Spotlight Bioenergy International No 81, 5-2015 33 site in Lappeenranta. Officially opened earlier this year it is the first large-scale facility of its kind converting crude tall oil into 100 000 tonnes per annum of a ready-to-use renewable diesel fuel, UPM BioVerno. Finnish energy utility Fortum recently shipped its first “export” batch of bio-oil, around 160 tonnes, to a peak power plant in Karlshamn, Sweden. Belonging to energy utility colleague E.ON, the 1 GW capacity peakload and reserve power plant is one of the largest of its kind in the Nordics and the bio-oil was used in a combustion performance test. Using wood-based raw materials the biooil is produced in Joensuu, Finland at a 50 000 tonne per annum pyrolysis plant that is uniquely integrated with Fortum’s combined heat and power (CHP) plant. The plant is a first-of-a-kind project with UPM, combustion technology supplier Valmet and VTT Research. Thus far the bio-oil has been used at a number of heat plants in Finland replacing light and heavy fuel oil though it is envisaged that it can be used as a feedstock for further refinement into biochemical or transportation fuels. If it is NEXBTL, Verdis Polaris, Evolution, BioVerno, Agro Cleanpower 95 or something else Swedish rail operator In lands banan AB ends up using remains to be seen. The company, which provides a summer rail service on an inland non-electrified line, has been granted EU funding to carry out alternative fuel testing on its diesel locomotive. In 2006 a project in southern Sweden financed by the Swedish Energy Agency converted a diesel railcar to run on biogas and this was put into passenger service. Whilst success on railways has been limited – the vast majority of lines in the Nordics are electrified – biomethane has had remarkable growth in Sweden as a road transportation fuel. According to Statistics Sweden, the biomethane content of sold vehicle-grade methane (CNG) in the first half of 2015 was 73 percent, an all time high. The total volume of CNG/CBG sold was 80 million Nm³, slightly up on the same period in 2014. In 2014 some 158 million Nm³ of CNG/CBG was sold. There are currently about 155 public CNG/CBG filling stations and 50 000 vehicles in Sweden. Biomethane production capacity is seen as a bottleneck though Göteborg Ener gi’s Go- BiGas biomass gasification and grid injection project in Gothenburg seeks to remedy this. As does E.ON Denm ark ’s DKK 250 million (≈ EUR 46.9 million) biogas and upgrading plant project that has begun construction whereas in Norway, Trondheim-based Biokr aft A/S announced construction start of a major biogas and upgrading plant in Skogn, and that it had secured a gas off-take deal with AGA. The contract for the plant has been awarded to Swedish company Purac AB. Also in Norway, EGE Biogass A/S commissioned the first large-scale liquefied biomethane (LBG) plant in early 2014. Using downscaled and adapted LNG technology developed by Finnish energy and marine technology major Wärtsilä Corporation, the plant has a capacity to produce about 4 000 tonnes LBG per annum which is currently used to fuel city busses in Olso. Norwegian LBG may well find its way to Borlänge, Sweden. Here Swedish steel producer SSAB has recently converted one of its reheating furnaces at its Hot Strip Mill from oil to LNG with 3 percent blend of LBG currently supplied from Finland by skangass . Text. Alan Sherrard BI81/4978/AS arcelormittal, the world’s leading steel and mining company, LanzaTech, the US-based carbon recycling company, and Primetals Technologies, a leading technology and service provider to the iron and steel industry have jointly announced they have signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to construct Europe’s first-ever commercial-scale production facility to create ethanol from waste gases produced during the steelmaking process. According to a statement the resulting ethanol can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by over 80 percent compared with conventional fossil fuels. The ethanol will predominantly be used in gasoline blending, but it can also be further processed into other products such as drop-in jet fuel. – This partnership is an example of how we are looking at all potential opportunities to reduce CO₂ emissions and support a transition to a lower carbon economy, said Carl De Maré, Vice President of Innovation for ArcelorMittal. Displace fossil fuels Intended to be built at ArcelorMittal’s steel plant in Ghent, Belgium, the 47 000 tonne per annum ethanol project seeks to demonstrate the added value of recycling waste streams, not only by reducing emissions at source – hence reducing ArcelorMittal’s direct carbon footprint – but by keeping fossil fuels in the ground through the production of commodity chemicals and fuels that would otherwise be made from oil. Approximately 50 percent of the carbon used in the chemistry of steelmaking exits the process as carbon monoxide (CO). Currently this waste gas stream is either flared or used to heat and power the steel mill. In either case, the CO is combusted and the resulting carbon dioxide (CO₂) is emitted. LanzaTech’s technology, however, recycles the waste gases and ferments them using a proprietary microbe to produce ethanol. Every tonne of ethanol produced displaces 5.2 barrels of gasoline as well as reducing ArcelorMittal’s CO₂ emissions by 2.3 tonnes. – Steel is produced through a chemical process that results in high levels of waste gases being emitted; this new technology will enable us to convert some of these waste gases into fuels that deliver significant environmental benefits when compared to conventional fossil fuels. It is an example of why our carbon footprint should be viewed on a life cycle analysis basis, given steel is 100 percent recyclable and the material impact we make on reducing the carbon footprint of our customers through product innovation, said De Maré. Two-stage project Construction of the EUR 87 million flagship pilot project is anticipated to commence later this year, with ethanol production expected to start mid-2017. Construction will be in two phases, with phase one providing an initial capacity of 16 000 tonnes of ethanol per annum by mid- 2017 and phase two, which is projected to be completed in 2018, bringing the total annual capacity to 47 000 tonnes. As the production of ethanol is a new activity, ArcelorMittal intends to set up a dedicated company for the roll-out of this technology with strategic financial partners. Financing will be sought from a number of different sources. A total of EUR 10.2 million has been secured under the European Union’s 2020 Horizon programme for research and development and talks are currently taking place with potential equity and debt partners. Primetals Technologies will be responsible for part of the engineering, automation, key equipment and commissioning. ArcelorMittal, which has been working on this project since 2011, has signed a long-term partnership agreement with LanzaTech. Once construction of the Ghent flagship plant is complete and the commercial viability of the project is proven, the intention is to construct further plants across ArcelorMittal’s operations. If scaled up to its full potential in Europe alone, the technology could enable the production of around half a million tonnes of ethanol per annum. BI81/5015/AS Plans for Europe’s first commercial-scale waste gas to ethanol revealed ArcelorMittal, LanzaTech and Primetals Technologies announce partnership to construct EUR 87 million waste gas to ethanol production facility.
Bioenergy no 5 September 2015
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