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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mannie who wrote (9209)	6/4/2009 9:03:20 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24225

Oil Demand Falling Fast In Japan Reuters\|Jun. 2, 2009, 10:27 AM\|3 Japan may be forced to shut more than a fifth of its refining capacity, at least 1 million barrels per day, in the next five years as oil demand falls faster than expected, the head of the country's top refiner said on Tuesday. Nippon Oil Corp President Shinji Nishio also told the Reuters Energy Summit that the company, after its planned merger with Nippon Mining, might shut in 200,000 bpd more capacity than originally planned by 2015, underscoring the rapid demand erosion in the world's No. 3 consumer. "I think we are likely to see an even faster decline than the government's projection," he said in Tokyo. Japan's trade ministry projects oil sales will fall by an average annual 3.5 percent to 168.2 million kl (2.9 million bpd) in the year from April 2013, from a total 3.46 million bpd last year. It has the capacity to refine 4.8 million bpd. "Unless we cut the capacity by (1 million bpd), the nation's production will not be at an optimum level," he said. "When you think about the future beyond (2013), we will have to cut even further." Major Japanese refiners have slashed refinery production sharply in response to weakening demand, but relatively few have thus far mothballed capacity, despite a downturn in global profit margins that is likely to curtail hopes of shifting to exports. Total oil sales in the year ended March 31 slumped 8 percent, the sixth straight year of decline, as the global economic crisis has slowed industrial activity, adding to already waning demand caused by an aging population, a shift toward smaller, fuel-efficient cars and drive to embrace greener energy sources. Nippon Oil will merge with smaller Nippon Mining Holdings next year, and plan to cut their capacity by about a fifth, or 400,000 bpd, by the end of March 2012. "Considering that demand is declining at a faster speed than we had thought, 400,000 bpd may be not enough, and we have a scope for an additional need to cut around 200,000 bpd" by the end of March 2015, he said. Nishio also said that the combined plant in Mizushima -- with four crude distillation units totalling 455,200 bpd -- was on a shortlist for closure, but declined to give more specifics amid growing speculation about which plants might be shuttered. Nippon Oil shut its smallest 60,000 bpd Toyama refinery earlier this year, and has earmarked its 115,000 bpd Osaka refinery for conversion to an export-only plant through a venture with state-owned China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC). Nishio said Nippon Oil expected soon to finalise the Chinese venture that would give CNPC nearly half of the Osaka refinery, although he declined to give more details. The deal had been delayed to June or later from the initially planned April as global demand and profit margins slumped. businessinsider.com

To: Mannie who wrote (9209)	6/9/2009 11:35:03 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24225

Converting Garbage into Fuel Waste Management, a large waste company, gives technology for gasifying trash a boost. By Kevin Bullis Waste gasification, a process for converting garbage into fuel and electricity without incinerating it, may be a step closer to large-scale commercialization. Last week, Houston's Waste Management, a major garbage-collection and -disposal company, announced a joint venture with InEnTec, a startup based in Richland, WA, to commercialize InEnTec's plasma-gasification technology. Waste Management will fund the new venture, which will be called S4 Energy Solutions, as well as provide infrastructure and expertise from its waste-collecting and -processing businesses to make the technology economical. The company, which will operate and market plasma-gasification technologies, will be announcing specific projects to build facilities later this year. The involvement of Waste Management could signal that the technology, which has been more expensive than other waste-disposal options, is finally reaching a stage at which it can be practical. "Up until late last year, it was under the radar," says James Childress, the executive director of the Gasification Technologies Council. "Now the big players are finally getting involved in this." InEnTec's technology, originally developed at MIT and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, in Richland, WA, uses a multiple high-temperature processes--including subjecting garbage to plasma arcs--to break down organic materials into syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Syngas can either be directly burned in gas turbines to produce electricity, or it can be converted into other fuels, including gasoline and ethanol. Metals and other inorganic materials in garbage can be isolated and recycled. The combination of high temperatures and an oxygen-poor environment that prevents the garbage from catching fire eliminates the production of dioxins and furans, two toxic chemicals produced during incineration. That core technology has been proved, says Joseph Vaillancourt, managing director at Waste Management and the senior vice president of the new joint venture. What's kept it from being commercialized, he says, is the need to develop the processes for economically collecting and feeding waste into the system, and on the "back end" pairing the syngas produced with gas turbines for generating electricity, or other chemical processes for converting it into fuels. Vaillancourt says that Waste Management has already developed infrastructure for collecting and processing waste and for using heat from incinerators for generating electricity, and it will employ its "knowledge and wherewithal" to develop an "integrated system" using InEnTec's technology. S4 Energy Solutions plans to market the first gasification units in specialized markets such as those concerned with the disposal of automobile shredder residue or medical waste, for which landfills often aren't an option, hence companies are willing to pay more to dispose of waste. Eventually, they could be used more generally for municipal solid waste, especially in rural towns and small cities that do not produce enough waste for cheaper incinerator technologies to be practical. The technology has the benefit of allowing customers to generate some of their own electricity, which could make it more affordable. There may still be hurdles to commercial success. Childress notes that waste gasification may still face problems with local regulations. And companies using similar technologies have failed in the past. Nevertheless, some waste-gasification companies are reporting initial success. For example, Enerkem, based in Edmonton, Alberta, has opened a commercial facility to convert used utility poles into methanol and ethanol. It has signed an agreement with the city of Edmonton to process 100,000 tons of municipal solid waste a year for 25 years, although that's still a relatively small amount compared with other options for disposing of waste. technologyreview.com