XGame Innovation in Carbon Capture

Look at the great innovations up in Canada in the CCS xGames.

Checkout the blog at SustainZine related to this very cool competition: http://sustainzine.blogspot.com/2017/01/co2-xgame-winners-in-canada-losers-in.html

Here's some info on this big competition in Canada: CBC News discusses competition sponsored by Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance and U.S. company NRG.

Normally you think of Carbon Capture & Sequester as a dead cost. Take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere (maybe at a smoke stack where it is highly concentrated, and pump it down into caverns, maybe where the coal or oil came from. But CO2 is a valuable and sell-able byproduct. Think about the fizz in your pop.

Maybe innovation like this Carbon XGame contestants have demonstrated, might allow us to burn all the oil and coal in the world without impunity. Maybe if we all hold our breath (one way to reduce CO2), the impact of our non-sustainable ways will not come back to bite us in the proverbial butt.

SustainZine said: "That means the the job of the CCS might turn out to be far, far bigger in the future, as we try to burn up the last century or so of fossil fuels over the next hundred years.

We here at SustainZine consider "conservative" this way: The bestest, cheapest, cleanest gallon of gas is the one never extracted, never processed and never burned. The bestest, cheapest, cleanest tonne of coal is the one never extracted, never processed, and never burned (scrubbing or no scrubbing)."  

In the meanwhile, innovation is the engine that will keep providing options, long after the most obvious alternatives have been exhausted. 

Patent Trolls Threaten Green Innovation · Environmental Management & Energy News · Environmental Leader

Patent Trolls Threaten Green Innovation · Environmental Management & Energy News · Environmental Leader:

There is a lot of discussion about "patent trolls" and the impact they have on various industries.

Here is the argument about the impact they have on the innovation in "green" technology. This is really the case for all new technology and all new industries, but the argument is about the major impact the trolls have on smaller organizations in the fledgling green technologies.

Much if not most of sustainability, however, is the practice of ancient technologies like organics (manure) and energy efficiency.

Hmmm...???

Keywords: patents, Patent Troll, green business, sustainability,
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Ceres Monthly Newsletter - Flaring of Gas/NatGas

See this blog over at SustainZine: http://sustainzine.blogspot.com/2013/08/smaller-cities-get-startup-style.html

Ceres Monthly Newsletter:

This report starts to document the amount of gas (nat gas) that is flared in the production of oil/gas.

In the US we can't get the nat gas to market, so it is imply flared in many cases. The oil (wet particulates) are much more valuable so that is shipped by pipe if possible, but by truck or train if not.

One statement from a CEO in the oil patch has commented that half of the nat gas produces in the US is being flared. Safety, of course is critical. But this is a humongous waste of energy and environmental waste as well.

Check out the article and then look at the report here: http://www.ceres.org/resources/reports/flaring-up-north-dakota-natural-gas-flaring-more-than-doubles-in-two-years/view

Basic economics is one approach to this issue. If NatGas were more valuable, then there would be very little flaring. Right now it is about $3.50 (per ... unit) in the USA. So Nat gas is a byproduct of the production of oil unless it can be readily distributed to market (pipeline).  But for the world markets, NatGas is very valuable, let's say $10. If we can bridge the gap from domestic only to world, then the price would jump and the flaring would, well, burn out. :-)

The key is liquefied natural gas (LNG). Not coincidentally, LNG is the trading symbol of Chaniere Energy, one the the leading players in infrastructure for exporting LNG.