Definitions
Carbon Capture and Storage Carbon Dioxide Equivalent For example, the GWP for methane is 25. This means that emissions of 1 million metric tonnes of methane are equivalent to emissions of 25 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide. Put another way, the GWP of methane is 25 times greater than the GWP of CO2. Either way, the CDE of methane is 25. Certified Emission Reduction At present, most of the approved CERs are recorded in CDM Registry accounts only. It is only when the CER is actually sitting in an operator’s trading account that its value can be monetized through being traded. Clean Coal Clean Development Mechanism Cogeneration Power Plant Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Concentrating Solar Thermal Power (CSP) CSP Power Plants Forest Management Unit (FMU) Fuel Energy Balance GGE (Gallon of Gas Equivalent) High Voltage Direct Current.(HVDC) IPP is an abbreviation for Independent Power Producer. An IPP is an entity, often a large company, which is not government-owned , and which owns facilities to generate electric power for sale to utilities and end users. Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) Solar Cell Switchgrass
In addition to being a proven small-scale technology, CCS is an important step in tackling climate change. Contrary to the belief of most environmentalists, CCS technology is being employed successfully, for example at the Sleipner Gasfield where 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year have been stored about 1 kilometre below the North Sea. It can be done, but the coal industry says it adds 30 percent to the price of coal. There is next to no evidence to show that CCS is being taken up by more than a very limited number of producers.
Carbon dioxide equivalent (CDE) is a measure for describing how much global warming a given type and amount of greenhouse gas may cause, using the functionally equivalent amount or concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) as the reference.
Carbon dioxide equivalency is a quantity that describes, for a given mixture and amount of greenhouse gas, the amount of CO2 that would have the same global warming potential (GWP), when measured over a specified timescale (usually 100 years).
Carbon dioxide equivalency thus reflects the time-integrated radiative forcing of a quantity of emissions or rate of greenhouse gas emission - a flow into the atmosphere.
The carbon dioxide equivalency for a gas is obtained by multiplying the mass and the GWP of the gas. The following units are commonly used:
Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) are climate credits, or carbon credits, issued by the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Executive Board for emission reductions achieved by CDM projects and verified by a DOE under the rules of the Kyoto Protocol.
CERs can be used by Annex 1 countries to comply with their emission limitation targets. They can also be used by operators of installations covered by the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EUETS) to comply with their obligations to surrender EU Allowances, CERs or Emission Reduction Units (ERUs) for the CO2 emissions of their installations.
CERs can be held by governmental and private entities on electronic accounts, and they can be split into long-term (lCER) or temporary (tCER), depending on the likely duration of their benefit.
The UNFCCC’s International Transaction Log has already validated and transferred CERs into the accounts of some national climate registries, but European operators are waiting for the European Commission to facilitate the transfer of their units into the registries of their Member States.
The combustion of coal produces flue gas which is discharged into the air; this contains C02 [carbon dioxide] and water vapour, as well as other substances such as nitrogen, nitrous oxides [NOx], sulphur oxides [SOx], fly ash and mercury.
The use of low sulphur and low bitumen coal (pulverised for burning), combined with the use of filters, scrubbers and electrostatic precipitators can help to reduce the toxic elements of flue gas and give the impression that coal is clean.
But the the fact is that clean coal is a fantasy because, although modern power plants may appear to be cleaner they still produce exactly the same amount of CO2 as old power plants. CO2 is the gas that is doing most to increase global warming and catastrophic climate change.
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol that allows greenhouse gas emission reductions from projects implemented in developing countries such as Thailand, to be used to offset emissions of developed countries such as Japan and the European Union. Under the Kyoto Protocol, developed countries are required to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by about 5 percent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.
CDMs are a great way for companies in Thailand, and other countries in southeast Asia, to make money whilst at the same time mitigating global warming and climate change.
Cogeneration refers to that type of power station that simultaneously generates both electricity and useful heat. Traditionally, old-style power stations generated only electricity; the heat that they produced as a byproduct of generating the electricity was allowed to escape, it was wasted.
The heat that is produced by Cogeneration plants is not wasted. It is captured. In cold climates it may be used to heat water for domestic or industrial heating purposes. In hot climates the heat can be used to help make steam which can be used at nearby factories in several ways, for example in absorption chillers for cooling.
Cogeneration is a thermodynamically efficient use of fuel. In separate production of electricity some energy must be rejected as waste heat, but in cogeneration this thermal energy is put to good use.
Power plants (including those that burn coal, petroleum, or natural gas), do not convert all of their available energy into electricity. In most plants, a bit more than half of the energy is wasted as excess heat (see: Second law of thermodynamics). By capturing the excess heat, CHP uses heat that would be wasted in a conventional power plant. CHP plants can potentially achieve efficiency of 89 percent, compared with only 55 percent for the best conventional plants. This means that less fuel needs to be burned to produce the same amount of useful energy. Also, less pollution is produced for a given economic benefit.
