Modérateurs : Rod, Modérateurs
Surtout pas, la croissance c'est fini. Il faut l'oublier. J'éspère qu'on ne construira rien, construire pour démanteler aussitôt aprés, et avec quelle énergie?sceptique a écrit : il faudra augmenter le rythme de construction des GTL et CTL pour pallier cette descente tout en continuant d'assurer la croissance.
la suite ici : http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?S ... 1028-5674rCoal-based liquid fuel seen promising
WASHINGTON -- Mad about high gas prices? How about driving your car with coal? Two scientists at Columbia University (Klaus Lackner and Jeffrey Sachs) say liquid fuels derived from coal may free the world from its addiction to expensive oil.
source : http://www.businessinafrica.net/news/so ... 726861.htmIs coal the new black gold?
Johannesburg - Over the past five years China has emerged as the world's largest energy consumer, with a heavy reliance on oil imports from the Middle East. To reduce the dependence, China has been searching for ways to use its abundant coal reserves to meet its fuel requirements, which are set to rise by 5,5 percent per year until 2020.
Sasol's coal-to-liquid fuels (CTL) technology is one of the answers. In 2004 the Chinese government appointed two regional coal companies - Shenhua and Shenhua Ningxia - to work with Sasol on preparing large CTL facilities.
The studies are far advanced, says Lean Strauss, who heads Sasol's international energy businesses. Based on current plans, two CTL plants, costing between $5bn and $7bn each and producing a combined 160 000 barrels/day, are in the pipeline and could be up and running by 2012. The plants, which would be located near coal fields in the central provinces of Ningxia and Shenhua, would consume up to 19 million tonnes of coal, depending on coal quality, says Strauss. He adds that Sasol is sending a permanent team to China next month.
The FT recently reported that China's central planners were considering proposals for $24bn worth of CTL projects, with a number of pilot plants already under construction in Inner Mongolia and other coal-rich provinces.
Other countries are also working with Sasol or are interested in its technology to turn their coal reserves into petrol. In the US, Sasol is involved in two prefeasibility studies for CTL facilities. The US has the world's largest coal reserves and it, too, wants to reduce its dependence on oil from the Middle East.
Pakistan, India and Indonesian mining house Bumi Resources have also expressed interest, though Strauss says no formal talks have been held.
source : http://www.moneyweek.com/file/13377/cou ... e-oil.htmlCould coal replace oil?
At current oil prices, one answer to the evolving shortage of liquid fuels is coal liquefaction, HSBC bank suggests.
The CTL (coal-to-liquids) technology is well-established. It was originally invented in Germany in the 1920s and developed there and in the US in the 1930s. In the Third Reich it was used to make up to 600,000 barrels a day of petrol and avgas during the Second World War.
The technology was improved greatly in South Africa in the apartheid years to reduce dependence on imported oil. I have fond memories of researching and writing about the giant Sasol enterprise in 1964 when making my reputation as a young financial journalist. I still have a copy of my “Earth, Air, Fire and Water” study, which for the first time explained the complex processes to the public in layman’s terms.
Today there are three CTL plants in what is now democratic South Africa, converting coal into 150,000 barrels a day (equal to the output of a medium-sized oilfield). In addition to petrol, diesel and avgas, the process produces a wide range of by-products such as petrochemicals, waxes, feedstocks for plastics manufacture, and fuel gas.
While it’s forecast that the world will run short of conventional oil within a century, with most of the remaining large deposits in politically unstable regions, there is little recognition that coal is an abundant substitute. Enough for more than a thousand years.
The US has the world’s largest coal deposits, with 268 billion tons of recoverable reserves. HSBC says that at a standard conversion rate of two barrels of synthetic fuels from one ton of coal, those reserves are equivalent to the 20 times the nation’s current crude oil reserves.
At capital costs of $700 million for capacity of 10,000 barrels/day and a 30-year life, operating costs of $15/barrel and current coal costs, breakeven for a coal-to-liquids plant in the US would be in the range $39-44 a barrel, assuming no tax incentives.
