Reporting on the business and technologies
driving today's global industrial gas industry

Air Products Signs with Signet Solar
2008.03
Air Products has signed an agreement with Signet Solar Inc. to supply turnkey installation of gas delivery systems and services and related gas needs for a new, thin-film photovoltaic (PV) module production facility in Mochau, Germany. The long-term agreement includes the supply of hydrogen, helium, nitrogen and argon, as well as specialty gases such as silane, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) and dopant gases. The new plant will be on-stream in the summer of 2008.

Signet Solar, thin-film PV modules will be manufactured in much the same way as thin-film transistor-liquid crystal displays (TFT-LCD) are produced. As one of the largest suppliers to the TFT-LCD industry, Air Products is ideally suited to supply the new facility. This agreement marks Air Products entry into the burgeoning thin-film photovoltaic industry and complements its existing crystalline PV offerings.

PV modules convert sunlight directly into electricity. When production begins later this year, Signet Solar will be manufacturing the world's largest PV modules, measuring 2.2m x 2.6m, for use in solar power stations, solar panels integrated into buildings, and for free-standing solar plants in areas without electricity.

With the demand for renewable energy and improved efficiency on the rise, Air Products is well positioned to take advantage of these emergent markets.

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Coal-To-Liquid Engineering Program
2008.03
Fuel Frontiers, Inc. (FFI) announced that it has transferred funds to Shaw Stone & Webster (Shaw), a division of The Shaw Group Inc., to launch the engineering program that will provide a technical basis for a 400 ton per day coal-to-liquid (CTL) ultra-clean diesel fuel production facility in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky.

"I believe that The Shaw Group can supply everything we need to support our efforts to develop CTL clean fuel projects. With the launch of this engineering program, we have established our commitment to work with Shaw in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky," said Patrick Herda, President and CEO of FFI parent company Nuclear Solutions, Inc.

FFI is planning to employ a commercially proven plasma gasification system designed by Westinghouse Plasma Corporation (WPC) coupled to commercially available Fischer-Tropsch (FT) gas-to-liquids (GTL) diesel fuel production systems, to be designed and con,tructed by Shaw Stone & Webster for its coal to ultra-clean diesel production facilities.

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FuelCell Energy Expands
2008.03
FuelCell Energy, Inc., a manufacturer of high efficiency, ultra-clean power plants for commercial, industrial, municipal and utility customers, has received a $4 million loan from the state of Connecticut. The loan is part of the company's $10 million project to expand FuelCell Energy's Torrington, Connecticut manufacturing facility, expand its workforce and extend its facility lease through 2015.

DFC power plants generate power electrochemically, not through combustion, so they produce near-zero nitrous oxides (NOX), sulfur oxides (SOX) and particulate emissions. DFC fuel cells are 47 percent efficient compared to similar-sized fossil fuel combustion plants, which typically reach only 30-35 percent efficiency, delivering more power for each unit of fuel used and producing substantially less carbon dioxide. When used in Combined Heat and Power applications, in which the fuel cell's heat byproduct is used to produce additional clean energy, DFC power plants can achieve efficiencies of up to 80 percent. (See more on FuelCell Energy in the February 2008 issue of CGI, Gen H₂ column, page 54.)

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Intel Leads With Green Power
2008.03
Intel Corporation will purchase more than 1.3 billion kilowatt hours a year of renewable energy certificates as part of a multifaceted approach to reduce its impact on the environment, making Intel the single-largest corporate purchaser of green power in the United States, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The company said it hoped the record-setting purchase would help stimulate the market for green power, which should lead to additional generating capacity and ultimately, lower costs.

The purchase placed Intel at the top of EPA's latest Green Power Partners Top 25 list, and also at the No. 1 spot on EPA's Fortune 500 Green Power Partners list. The EPA's Green Power Partnership program encourages and recognizes voluntary green power purchases as a way to reduce the impact of conventional electricity use.

Renewable energy certificates, or RECs, are the "currency" of the renewable energy market and are widely recognized as a having credible and tangible environmental benefits. The EPA estimates that Intel, REC purchase has the equivalent environmental impact of taking more than 185,000 passenger cars off the road each year, or avoiding the amount of electricity needed to power more than 130,000 average American homes annually.

Intel's REC purchase, which includes a portfolio of wind, solar, small hydroelectric and biomass sources, will be handled by Sterling Planet, a leading national supplier of renewable energy, energy efficiency and low-carbon solutions. The purchase will be certified by the non-profit Center for Resource Solutions' Green-e^® program which certifies and verifies green power products.

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The CO2 Minimizer -- Oxygen
2008.03
Air Liquide is taking part in several large-scale research projects in Europe and in North America, testing processes that use oxygen (so-called "oxy-combustion") to minimize carbon dioxide emissions from industry. Some of the projects also involve testing technologies that capture CO₂ from the exhaust gas after combustion.

Oxy-combustion is a promising solution for reducing the intensity of CO₂ emissions from traditional industrial activities such as coal-fired power plants, blast furnaces and cement plants. Using oxygen (instead of air) for the combustion of coal or other fuels results in exhaust gases of relatively pure CO₂ that are ready for capture, storage or direct use (e.g. for enhanced oil recovery). Air Liquide provides oxygen, engineering and combustion expertise, as well as equipment for the safe and efficient handling of the oxygen used during testing.

In Europe, Air Liquide is a partner with TOTAL in the Lacq Project in southern France, which aims to demonstrate the feasibility of CO₂ capture and storage in depleted natural gas fields. The project involves the revamping of an existing 30 MW boiler, so that it can be used for oxy-combustion. In addition to providing proprietary burners for the project, Air Liquide will supply TOTAL with oxygen (some 240 tons per day) from an on-site unit.

In North America, at the Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group, Inc. (B&W PGG) Clean Environment Development Facility in Alliance, Ohio, B&W PGG and Air Liquide successfully operated a 30 MW unit in full oxy-combustion mode (a world record thus far). After the next phase of testing, which will use different types of coal (sub-bituminous, lignite and Powder River Basin coal) and novel plant designs, Air Liquide and B&W PGG intend to implement the technology at a larger demonstration plant where more than one million tons of CO₂ could be captured in a single year.

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The Methane Challenge
2008.03
The Dow Chemical Company recently announced that Cardiff University and Northwestern University have been awarded research grants totaling over $6.4 million as part of the 2007 Dow Methane Challenge. The challenge was initiated by Dow in March 2007 to identify collaborators and approaches in the area of methane conver,ion to chemicals. These awards culminate the selection process.

The focus of the challenge was the conversion of methane, the major component of natural gas, to chemical feedstocks. Methane is particularly attractive as a raw material because of the presence of large reserves of natural gas in many parts of the world, but the technology for the conversion of these reserves to chemicals and liquid fuels remains elusive. Dow's goal is to develop technologies to take natural gas and produce the intermediates that form the foundation of today's chemical industry.

Mastery of methane chemistry would provide a completely new foundation for producing chemicals and liquid fuels, providing alternatives to petroleum in these applications and enabling the use of natural gas that today is uneconomical to transport to market. It could also reduce the flaring of gas associated with petroleum production and might even provide a means to upgrade landfill gas.

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