (CO) and oxygen (O) in two steps. Water (H2O) and carbon monoxide (CO) will then produce methanol, gas, or other liquid fuels using solar energy. Read more in Sandia’s Sunshine to Petrol project seeks fuel from thin air.

Above effort no only reduce CO2 emission, it also reduce the demand of energy from well crude or gas. Nevertheless, there are still some "issue" needs to be resolved before it can be used as a workable alternative. Issues are :

Is overall process''s energy efficiency low ?
Is overall energy effective ?
Operational ?
.
.

It is believed that new invention always encounter disagreement and challenges from all parties with whatsoever reasons, however, the effort and objective behind this project shall be praised and appreciated.

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In 1st quarter of 2007, we have spread the news on "Methane Conversion Challenge" where Dow Chemical Company was accepting proposals for funding in the area of methane conversion chemistry with the goal of producing ethylene, propylene, or reasonable precursors for ethylene and propylene. Finally out of approximate 100 proposals from around the world submitted, the Dow Chemical Company on January 24th, 2008 announced that Cardiff University and Northwestern University have been awarded research grants which together total over $6.4 million as part of the 2007 Dow Methane Challenge.

The Methane Challenge is on purpose to provide a new foundation for production of chemicals and liquid fuels, bringing an alternative to petroleum and enabling the use of natural gas in an efficient manner. It also reduce gas emission via venting and flaring and potential of upgrading landfill gas. Read in detail...

Hope that there are more oil and gas company will initiate the effort in similar direction to minimum gas emission and subsequent lead to greenhouse effect and global warming.

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Recently I have worked on a gas field development. This field contains very high Carbon Dioxide (~ 40% CO2), reasonably high Hydrogen Sulphide (>120ppm h2S), high mercury level (> 5000 microgram/Nm3 at 25 barg) and high sand production (> 2 kg/h). As compare to other sweet field, it gave a lot of challenges to the project team from technical and commercial perspectives. This post i would focus on what are the concerns and attention to be taken on for a high CO2 gas field development.

SEVERE CORROSION
CO2 present in water saturated gas results a very corrosive environment to the material containing it. Carbon steel normally used in oil and gas expose to ~40% CO2 will experience extremely high corrosion rate and corrosion resistance material such as Stainless steel, duplex stainless steel, etc shall be used. In marine laden environment, duplex stainless steel would be required to avoid Chloride Stress Corrosion Cracking.

FLARE COMBUSTIBLE
CO2 in gas will lower the heating value of sale. It shall be removed in order to increase the value of the heating value and subsequently increase the commercial value. The CO2 gas shall be removed in Acid Gas Removal unit such as Amine absorption system, membrane separation, etc. In this plant, we have adopted the membrane separation system. The CO2 removed from gas will be disposed off via a permeate flare. The lower heating value (LHV) of permeate flare gas shall be maintained at about 200-250 BTU/ft3 (rule of thumb for normal flare tip) for proper flaring.

Apart from normal flaring, a high CO2 gas is expected relief to flare system in the event of emergency depressurization and Opening of Pressure Relief Valve with high CO2 content. Similarly, the Lower heating value (LHV) shall be more than 200-250 BTU/ft3 as rule of thumb for normal flare tip. In some cases, sonic tip is employed to shorten flare boom length and requirement of dedicated flare platform. The lower heating value (LHV) required may be as high as 800-850 BTU/ft3 as rule of thumb.

LOW LHV FUEL
Fuel gas is normal extracted from the sales gas and supply to gas turbine, furnace, flare, etc as fuel. One of the major challenges with low LHV fuel gas would be proper selection of gas turbine. Some gas turbines may not work efficiently in low LHV (high Co2) gas and selection of gas turbine is getting very critical. This especially crucial during black start-up and restart-up as very high CO2 gas (without treatment) will only be available during this period. This may leads to adoption of dual fuel (gas & diesel) gas turbine and high capital investing is required.

DISPERSION ISSUE
High CO2 gas is burnt in flare system. In the event of flare flame-off, CO2 with high molecular weight (44) is heavier than air (29) and very high potential of felt on the platform and result the instantaneous high CO2 concentration which endanger operator from suffocation. Flare boom and tip design shall ensure proper dispersion of CO2 in the event of flare flame-off.

HYDRATE FORMATION TENDENCIES
Gas with high CO2 will have higher tendencies of hydrate formation. Increases of CO2 in gas will increase the hydrate formation temperature at same pressure. Special attention shall be paid at compressor anti-surge recycle valve, air cooler, etc. Hydrate management study shall be conducted to address hydrate formation for any operating scenarios.

CO2 GAS DISPOSAL
Presently not many countries imposed CO2 capture and re-injection. This includes the project I have handled before. With increasing awareness on global warming and greenhouse effect, there are / will be many efforts like researches, seminars, conferences and general protocol i.e. Kyoto protocol to reduce above mentioned environment impacts. One of the efforts would be CO2 re-injection back to the well. Develop a high CO2 field shall take into account of capital investment of new gas injection platform and associate facilities.

Other than 6 major technical concerns that i mentioned above related to high Co2 field development, i believe there are many other issue could be important and worth for discussion. Why not you share yours ?

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