CNG holds a lot of economic and environmental advantages over gasoline and diesel. (Google File Photo)

Nigeria will save about N474.5 billion annually if all the gasoline consumption in the country is replaced by Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).
While making a presentation on the topic ’Future Technologies and Markets for Natural Gas Vehicles in Nigeria’, at the Nigeria Gas Association International Conference, which rounded off on October 31, the Managing Director of the Nigeria Gas Company (NGC) Engineer Chris Ogiemwonyi stated that CNG costs half as much as gasoline, which is Nigeria’s most popular fuel.
Ogiemwonyi’s statistics also revealed that the daily consumption of gasoline in Nigeria stands at around 40 million liters daily and grows by 12 percent annually.
With one liter of gasoline now sold at N65, Nigerians on the average, spend about N949 billion yearly on the fuel and this figure will be halved if gasoline as a source of energy is replaced with CNG.
The Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Engineer Funso Kupolokun had earlier stated in the same event that the investment in the Gas sub-sector of the Nigerian oil and gas industry will stand at about $32.7 billion between 2007 and 2009.
Trying to make a case for the use of CNG in the country Ogiamwonyi explained that the fuel was a much cleaner fuel than gasoline and diesel.
“CNG holds a lot of economic and environmental advantages over gasoline and diesel. 45 percent of air pollution comes from the consumption of Primium Motor Spirit (PMS) Diesel“ he said.
He said with 53 vehicles in Nigeria running on CNG and 4 CNG stations already in place in the country, Nigeria stood at the second position in Africa and 36th position globally. Argentina he said, stands at the number one spot with 1.2 million cars running on CNG and 1,105 stations, Allafrica.com said.
Kupolokun stated earlier that the investment in the Gas sub-sector of the Nigerian oil and gas industry will stand at about $32.7 billion between 2007 and 2009.
Speaking at the events’ opening ceremony Kupolokun said the multibillion dollar investments will be flowing into the upstream and downstream sectors of the gas industry during the period.
“Even though the gas sector is faced with several challenges it will however witness the inflow of no less that $32.7 billion investment with $17.4 billion flowing into the upstream and $20.3 billion flowing into the downstream,“ he said.
Kupolokun who was represented at the event by a manager in the corporation also stressed that the fortunes of the sector is mared by manifold challenges, which include the poor pricing of gas and the lack of infrastructure, which makes direct exploration for gas unattractive.
Also speaking at the event the Minister of States for Petroleum Resources Dr Edmound Daukoru who was represented by the Special Adviser to the president on Petroleum Alhaji Jafaru Paki further highlighted the challenges of the gas sector stressing that investment in the crude oil sector are usually 100 percent more profitable than investments in gas.
“Until recently, a Naira invested in an oil field returned twice thwe profit of a Naira invested in the gas field. Even fines imposed on oil producing companies were ridiculous amounts which did not deter flaring. Given these incentives most gas never left the field but was reinjected into the reservior to keep the oil pressurized or simply flared,“ he said.
He however stated that a lot had changed with the considerable rise in the prices of oil and gas, which are expected to stay high.
“World economic growth, changing energy markets coupled with the advances in technology have combined to transform gas into a competitive global energy option. In addition, gas offers significant environmental advantages over oil and coal in reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide polition nand thus combating global warming. Gas has thus become the most preferred fuel in the power sector,“ Daukoru stated.

Expenditure on subsea processing systems is expected to amount to some $3.4 billion over the 2006-2015 period, which in the most favorable conditions could increase to as much as $5 billion, according to a study conducted by energy analysts Douglas-Westwood Limited and oil and gas technology specialists OTM Consulting.
Operator opinion has evolved over the past three years and now many have firm plans to install, with the prospect of improved recovery and production driving uptake, the report adds.
“If operators’ performance expectations are met, then over the next decade expenditure on subsea processing could in our ’most likely’ scenario amount to over $3.4 billion,“ said Douglas-Westwood’s Oil and Gas Manager Steve Robertson while addressing delegates at the Subsea Technology conference in London.
The study titled ’Gamechanger’ considered seabed boosting, separation, multiphase metering and wetgas compression systems.
A total of 131 seabed boosting applications are expected to account for 54 percent of this 10-year total, in addition to 28 forecast separation systems, we expect 1,005 multiphase meters and 15 wetgas compressors, tradearabia.com said.
Western Europe is expected to be the leading regional market with a mid-range projected Capex of $1.1 billion over the 2001-2015 period, followed by Africa ($788 million), Latin America ($594 million) and North America ($576 million), Robertson added.
“With oil prices having risen dramatically the drivers for subsea processing have changed. Whilst in the past, the drivers that have encouraged interest in this area have been evenly spread between certain technical, production and financial factors, production related drivers (increased production rate, increased ultimate recovery, etc.) are now seen as being much more important,“ said senior consultant at OTM George Trowbridge.
Changes have also been identified in oil companies’ perceptions of the barriers preventing the uptake of subsea processing. While both psychological hurdles (eg the naturally risk averse nature of oil companies) and financial hurdles (eg capital costs) are still high on the list of barriers to the uptake of subsea processing, there has been a shift in operator opinions so that now equipment reliability and operability is now seen as the highest ranked barrier.
The Subsea Processing Gamechanger Report is the first in a new series of reports that will examine the commercial prospects for technologies that show early potential to make a major impact on industries.

