EOG Resources Chief Executive Officer, Mark Papa, may call it “weird– gas, but formations are an increasingly important component of the North America natural gas supply.
These formations refer to unconventional natural gas resources, such as coalbed methane (CBM), tight sandstone, biogenic gas and shale.
“Weird gas is not just a passing fad,“ Papa emphasises. —There are only three organic growth options for North American producers today: drill deeper in existing basins, explore in new basins or pursue unconventional gas.“
Papa is betting on the latter. This year, EOG plans to invest 76% of its $1.6 billion capital budget in unconventional gas plays across North America, eyeforenergy.com reported.
Interestingly, just three years ago, unconventional gas accounted for about 20% of the total gas output in the Lower 48 and non-Arctic Canada, but by 2025, the National Petroleum Council is forecasting that these resources will contribute 42% of total gas output.
According to the American Gas Association’s “Preliminary Findings Concerning 2004 Natural Gas Reserves,– published earlier this month, much domestic gas production activity in 2004 was directed toward less conventional reservoirs, such as CBM.
Declining natural gas supplies have compelled the search for new resources, and with the sustained high prices, more producers view unconventional gas prospects as an economically feasible way to expand because the wells offer low risks and predictable production. Analysts point to recent acquisitions that have focused on building an unconventional gas profile.
Larry Benedetto, Howard Weil Analyst, claims that many of the recent acquisitions have come in the Barnett shale region where producers are chasing a shale-type unconventional gas. He has apparently noted that the recent acquisition of Evergreen Resources by Pioneer Natural Resources was driven by Evergreen’s CBM assets.
Even Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, evidently believes unconventional gas resources are one key to increasing supply. In a speech before the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association Conference in San Antonio recently, he noted that “production from unconventional sources has more than doubled since 1990 and currently accounts for roughly one-third of US dry gas production. In many respects, the unconventional is increasingly becoming the conventional–.
Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy already classifies more than 35% of its North American gas production as unconventional. That figure is expected to increase as its mature properties in Texas, Louisiana and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico decline.
Devon is currently the largest shale producer in the Barnett formation of northeast Texas, holding half a million acres in core and noncore assets. It plans to spend about 10% of its 2005 capital budget, about $350 million, to drill 225 wells in the play.
“In the core and noncore areas, we and the rest of the industry are only recovering around 10% of the gas in place,“ says J. Larry Nichols, Chief Executive Officer. “That says there’s still a tremendous amount of gas left in that reservoir that today no one has the technology to get out.“

UK researchers claim to be the first in the world to cut the level of harmful minerals in all types of coal by a factor of more than 100. The development, carried out at the University of Nottingham, could allow clean coal production techniques to be introduced that halve carbon dioxide emissions.
Fears over the future supply of natural gas have renewed interest in making coal-fired power stations more efficient.
Existing power stations burn coal to generate steam, which is in turn used to power turbines. If this steam stage could be removed, and the combustion gases from burning coal used directly to drive the turbines, the CO2 produced for the amount of coal burnt could be reduced by 30à50 percent, e4engineering.com reported.
However, this has so far not been possible as the minerals released from the burning coal would destroy the turbine blades. So the researchers have developed a method to leach these harmful minerals from the coal before using it to directly power the turbines.
Although a rival team of researchers in Australia has also developed a technique to cut the level of minerals in coal, Nottingham–s process results in both less mineral matter and less CO2 when the coal is burned, according to the technique–s developer Dr Karen Steel, a lecturer at the Nottingham Fuel and Energy Centre.
Steel said the process produces cleaner coal than the Australian technique because it uses hydrofluoric acid rather than sodium hydroxide to leach the minerals out of the coal. “We looked at the CO2 balance [of the Australian technique] and I just thought, —No wayš. The fact that you are producing this CO2 has to be offset against the efficiency gains.– she said.
However, while Steel–s process is cleaner than existing technology, it would still be unusable unless the leaching agent is recycled. Hydrofluoric acid is so dangerous that power generators would be banned from owning sufficient acid to operate a power station. And, as Steel pointed out, the fluoride waste can no longer be disposed of because of effects on the environment.
In the Nottingham process, once the harmful minerals, including silica, have been extracted from the coal the hydrofluoric acid remains and can be re-used.
By removing the need to heat water into steam, Steel–s process could work in much smaller power stations. It could also be used all over the world because HF can clean any type of coal, while the Australian leaching agent only works with lignite.

