IranDaily.gif IranDaily.gif
Energy
Tue, May 06, 2008

Advanced Search
ADVERTISING RATES
PDF Edition
National
Domestic Economy
Science
Energy
Iranica
Society
World
Middle East
International Economy
Sports
Arts & Culture
RSS
Archive
Scottish Coal Shelves Major Mine Project
Ghana Joining Ethanol Market
Scottish Coal Shelves Major Mine Project
099147.jpg
Sharp increases in the price of imported coal and clean-coal technology at power stations have made mining BritainÕs extensive reserves more attractive.
Uncertainty over government support for the coal industry is understood to be behind a decision to put plans for a new deep coal mine in the south of Scotland on hold for five years.
Scottish Coal, part of the Scottish Resources Group, looked into the possibility of building a new mine near Canonbie in Dumfriesshire, which is said to have reserves of 400 million tons of coal, enough to run Longannet power station for 80 years, Timesonline reported.
Sharp increases in the price of imported coal and clean-coal technology at power stations have made mining Britain’s extensive reserves more attractive. UK Coal, which bought most of British Coal’s assets in the 1990s, is looking at reopening Haworth colliery in Nottinghamshire.
The SNP government has been vocal in its support of the coal industry. A year ago, Alex Salmond said that clean-coal technology had a dynamic future for the industry.
Scotland has about 10 percent of Europe ’s coal reserves but without a long-term government commitment, companies are wary of investing tens of millions of pounds.
Scottish Coal said, “It is not about financial commitment, but general support. Spending tens of millions of pounds for a new mine and then finding a new government did not have the same support for the coal industry would create huge issues. The Canonbie study suggested there were plenty of reserves but progress is unlikely within the next five years.“º
Plans to reopen one of Scotland’s four mothballed deep mines also faced hurdles, according to Scottish Coal. Longannet in Fife, the last pit in Scotland, was closed in 2002 after it flooded. “Dealing with Longannet’s flooding would cost at least £50 million before it was able to be mined and even then there is no certainty it would be viable,“ Scottish Coal said.
A spokesman for UK Coal said it had no plans to look at any of Scotland’s mothballed pits. “We recently spent a lot of money trying to re-start a mothballed pit in England before having to abandon it,“ he said. “Deep mined coal is becoming viable, which is why we are looking at Haworth, but Scotland’s pits have problems which make it harder to see the justification.“º
Chris Butler, a global resources specialist at Martin Currie, an investment management firm, said it was difficult to see new mines being cost effective, but that reopening mothballed pits was a possibility. “I cannot see a new deep mine being sunk in Scotland, but if coal prices remain high, mothballed pits come into the equation.“ Meanwhile it has emerged that power supplies were under threat during the recent strike at Grangemouth refinery.
Scottish Coal came within a day of being forced to stop production at all of its sites because of dwindling fuel supplies. A last minute delivery prevented the crisis.
“We have a 24-hour a day operation which requires a lot of fuel,“ said the spokesman. “It was close and was only prevented from becoming critical by switching the supplies we had around our sites but if it had gone on for another day, we would have had to halt production.“º
Ghana Joining Ethanol Market
As controversy rages over the ethics of producing biofuels at a time of soaring food prices, a Ghanaian company has announced it will start exporting ethanol to Sweden by end 2010.
In Ghana ’s first industrial-scale biofuels project, Northern Sugar Resources Ltd will grow sugarcane on 30,000 hectares of currently unused land in the centre of the country and turn it into ethanol in a plant that will be built by Constran S/A of Brazil, executives of the two companies said.
“Subject to the financial agreements being signed in June, the initial plan is for us to be exporting at half capacity--that is 75,000 cubic meters--in the second half of 2010,“ Roger G. Walters, technical director of Northern Sugar’s parent Regency Resources told AFP.
“It’s good news for Ghana . Even though the fuel ... is not going to be used in Ghana , it is very good news because this plant will provide jobs,“ Deputy Information Minister Frank Agyekum told AFP.
At full capacity the plant will produce 150,000 cubic meters of ethanol per year.
Svensk Etanolkemi AB (Sekab), a Swedish green fuels company, has committed to buying the first 10 years of the plant’s production, Managing Director Anders Fredriksson told AFP in a telephone interview from Sekab’s headquarters in Ornskoldsvik.
“One of our big missions is to bring Africa into the global biofuels market. Africa has a huge potential for economic growth with the forthcoming biofuels explosion,“ Fredriksson said, adding, “It’s also a great opportunity for Africa to produce alternative fuels.“
The project requires a total investment of 306 million dollars (197 million euros), according to Fabio Pavan, business development director of Constran S/A, who was in Accra for meetings with Northern Sugar. Of that total 260 million dollars will come from a loan granted to Northern Sugar by the Brazilian government development bank BNDES, Pavan said.
“This is a win-win project,“ he said, noting that this is the first loan by the Brazilian government to Ghana in the history of bilateral relations.
One year of production from Ghana, once the plant is running at full capacity, will cut Sweden’s ethanol deficit by almost one third, Pavan said. And after one year of production, ethanol should rank fourth amongst Ghana’s exports, behind coffee, gold and timber, he added.
The first year of the project will just be the cultivation of sugarcane. The second year will see a start to production and the third year production at full capacity.
The project has preliminary approval from the BNDES and a final agreement should be signed in June.
The site where the sugarcane is to be cultivated and the plant built lies at the northern tip of Volta Lake , about 100 kilometers (63 miles) south of Tamale. “It’s a savanah-type grass area, very flat, with a lot of old river beds and no cultivation,“ Walters said.
Higher Oil Tax
Russia will increase its crude export tax by 17 percent to a record on June 1, after oil prices rose in March and April. The tax will be set at $398.10 a metric ton, the seventh consecutive increase.