CHP and Cogeneration are interchangeable. They both refer to technology that generates electricity and at the same time captures the heat that is a byproduct of generating the electricity. (see Cogeneration Power Plant for a full description)
CSP power plants provide solar power using mirrors to concentrate sunlight to create heat which is used to produce steam to drive steam turbines and electricity generators. Heat storage tanks (e.g. molten salt tanks, or slabs of graphite) can be used to store heat during the day to power steam turbines during the night or when there is a peak in demand. In order to ensure uninterrupted service during overcast periods or bad weather (without the need for expensive backup plants), the turbines can also be powered by oil, natural gas or biofuels. As a side effect, waste heat from the power-generation process may be used to desalinate seawater or to generate cooling.
The main reason cited for favouring CSP over photovoltaics is its ability to supply power on demand for 24 hours a day. Photovoltaic power is more expensive than CSP and needs expensive systems for storing electricity, such as pumped storage which is inefficient.
Solar thermal power plants have been in use commercially at Kramer Junction in California since 1985. New solar thermal power plants with a total capacity of more than 2000 MW are at the planning stage, under construction, or already in operation. The Spanish government is encouraging the development of CSP power plants by guaranteeing a feed-in tariff of about 26 Eurocent/kWh for 25 years, thereby establishing favorable business conditions for CSP in their country. Where there is more sunshine, it is possible to realize cheaper feed-in tariffs, as for example at good locations in Africa, America, Asia, China, India, Australia or MENA.
A parcel of forest land that is harvested, regenerated, and managed as a single entity. Its area, shape, and boundaries are determined by operational considerations, such as forest cover type, forest age, density of trees, timber merchantability, soil productivity, and presence of natural boundaries, such as ridge tops, streams, and roads.
Crops or plants for biofuel have to be planted or sown as seeds, grown, collected, dried, fermented, and transported to the end-user. All of these steps use energy of one sort or another. The total amount of energy used to produce and distribute a given quantity of fuel compared to the total amount of energy produced by burning the same amount is known as the fuel energy balance, and is normally expressed as a ratio.
For example the fuel energy balance of corn ethanol – a popular biofuel in the USA – is approximately 1:1.3 which means that 1 unit of energy has to be used to produce 1.3 units of corn ethanol. The fuel energy balance of sugarcane ethanol is 1:8. i.e. for every 1 unit of energy used to produce ethanol you get eight units of energy when you burn it in an engine. We could say that the fuel energy balance of sugarcane ethanol is about six times higher than that of corn ethanol.
The term GGE refers to the volume of gas that will propel a vehicle the same distance as a gallon of gasoline/petrol. GGE is the amount of alternative fuel that equals the energy content of one gallon of gasoline. GGE is particularly useful for comparing Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) with gasoline. CNG is a gas rather than a liquid, so its volume is measured in cubic feet rather than in gallons.
Experts have calculated that 0.77 cubic feet of CNG has the same energy content as one US gallon of gasoline. In other words 0.77 cubic feet of CNG will propel a vehicle the same distance as one gallon of gasoline.
Transmission by HVDC is said to be much more efficient than using hydrogen as an energy vector: Using HVDC transmission lines, limits loss of power during transmission to only about 3 percent per 1000 Km. HVDC transmission lines up to 3 GW capacity have been deployed over long distances by German companies ABB and Siemens for several years. In July 2007 Siemens won a bid to build a 5 GW HVDC System in China.
In the old days, the power plants to produce electricity were owned by governments. That all changed in the 1980s and 90s when governments started to privatise utilities such as water and electricity.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) indicates that NOx is a major concern. as an air pollutant and as a contributor to global warming. Burning coal is one way to produce large quantities of NOx. The EPA says:
NOx is one of the main ingredients involved in the formation of ground-level ozone, which:
Sometimes called a photovoltaic cell, a solar cell is a device that converts solar energy into electricity by the photovoltaic effect. Photovoltaics is the field of technology and research related to the application of solar cells as solar energy. Sometimes the term solar cell is reserved for devices intended specifically to capture energy from sunlight, while the term photovoltaic cell is used when the source is unspecified.
Assemblies of cells are used to make solar modules, which may in turn be linked in photovoltaic arrays.
Solar cells have many applications, some of which have been around for decades. Individual cells are used for powering small devices such as electronic calculators. Photovoltaic arrays generate a form of renewable electricity, particularly useful where electrical power from the grid is unavailable such as in remote areas. Earth-orbiting satellites and space probes, remote radiotelephones and water pumping applications are other examples. Photovoltaic electricity is also increasingly deployed in grid-tied electrical systems.
This is a native prairie grass that can be grown in abundance in the United States. It has been identified by the Department of Energy and the Department of Agriculture (USA) as a prime feedstock for producing next generation biofuels and bioproducts. The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act mandated 16 billion gallons of ethanol produced by biomass crops such as switchgrass by the year 2022. Corn is no longer an option.