Closeup of the reactor operating. Insulation surrounding the perimeter of the reactor tube is removed to show the catalyst surface in the photograph. (Rsc.org Photo)

US researchers have developed an efficient way of turning renewable resources like vegetable oils--and potentially biomass--into hydrogen-rich gas. The gas could be converted to synthetic fuels and industrial chemicals, or used in fuelcells.
The catalytic process avoids problems that had discouraged previous researchers--like an unwanted buildup of soot which would clog reactors and deactivate catalysts.
The scientists spray oil droplets onto a ceramic foam cylinder coated with a rhodium-cerium catalyst heated above 800¡C. As the droplets hit the surface, high temperatures rip apart the oil’s triglyceride components into smaller vaporized compounds. These flow through the porous cylinder, together with injected oxygen, to become ’synthesis gas’ (hydrogen and carbon monoxide). The rapid vaporization leaves no time for droplets to be burnt to soot, while oxidizing reactions generate enough energy to make the process self-heating, Rcs.org said.
From these oily beginnings, the researchers hope to extend their method to convert cellulose, starch, and lignin (from woody plants). ’We hope that people will look at this reaction and think it might be a better way of using biomass,’ co-author Paul Dauenhauer told Chemistry World. The technology, he said, might be scaled up to larger systems, or could be run on small farms, avoiding transport costs. And the hydrogen produced could be used in fuel cells in a future ’hydrogen economy’, or the rest of the gas might be transformed into synthetic fuels.
’I think it is a significant but not necessarily a revolutionary development,’ cautioned Ted Krause, of Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois. There are many ways to convert biomass into useful fuels, and it isn’t yet clear that the American team’s small-scale process provides significant advantages.
As Tony Bridgwater of Aston University Bio-Energy Research Group explained, biomass can be fermented or digested by enzymes to make ethanol, or chemically altered to produce fuels such as biodiesel. And it can be broken down by high temperatures to create gases--for use in turbines, or for transformation to synthetic fuels--or liquids which can be stored and later gasified.
The American researchers’ reaction takes the high temperature route to convert oils (and potentially waste biomass) directly to gas. ’It’s a nice variation on a fairly well-established theme,’ Bridgwater commented. Approaches that convert biomass to gas or to liquids for use as biodiesel are far more commercially developed, he pointed out.
German biomass technologists Choren Industries, for example, are constructing a trial plant in Freiberg, to convert biomass to synthesis gas and thence to diesel fuel, marketed as SunDiesel. The European ’Chrisgas’ project, meanwhile, has a small pilot plant in Varnamo, Sweden, converting woody biomass into synthesis gas. A large scale commercial operation might begin in 2011/2012, Chrisgas co-ordinator Sune Bengtsson told Chemistry World.
The American researchers’ process may well be more efficient than these developed technologies, but it remains a proof of concept. Schmidt’s team is hoping to reduce the amount of catalyst they use, or switch to cheaper metals. If they can work out the reaction’s exact mechanism, and show that cellulose or lignin could be converted by the same process, then their promising technology could take on commercial significance.

