Move over Sasol?
Presenter: Lindsay Williams Guest(s): Prof David Glasser
transcripts.businessday.co.za
A programme at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) funded by the Chinese plans to build a pilot coal-to-liquids (CTL) plant in China that's more efficient and less costly than current technology. With Prof David Glasser from Wits
LINDSAY WILLIAMS: David, what we're saying here is that the technology is already in place but what you've done is made it more accessible and affordable?
PROF DAVID GLASSER: Yes, at the Wits Centre of Materials and Process Engineering (Comps) we have developed a new way of putting the process together which we believe will be much more efficient, will reduce carbon dioxide pollution, and because it's capital cost will be less.
LINDSAY WILLIAMS: Most people following the press over the last six months have started to get particularly concerned about carbon dioxide emissions and global warming so this is particularly interesting. Going back a step if we can the Fischer-Tropsch technology that's used to produce synthetic fuel invented by German scientists in the 1920s - is it true to say that on a corporate level Sasol is at the forefront of this technology?
PROF DAVID GLASSER: Absolutely. Sasol have been doing good work for many years on this technology.
LINDSAY WILLIAMS: Are you working closely with them? Are you going to introduce it to them? Where do you stand at Wits?
PROF DAVID GLASSER: We aren't working with Sasol at all. This is a different venture. We have been working in the whole Fischer-Tropsch area for the last 15 years, and we've also been developing fundamental methods for analysing processes - and by applying these new fundamental methods to the processes we are in a better position to be able to look at how to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of plants. It's not that we are doing anything different for each piece of equipment, it's the way we put the equipment together that;s increasing efficiency.
LINDSAY WILLIAMS: Of course the big corporates will be very interested in the findings of your work, and indeed this pilot project - are they knocking on your door?
PROF DAVID GLASSER: No, each of the big companies - the Sasols, the Shells, the ExxonMobils - have developed their own technology, and they are keen to sell and set up their own technology worldwide having spent large sums of money developing it. They're not keen to look at alternatives where they won't necessarily be the leader.
LINDSAY WILLIAMS: So the pilot project as we've said is going to be set up in a certain province of China at a cost of R75million - when are you going to get conclusive results?
PROF DAVID GLASSER: We've already been working on this for about two years - we've done an initial feasibility study, and we've done a basic design. That's all been done in South Africa. Now the detailed design has been passed over to a Chinese design company in Shanghai with a projected date of commissioning of the plant towards the end of this year, and hopefully with significant results by the middle of 2008.
LINDSAY WILLIAMS: What does this mean for the world's energy industry?
PROF DAVID GLASSER: The technology that's used for Fischer-Tropsch at the moment by all the big companies is essentially work that was done by the Germans and hasn't changed significantly over the last fifty years. With the new tools we've been able to bring to the process we believe that we can produce a process that's both cheaper and produces less carbon dioxide, and I think from a global warming point of view that's a big plus.
web.wits.ac.za
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Wits group develops new fuel technology
Mathabo le Roux
Trade and Industry Correspondent
Posted to the web on: 14 February 2007
businessday.co.za
IN A groundbreaking project at the University of the Witwatersrand, a team of researchers has refined the Fischer-Tropsch technology, for the production of alternative fuels from coal, into a technique that is punted as more economical than the technology in commercial use.
The technology is also simpler, making it more “appropriate” for roll-out in Africa, David Glasser, one of the scientists heading the project, said.
The project, led by Glasser and Dianne Hildebrandt of Wits’s Centre of Material and Process Synthesis (COMPS), was commissioned and funded by a Chinese company.
With oil prices having more than trebled since 2002, and reaching highs of $76 a barrel, the race for alternative energy sources is on.
SA is at the forefront of producing alternative fuels from coal and gas. Sasol leads the way through the deployment of Fischer-Tropsch technology, used to turn gas to liquid fuel on a commercial scale.
But the technology is expensive and dirty. COMPS’s technology, developed over 15 years, could significantly reduce the cost of setting up such plants and could also reduce operating costs, as less feedstock would be required.
Equally pertinent, however, is that the technology is more environmentally friendly, effecting a significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, the main cause of global warming.
Because of its reliance on coal-fired power stations, SA is one of the world’s biggest contributors to carbon emission.
COMPS’s technology will not be tested in SA, however, but in China, with a Chinese company, Golden Nest Technology Group, having put up R75m in funding for the project.
The pilot project to prove the technology will commence within eight months in China’s Shaanxi province.
If successful, the project would be rolled out commercially, with Chinese government backing, and could be operational by 2014, project manager David Milne said.
The potential cost reduction has yet to be quantified. But the COMPS technology could reduce emissions to 6,5 tons of carbon dioxide per ton of fuel produced, from the current level of 7,5 tons.
Moreover, in a pioneering development, the COMPS research team is looking at combining gas-to-liquids (GTL) and coal-to-liquids (CTL) technology, which would potentially cut emissions further.
Hildebrandt said combining CTL and GTL had not been done before, but the team was confident that it should work. Adding 20% of natural gas to the CTL process could reduce carbon emissions another 30%.
Glasser was critical of the development of GTL plants, saying limited gas reserves could be more efficiently used in combination with coal, stretching the life of reserves. “It would be more sensible to pipe gas to coal reserves,” he said.
While few countries have both gas and coal reserves, SA is well positioned because of abundant coal and access to Mozambican gas. |
