Awareness of our energy and power industry

The production of energy materials and the use of them to generate electricity are two closely related industries that are in a state of considerable flux under the current crisis of extremely high oil and food prices. Both are important users of filtration and related separation equipment, and both expect significant changes in the underlying technology of filtration and separation in the near future.

Production of Energy Materials

The process of extracting energy materials (which is still largely fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas), and the subsequent refining process, makes heavy use of process fluids as well as equipment fluids, and therefore uses a lot of separation equipment. In terms of the industry as a whole, this is a sizable sector with a large number of companies involved in the operation, including many of the world's largest manufacturers with operations across the globe.

The production processes in the energy industry include:

◆ extracting coal from open-pit and underground mines;

◆ processing the mined coal into sizes and qualities required by the marketplace;

◆ processing coal into coke and other solid fuels, as well as liquid and gaseous fuels;

◆ extracting oil and natural gas from onshore and offshore wells;

◆ purifying and refining natural gas before it is released to the market;

◆ refining crude oil into different industrial grades of oil;

◆ cracking distillates and residuals to produce petrochemical feedstocks;

◆ blending distillate oils to produce petroleum products such as lubricants;

◆ condensing natural gas into liquefied natural gas (LNG) for transportation, which is a key part of the natural gas industry's development. LNG) for transportation, an increasingly important conversion from gas to liquid fuel;

◆ Extraction, manufacturing and reprocessing of nuclear fuel.

There is growing industry interest in recovering methane from secondary sources such as landfills, old or undeveloped coal pits, and sludge abatement ponds. And, indeed, there is growing interest in biomaterials as an energy source, whether through direct combustion, gasification, or conversion to liquid fuels (bioethanol and biodiesel), which could help to alleviate the demand for petroleum as a fuel for automobile engines.

A major policy issue affecting the energy industry is whether to use biomaterials as an energy source (which is highly desirable, and in addition reduces carbon emissions) or as a feedstock for the production of a wide range of chemicals (for which they are almost exclusively suitable).

In addition to high oil prices, the age of energy materials is also an issue. In terms of resource lifespan, some fuels have potential supply shortages, some as short as 10 years, as shown in Table 1. Oil and natural gas typically have much shorter lifetimes than coal, with the lowest regional utilization rates for oil and much higher rates for coal: globally, oil is below 41 years and coal can be as high as 150 years. The short lifespan of oil and natural gas and their value as a chemical feedstock should prioritize the use of coal as an energy source. However, taking into account current economic factors, the results are different.

It is often assumed not to worry too much about these seemingly short useful lives (obtained by dividing proven reserves by current production rates): "When the oil companies have to find more oil they will always find it!" It is worth noting that 19 of the 21 useful life figures cited in Table 1 are lower than they were three years ago, and that total global energy consumption has been growing at about 2% per year for the past decade. Although there are newly discovered sources of energy, they do not seem to be able to meet the rising demand. Thus, the situation seems to warrant attention.

Global warming (largely attributed to the use of fossil fuels in combustion stoves) has made the energy/feedstock situation increasingly critical. Many governments have committed themselves to controlling combustion gas emissions, but much remains to be done to achieve satisfactory results. These changes will affect the rate of energy and material consumption.

Use of equipment

Mechanical separation equipment has many important applications in the energy industry, both for direct production and for plant maintenance. Coal processing provides an important market for screens, filters and centrifuges, especially in the handling of coal washes, and hydraulics are also important in mining.

All gas turbines rely on clean intake air

(i.e., filtered), and the

exhaust gases from most power generation systems require some sort of treatment before they can be released into the atmosphere

.

In the natural gas and oil extraction industries, mechanical separation equipment is required for the generation and circulation of drilling mud and for the separation of oil from natural gas at the wellhead (or from water). Refining processes include catalyst recovery, filtration of kiln exhaust, and purification of liquid products (especially lubricants and similar products). Many refinery wastes are oil/water mixtures, and a typical application for multilayer separators is to separate residual oil from water.

The market share of separation equipment in the energy materials extraction sector will remain stable as the energy industry seeks to adapt to increased demand and high price levels. High oil prices will accelerate the fuel shift to natural gas, which typically requires less separation equipment for its production. The current economic situation allows for the exploitation of deeper subsea oil and gas.

Despite its size, the energy industry represents a relatively small portion of the filtration and separation equipment market. Out of a total market of $12.95 billion in 2007, the energy industry ranked 12th (a tally of an end-user hierarchy of which *** there are 15 industries). This figure indicates that the energy materials industry has about a 2.9% share of the overall filtration equipment market, but is expected to grow at a rate of 6.8% per year. (the third fastest growth rate of the 15 industries).

Power Generation

Operations in the power industry include "central" power stations that generate electricity to be delivered to local customers or to the national grid for widespread transmission. Often a power station is also built to supply power to a factory, which generates electricity from steam, gas or engine power. A full back-up plant is also installed at another site in case the main power supply fails. In addition, the transportation of gases in the power generation process, while not using all types of separation equipment, is likely to be an important market for membrane separation equipment.

Equipment use

Power generation is actually a dry process, using rotating machinery, so there is only a small, insignificant market for solid/liquid separation equipment. However, separation equipment has an important role to play in the production of pure water for boilers, and in the dewatering of sludges formed in certain flue gas treatment processes. With the increasingly stringent water quality requirements, membrane separation technology plays an important role here.