EnergyCol3
Wind Power Heads to Sea
099150.jpg
Giant turbines the size of jumbo jets bobbing on the North Sea may soon become as common off Norway as oil and gas platforms.
At least that’s the ambition of Norwegian authorities and industry, eager to splash some green on their oily image and use their offshore expertise to corner a potentially lucrative new market--floating wind farms in deep sea waters, Canada said.
Norway’s government is contemplating licensing ’blocks’ for offshore wind generation, and Norwegian Oil Company StatoilHydro aims to start work next year on a floating turbine project near the site of the first North Sea oil discovery 40 years ago.
“We are the best place in Norway if you love wind,“ Mayor Jarle Nilsen said of Utsira, a North Sea island of just six square kilometers and home to 210 people who already get most of their power from two onshore turbines.
“We had wind every day except one last year,“ he said, thrilled by the prospect of two experimental offshore wind projects anchoring in nearby waters.
With Europe’s second-longest coastline after Greece, Norway is hard hit by winds blowing off the Atlantic and, along with Britain, well-placed for wind energy projects. Offshore turbines can be twice as powerful as land-based units due to stronger, more sustained winds at sea.
Out of sight from the coast, such wind farms could use modified, more efficient turbines because limiting noise, a key concern for land-based wind farms, is not as critical offshore. The technology is not tested and costly offshore repairs could quickly drive up costs, analysts say.
The price of wind electricity produced will also probably stay above that of conventional fossil fuel-based power for years to come, meaning that state subsidies play a major role. “We have been very clear in saying that there are exciting prospects in offshore wind and indeed floating wind,“ said deputy energy and petroleum minister Liv Monica Stubholt.
“But we also acknowledge that experts advise us to ’hurry slowly’ because there are still considerable technological hurdles that need to be hopped.“

Heat-Trapping Gases
Wind power is growing and set to top 100 gigawatts in installed global capacity in 2008 in a push for alternatives to coal- or gas-powered plants, which emit heat-trapping gases. Still, wind accounts for only one percent of the global power mix.
About 98 percent of that capacity is at land-based turbines, but new technology and the benefits of pushing wind farms away from populated areas are strengthening the offshore market--presently led by Britain and Denmark. The Brussels-based Global Wind Energy Council has forecast that the world’s wind market will reach 240 GW by 2012, with a growing share coming from offshore.
Britain has an ambitious goal for 35 GW in installed offshore wind capacity by 2020. The floating turbine concept allows wind farms to wade further out to sea. Anchored to the seabed, they can be built in deeper waters where the sea floor would be too soft for standing turbines. StatoilHydro’s project, expected to get an official go-ahead soon, will be a 2.3-megawatt turbine, with a diameter of 107 meters and jutting nearly 80 meters above the water. A further 120 meters of the floating concrete hull will be submerged.

Supplemental Electricity
The ’Hywind’ project, which includes Germany-based Siemens’ wind power unit, will test the technology and look for ways to cut operating and maintenance costs for the giant turbines to be located in water depths of up to 700 meters. If the demonstration project succeeds, more may come early next decade to provide supplemental electricity for places such as some North Sea platforms or coastal Norwegian towns.
“It also has global potential in places with the proper sea and wind conditions, a suitable market size and the right price incentives,“ said Jan-Fredrik Stadaas, head of wind energy project development at StatoilHydro. Such markets could include Canada, the United States, Spain and Portugal, France, Japan and Britain, Stadaas said.
Another project, led by Norwegian utilities Statkraft and Lyse and including StatoilHydro and Shell, seeks to build wind turbine towers that tilt against the wind to withstand severe North Sea conditions. A full-scale 5.0-MW prototype of the “Sway“ turbine is planned in 2010.
The Norwegian government is providing cash to both projects but the real test of its resolve will come in its offshore wind regulations, which may mimic the country’s oil and gas rules. Deputy Minister Stubholt said Norway may offer offshore wind power licenses in specific blocks, along with incentives.
She said Norway was slow to embrace wind energy because most of its electricity already comes from clean hydropower, limiting demand for more renewable energy. Industry officials hope the state aid plans include investment-based subsidies or feed-in tariffs, where offshore generators would be given a steady price for their electricity, as well as link-ups to existing grids. “Given concerns about reliability of untested technology and a virtually non-existent market for offshore wind installation and maintenance, these projects require an active role by the state to lower some of the risks,“ said one industry official.
| National | Domestic Economy | Science | Energy | Iranica | Society | World |
| Middle East | International Economy | Sports | Arts & Culture |
| Identification | Search | RSS | Archive |
Copyright, Iran Daily Newspaper
Contact us: iran-daily@iran-daily.com