A report from ICE and RPA has said reclaiming energy from incinerating waste could provide up to 17% of UK energy needs.

A joint report from the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and the Renewable Power Association (RPA) has called for greater use of energy from waste plants in the UK.
The report claims that there is the opportunity for certain types of waste to produce up to 17% of electricity generated in the UK by 2020 and that producers of energy from waste should be eligible to receive renewable obligation certificates (ROCs).
Around 30 million tons of household rubbish was sent to landfill in England alone in 2003. The report states that more than half of this could be used to create power as a large majority of such waste is recognized in the EU as a source of renewable energy.
“Instead of burying rubbish that is left after recycling it can be used to create electricity through a variety of measures,“ said Peter Gerstrom, Chairman of ICE’s Waste Management Board, edie.net said.
He pointed out that the UK is unlikely to meet its renewables target of producing 10% of energy from renewable sources by 2010. In addition, we are producing more waste all the time.
“Waste into energy will have environmental performance benefits by reducing the rubbish mountain. It also has the added bonus that recycling residual biodegradeable waste in this way is an effective way of hitting the targets in the EU Landfill Directive.“
Waste to energy has been criticized in the past for reducing recycling rates as it is often cheaper to build an incineration plant than a recycling operation (see LATS Story). Friends of the Earth and others have said that burning waste is not the environmentally friendly option as many materials could be re-used or recycled, rather than incinerated.
However, Gaynor Hartnell, Director of Policy at the RPA said there was no reason for recycling rates to be affected.
“Many of our European neighbors excel at both recycling and energy recovery. Producing energy from waste after recycling targets have been achieved is environmentally sound and will help us meet both our renewables targets and help us minimize the amount of waste going to landfill. It also helps with energy security, through reducing dependence on energy imports.“
Her views were shared by Ian Crummack, General Manager of Cyclerval UK, a subsidiary of the TIRU Group and operators of a waste to energy plant near Grimsby. He told edie news that recycling and generating electricity should not be seen as being in conflict, citing the example of Sweden which has high rates of recycling and numerous energy from waste plants. Indeed, Cyclerval’s Grimsby operation uses energy from waste as part of an integrated approach which includes recycling and composting operations.
He also pointed out that local authority recycling rates could be boosted if they were allowed to add in the large amounts of ferrous metals recovered after thermal treatment. This is sold to secondary markets around the world, notably China.
However, he also identified two significant barriers to development of energy from waste - planning and economics.
On the planning front he said: “Cyclerval believe this can be partly mitigated by building smaller size installations that are less intrusive in local communities and linking them to some form of heat use such as supplying local industry or in a district heating scheme. This makes their development more relevant to local people.“
For the Government to hit its target of 10% renewable capacity though, Mr Crummack called for greater incentives: “There has to be a greater degree of joined up thinking between the way government expects private finance to provide such renewable capacity, and the mechanisms by which private finance works.“
“Finally, it is quite clear that one single renewable source is incapable of supplying the required capacity; a range of sources and technologies will be required to hit the 10% target-- energy from waste is just one of those.“

Dr. Hong Liu (left), postdoctoral researcher in environmental engineering, and Dr. Bruce Logan, Kappe professor of environmental engineering, with hydrogen generating microbial fuel cell.