However, the new Highway Act provides a subsidy of $21 a barrel for commercial-scale CTL projects. Taking that into account, with oil at $50 a barrel (that is, well below current prices around $70), the internal rate of return on such a project would be in the mouth-watering range 22-25 per cent.
It would also be environmentally friendly, as the technology converts dirty coal into “ultra-clean” synthetic diesel and jet fuel that can be used in current engines without adaptation. And “the fuels are easily transportable and marketable, as they are compatible with existing petro-fuel distribution infrastructure” (unlike ethanol-blended petrol, bio-diesel and more radical alternative fuels).
HSBC suggests that beneficiaries of CTL development in the US could include mining companies such as Peabody Energy and Arch Coal, and providers of proprietary technologies such as GEA Group (Lurgi), GE Energy, Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips, Rentech, Syntroleum – and South Africa’s Sasol. The latter, now listed in New York as well as Johannesburg, is becoming a global giant in synthetic fuel projects (see later article about gas-to-liquids).
China, which like the US has huge coal reserves but increasing dependence on imported oil, is adopting the CTL solution. Its first plant will start production next year.
State-owned Shenhua, the biggest coal mining company, in association with Sasol and Shell, wants to build additional plants to make liquid fuels equivalent to 10 million tons of crude oil a year by 2010, at a cost of about $10 billion, and 30 million tons by 2020.
HSBC says the typical final product mix from Fischer-Tropsch synthesis contains between 70 and 80 per cent diesel fuel and 10 to 20 per cent jet fuel, with “chemical and burning qualities superior to… their counterparts derived from petroleum through refining.”
The world isn’t going to run out of oil while there’s all that coal that can be turned into liquid fuels.
source : http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/3991961.htmlSasol Teams With China Coal Firm Shenhua
South African oil and gas company Sasol Ltd. said Thursday it signed a cooperation agreement with a consortium led by China's Shenhua Corp. for second-stage studies on the viability of an 80,000 barrels per day potential coal-to-liquids project west of Beijing.
A similar agreement for another project in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous region, about 1,000 kilometres west of Beijing, was signed with Shenhua Ningxia Coal Ltd. Wednesday.
Sasol said the talks come as strong Chinese economic growth has caused China to increase its oil imports exponentially. As a result, the drive towards coal for energy security has been endorsed at the government level.
The proposed Chinese projects comprise two plants, each with a nominal capacity of delivering 80,000 barrels a day of liquid fuels. Combined, their capacities are roughly equivalent to that of Sasol's existing Secunda facility in South Africa.
Initial studies confirmed that key drivers are in place for establishing a viable CTL business in China using Sasol's low-temperature Fischer-Tropsch technology, the company said. Each plant is expected to cost more than $5 billion. Should these CTL projects go ahead, they could be brought into operation as early as 2012.
Sasol said the second-stage feasibility studies will determine capital cost, feedstock cost, water supply and market conditions and will also determine most major commercial and funding issues. Sasol intends to be a significant equity investor in these projects, rather than a technology provider only.
150 000 b/jour pour 40 millions d'habitants, cela fait 0,6 litre/jour /habitant. Le Français moyen en consomme 4, l'américain 10.Today there are three CTL plants in what is now democratic South Africa, converting coal into 150,000 barrels a day
Et le PIB par habitant de l'Afrique du Sud est le dixième de celui de la France ! Voilà ptet aussi pourquoi150 000 b/jour pour 40 millions d'habitants, cela fait 0,6 litre/jour /habitant. Le Français moyen en consomme 4, l'américain 10.
il semble que des voix se font entendre en Chine pour pas foncer téte baissée dans le Coal to liquids :energy_isere a écrit :Les Chinois à fond pour le Coal to Liquid, au moyen d' alliance avec le Sud Africain Sasol.