The power industry is a very important sector of the solid/gas separation equipment market: air and gas filters are vital for the smooth operation of power generation. All gas turbines require clean intake air (i.e., it is filtered), and the exhaust gases from most power generation systems require some sort of treatment before they can be released into the atmosphere. More and more gas-fired power stations are being built in remote areas (deserts, offshore), and their need for intake air filtration equipment is steadily increasing.

High oil prices will accelerate the fuel shift to natural gas, which is generally

produced with less demand for separation equipment.

Separation equipment sales in the power industry were $2.79 billion in 2007, a mid-range of 15 end-use industries, with a 6.3% market share, and the market share is expected to grow by 6.2% annually. (Notably, the Energy Materials & Power industry*** holds 9.2% of the global market share, making it the 5th largest industry, surpassing the Food & Beverage Processing industry.)

Industry Outlook

There is no doubt that there is a finite amount of fossil fuels on the planet, and it is likely that we will run out of oil and natural gas this century, especially, if there is some left to use as a chemical feedstock at the last minute. Then reverting to coal would be the easiest way to make the shift, since it has much higher reserves (except, who else is looking for coal these days?).

There are several ways to revive the coal industry:

◆ Produce clean coal to mitigate the problem of acidic emissions from coal combustion;

◆ Use fossil coals (which contain low rank material) or underground gasification to gasify coal into high calorific value gases;

◆ Liquefy the coal from coal by pyrolysis or hydrogenation to use it as a fuel or a feedstock;

◆ Use coal as a raw material for the production of chemical products;

◆ Use coal as a raw material for the production of chemical products;

◆ Use coal as a raw material for the production of chemical products.

◆ Using coal directly as a feedstock to produce carbon-containing chemicals.

Most of these processes are important users of mechanical separation equipment, but most have been planned for relatively short-term development and have not yet been successfully implemented.

The proposal to return to coal as a primary energy source would be opposed by climate change advocates who are concerned about greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, carbon capture and sequestration technologies will have to be used once the coal process is adopted.

Concerns about carbon emissions naturally lead to thinking about nuclear fission energy (which produces no carbon at all) and renewable energy (which produces carbon only in the processing of biomaterials).

Nuclear power is a better source of energy in its own right, and if public attitudes towards it can be changed, then a satisfactory solution to the disposal of nuclear waste can be found and enough nuclear power plants can be built to reduce the cost of nuclear power. Finland is building a new nuclear power plant, the first in Europe in more than a decade; the United States, meanwhile, is taking a number of positive steps to encourage the government to reinvest in nuclear energy; and the British government has committed to a new nuclear energy program (although there is no rush to implement it).

Nuclear power is a better source of energy in its own right - if public attitudes

toward it can be changed, a satisfactory

disposal of nuclear waste can be found, and enough

nuclear power plants can be built to bring down the cost of nuclear power.

So much has been talked, written, and planned lately about expanding renewable energy systems, but they are all just disguised uses of established energy sources. While large wind farms have been recognized, it is also unlikely that direct renewables (wind, tidal, wave) will exceed 2% of the total by 2020. It is foreseeable that biomaterials will be a great success as fuels; they can be burned or gasified, converted to liquid fuels, or made into bioethanol through fermentation, or biodiesel through seed processing, or even pyrolyzed. The main problem with biofuels is that they require land, which competes with food crops for fields.

Lignocellulosic material (the structural material of plants) is one of the more promising bioenergy feedstocks that has yet to be developed, so that non-food feedstocks can be used, or algae can be processed to extract seaweed oils, so that aquatic crops can be used.

Within renewable energy systems, there has been a lot of talk about hydrogen as the primary energy source of the future. This is actually the completely wrong view - hydrogen is not an energy source, but a way of transferring energy from one place to another (just like electricity). Currently, the cost of producing hydrogen is higher than the value recovered from its combustion, and it is likely to be so in the future - no matter how "green" that combustion may be.

Nonetheless, making hydrogen in electrolyzers (using electricity generated by photovoltaic arrays in desert areas) is still likely to be the main source of hydrogen in fuel cells. This will be an important application for repolarized ionic membranes in fuel cell production, whether the hydrogen made is used as an energy source or as a chemical feedstock.

New Filtration Needs

Like other industries, the energy industry will continue to pursue higher and higher filtration efficiencies for cleaner process fluids.

In the energy materials industry, the main areas of development for filtration and separation equipment lie in the increased offshore demand for improved separation of mining fuels, improved treatment of drilling muds and injection water, and treatment of thermal exhaust gases. As production sites are increasingly remote from the living environment, equipment must be highly reliable.

In the power industry, the main area of development is undoubtedly the filtration of hot exhaust gases. Also of interest are high-quality intake filters for gas turbines and water filters for boiler feed water. The repurposing of nuclear energy will significantly increase the demand for reliable, high-grade filtration equipment in the power industry.

Small-scale power generation using fuel cells is of great interest to the power industry, and great strides have been made in finding an economical form of battery. When this technology is successfully developed, electrically driven membrane separation equipment will have a favorable market outlook. ●