In the quest for oil-free power, a handful of small companies are staking claims on the boundless energy of the rising and ebbing sea.
The technology that would draw energy from ocean tides to keep light bulbs and laptops aglow is largely untested, but several newly minted companies are reserving tracts of water from Alaska’s Cook Inlet to Manhattan’s East River in the belief that such sites could become profitable sources of electricity.
The trickle of interest began two years ago, said Celeste Miller, spokeswoman for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The agency issues permits that give companies exclusive rights to study the tidal sites. Permit holders usually have first dibs on development licenses.
Tidal power proponents liken the technology to little wind turbines on steroids, turning like windmills in the current. Water’s greater density means fewer and smaller turbines are needed to produce the same amount of electricity as wind turbines.
After two decades of experimenting, the technology has advanced enough to make business sense, said Carolyn Elefant, co-founder of the Ocean Renewable Energy Coalition, a marine energy lobbying group formed in May 2005, Newsobserver.com said.
In the past four years, the federal commission has approved nearly a dozen permits to study tidal sites. Applications for about 40 others, all filed in 2006, are under review. No one has applied for a development license, Miller said.
The site that is furthest along in testing lies in New York’s East River, between the boroughs of Manhattan and Queens, where Verdant Power plans to install two underwater turbines this month as part of a small test project.
The power will be routed to a supermarket and parking garage on nearby Roosevelt Island. Verdant’s co-founder and president, Trey Taylor, said the six-year-old company will spend 18 months studying the effects on fish before putting in another four turbines.
The project will cost about $10 million, including $2 million on fish monitoring equipment, Taylor said. “It’s important to spend this much initially,“ Taylor said. “It’s like our flight at Kitty Hawk.“
If all goes well, New York-based Verdant could have up to 300 turbines in the river by 2008, Taylor said. The turbines would produce as much as 10 megawatts of power, or enough electricity for 8,000 homes, he said.
With 12,380 miles of coastline, the US may seem like a wide-open frontier for the fledgling industry, but experts believe only a few will prove profitable. The ideal sites are close to a power grid and have large amounts of fast-moving water with enough room to build on the sea floor while staying clear of boat traffic.
“There are thousands of sites, but only a handful of really, really good ones,“ said Roger Bedard of the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit organization in Palo Alto, Calif., that researches energy and the environment.
“If you’re sitting on top of the best scallop fishing in the world, you can’t put these things down there,“ said Chris Sauer, president of Ocean Renewable Power in Miami. The two-year-old company is awaiting approval for federal study permits in Cook Inlet and Resurrection Bay in Alaska, and Cobscook Bay and the St. Croix River in Maine.
Other prime tidal energy sites lie beneath San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and in Knik Arm near Anchorage, Bedard said.
Government and the private sector in Europe, Canada and Asia have moved faster than their U.S. counterparts to support tidal energy research. As of June 2006, there were small facilities in Russia, Nova Scotia and China, as well as a 30-year-old plant in France, according to a report by EPRI.
“I expect the first real big tidal plant in North America is going to be built in Nova Scotia,“ said Bedard, who led the study. “They have the mother of all tidal passages up there.“
The industry is coalescing over worries about dependence on foreign oil, volatile oil prices and global warming. Many states have passed laws requiring a certain percentage of energy from renewable sources, and tidal entrepreneurs think they will be looking to diversify.

China’s current wind power pricing mechanism must be overhauled, according to a report released jointly by the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association (CREIA), Greenpeace and the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).
The report, titled “A Study of the Pricing Policy for Wind Power in China“, reviews the development of wind power and its pricing system in China. It looks closely at state-sponsored wind concession projects. The report says the tendering system used for wind power pricing is unclear and has had a negative impact on investment.
China’s Renewable Energy Law came into effect early this year. Electricity pricing implementation rules state that the grid feed-in rates of wind-sourced power should be determined by tender. This has drawn a barrage of criticism from industry players, who fear that the practice will lead to low prices that deny investors a reasonable profit, Xinhuanet.com said.
The report calls on the Chinese government to change the tender mechanism for wind power pricing to a fixed tariff system, so as to build a fair environment for competition that will serve the long-term development of the Chinese wind industry.
“Wind power is a new industry which needs support. The current pricing policy does not support wind power development, and must be changed,“ says CREIA secretary general Li Junfeng, a leading author of the report.
GWEC chairman Arthouros Zervos points out that “price volatility and uncertainty caused by the current regulation harms foreign and domestic private manufacturers and developers, who are discouraged by pricing pressure they cannot sustain.“
Steve Sawyer, the Climate and Energy Policy Advisor of Greenpeace International, says, “China has a superb opportunity to develop wind power, but the development relies heavily on an enabling pricing system. We hope that this report will provide the basis for discussions on how to improve the pricing policy for Chinese wind power.“
China has taken great strides in wind power development in recent years. By the end of 2005, it had built 61 wind farms with a power generating capacity of 1,260 MW, ranking seventh on the list of the world’s major wind players. Last year the Chinese government lifted its wind goal for the year 2020 from 20,000 MW to 30,000 MW. The target can be achieved ahead of time, if appropriate policies are in place, the report says.