Ou on reparle du projet Chinois de Shenhua que j'avais mentioné ici le 26 Mars : http://www.oleocene.org/phpBB2/viewtopi ... &start=135
source dans le shangaidaily : http://www.shanghaidaily.com/art/2006/0 ... _China.htmRampant coal liquefaction ordered halted by China
2006-08-07
CHINA has raised the capital threshold for projects converting coal to liquid fuel in order to brake a possible overheating in the coal-chemical industry.
Excessive development of the fossil fuel pollutes the environment and strains water supply.
In addition to projects approved by the national authorities, many regions have blindly planned and built coal liquefaction projects.
National coal liquefaction standards set high standards for coal resources, water resources, ecology, environment, technology and capital - and the process drains water. Blind construction of such projects is unsustainable alongside the healthy development of the national economy, said the National Development and Reform Commission.
On July 7, the NRDC, China's industrial watchdog agency, required local governments to tighten control of new coal liquefaction projects before the national development program for the coal liquefaction industry is complete.
The government will reject coal liquefaction projects with an annual production capacity under three million tons, said the the commission's circular.
One ton of coal-to-oil processing capacity needs an investment of 10,000 yuan (US$1,250). Thus the three-million-ton annual capacity means an investment of 30 billion yuan, an astronomical figure for most enterprises, said Li Dadong, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
The world's largest producer of coal, China fuels about 70 percent of its own energy needs.
Rising oil prices have prompted the coal chemical industry to seek alternatives for petroleum in China, the world's fourth-largest economy.
The recent oil rally toward US$80 a barrel has further spurred a wave of coal liquefaction projects.
Coal liquefaction converts coal from a solid into liquid fuels, substitutes for petroleum products.
Coal liquefaction was first developed in the early part of the 20th century but later application was hindered by the relatively low price and wide availability of crude oil and natural gas.
Large-scale applications have existed in only a few countries, such as Germany during World War II and South Africa since the 1960s. The oil crises of the 1970s and the threat to conventional oil supplies sparked renewed interest in production of oil substitutes from coal during the 1980s.
However, the wide availability of inexpensive oil and natural gas supplies in the 1990s effectively ended the near-term commercial prospects of these technologies.
China is the world's second-largest energy producer and fifth-largest crude oil producer. Driven by high oil prices and fast economic growth, China reached a record high in domestic oil production and consumption in the first half of 2006.
"But China will continue to rely mainly on domestic energy supplies, and oil production will stay between 180 and 200 million tons a year for a relatively long period," said Zhang Guobao, vice minister of the NDRC.
"The coal liquefaction project will offer an efficient way to quench China's thirst for energy. It is conducive to reducing China's external dependence on crude oil," said Professor Lin Boqiang of Xiamen University in East China's Fujian Province.
However, industry officials and experts have appealed for the authorities and businesses to stay cool about coal liquefaction.
"Although coal liquefaction promises to help ease China's oil shortage, huge potential risks are involved in its mass production," said professor Lin.
Coal liquefaction soaks up water, and China - especially its northern and northwestern regions - is short of water. Except for Yunnan and Guizhou provinces in Southwest China, most coal-rich provinces run short of water.
The profit margins of coal liquefaction projects are linked to the fluctuating international price of oil which changes every year.
A coal liquefaction project takes three to five years to build and operate. "Coal-for-oil technology will be economic if the crude oil price is higher than US$25 per barrel. In this sense, it will not face any risk in the near term," said Zhou Fengqi, a senior researcher with the Energy Institute of the NDRC's Macro-Economic Research Institute.
"But it is hard to tell whether coal liquefaction projects will certainly profit. If the international oil price plummets in the future, the nation will suffer a lot," Zhou said.
Other industry experts worry that China's coal resources are not so rich: Verified exploitable coal reserves were 188.6 billion tons at the end of 2002, but the average resource recovery rate was only 30 percent. Calculated at an annual coal output of 1.9 billion tons, the reserves would last only 30 years.