Using a new electrically-assisted microbial fuel cell (MFC) that does not require oxygen, Penn State environmental engineers and a scientist at Ion Power Inc. have developed the first process that enables bacteria to coax four times as much hydrogen directly out of biomass than can be generated typically by fermentation alone.
Dr. Bruce Logan, the Kappe professor of environmental engineering and an inventor of the MFC, says, “This MFC process is not limited to using only carbohydrate-based biomass for hydrogen production like conventional fermentation processes. We can theoretically use our MFC to obtain high yields of hydrogen from any biodegradable, dissolved, organic matter--human, agricultural or industrial wastewater, for example---and simultaneously clean the wastewater, sciencedaily.com reported.
“While there is likely insufficient waste biomass to sustain a global hydrogen economy, this form of renewable energy production may help offset the substantial costs of wastewater treatment as well as provide a contribution to nations able to harness hydrogen as an energy source,“ Logan notes.
The new approach is described in a paper, “Electrochemically Assisted Microbial Production of Hydrogen from Acetate,“ released online currently and scheduled for a future issue of Environmental Science and Technology. The authors are Dr. Hong Liu, postdoctoral researcher in environmental engineering; Dr. Stephen Grot, president and founder of Ion Power, Inc.; and Logan. Grot, a former Penn State student, suggested the idea of modifying an MFC to generate hydrogen.
In their paper, the researchers explain that hydrogen production by bacterial fermentation is currently limited by the “fermentation barrier“--the fact that bacteria, without a power boost, can only convert carbohydrates to a limited amount of hydrogen and a mixture of “dead end“ fermentation end products such as acetic and butyric acids.
However, giving the bacteria a small assist with a tiny amount of electricity--about 0.25 volts or a small fraction of the voltage needed to run a typical 6 volt cell phone--they can leap over the fermentation barrier and convert a “dead end“ fermentation product, acetic acid, into carbon dioxide and hydrogen.
Logan notes, “Basically, we use the same microbial fuel cell we developed to clean wastewater and produce electricity. However, to produce hydrogen, we keep oxygen out of the MFC and add a small amount of power into the system.“
In the new MFC, when the bacteria eat biomass, they transfer electrons to an anode. The bacteria also release protons, hydrogen atoms stripped of their electrons, which go into solution. The electrons on the anode migrate via a wire to the cathode, the other electrode in the fuel cell, where they are electrochemically assisted to combine with the protons and produce hydrogen gas.
A voltage in the range of 0.25 volts or more is applied to the circuit by connecting the positive pole of a programmable power supply to the anode and the negative pole to the cathode.
The researchers call their hydrogen-producing MFC a BioElectrochemically-Assisted Microbial Reactor or BEAMR. The BEAMR not only produces hydrogen but simultaneously cleans the wastewater used as its feedstock. It uses about one-tenth of the voltage needed for electrolysis, the process that uses electricity to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen.
Logan adds, “This new process demonstrates, for the first time, that there is real potential to capture hydrogen for fuel from renewable sources for clean transportation.“

One of the major strengths to renewable energy generation--whether wind, solar or other technologies--is that after a project is completed, the systems produce power for decades with little or no additional investments.
Like any manufactured item, there is an environmental cost to the manufacture of renewable energy hardware. Wind turbines, for example, require considerable raw material inputs and energy to create the final product. In an effort to quantify these inputs, Danish turbine manufacturer Vestas undertook a life cycle assessment of their latest wind turbine, solaraccess.com reported.
What they found, according to their research, is that one of the company’s V90, 3.0 MW offshore wind turbines has to generate electricity for approximately 6.8 months before it produces as much energy as is used during the manufacturing lifetime. This, they say, means the turbine model earns its own worth more than 35 times during its energy production lifetime.
Furthermore, compared to the V80-2.0 MW offshore wind turbine, the 6.8 months constitutes an improvement of approximately 2.2 months over the lower capacity model.
If installed on a good site, the V90-3.0 MW wind turbine will generate approximately 280,000 MWh in 20 years - thus sparing the environment the impact of a net volume of approximately 230,000 tons of CO2, as compared to the figures for energy generated by a coal-fired power station.
Both examples were the results from a life cycle assessment (LCA), which Vestas completed of a V90-3.0 MW wind turbine in 2004.
A life cycle assessment is both a mapping and an evaluation of the potential impact of the wind turbine on the external environment throughout its lifetime. The life cycle assessment for the V90-3.0 MW wind turbine is divided into four phases.
- The production phase, which covers the period from obtaining the raw materials to the completion of the wind turbine
- Transport of the wind turbine components and erection of the wind turbine
- Operation and maintenance throughout the 20-year design lifetime of the wind turbine
- Disposal of the wind turbine.
“The life cycle assessments are used as a natural and important decision-making tool in product development and in the choice of production technology,“ said Svend Sigaard, President and CEO of Vestas Wind Systems. “With life cycle assessments of our wind turbines, we have an excellent tool to compare the products and estimate how big an advantage our wind power systems are to the environment.“
Sigaard said the company now plans to make life cycle assessments of all their wind turbines.