The early bird registration deadline for Fuel Cells Science & Technology 2010 ends tomorrow.
Don’t forget to reserve your place, register now.

Fuel Cells Science & Technology 2010 will be held 6-7 October in Zaragoza , the capital city of the Zaragoza province, Spain. The aim of the conference is to bring together researchers and technologists working on fuel cell developments from across the globe. They will have the opportunity to address the key scientific, engineering and technology challenges underpinning this innovation.  Attendance will benefit all those interested in or affected by the key research and development issues facing fuel cell science and technology.

Conference fees

Early Bird¹ Registration: €815 +16% VAT = €845.40
Conference Registration €900 +16% VAT = €1044
Registration for Students² :€395 +16% VAT = €458.20
¹The early bird deadline is 31 July, 2010.
²Student registration forms must be accompanied by a signed letter from your head of department attesting to student status

Topics and Themes

• Fuels, Infrastructure and Fuel Processing
• Modelling and Control
• Materials for Fuel Cells
• Fuel Cell Systems and Applications
• Fuel Cell Electrochemistry
• Cell and Stack Technology

The conference will be comprised of keynote lectures, plenary presentations, concurrent submitted oral presentations, interactive poster sessions as well as presentation of the Grove Medal.

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First 1,000 mph car unveiled in UK

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for largest wind farm in U.S.

New York-based alternative energy supplier Terra-Gen Power has secured $1.2 billion in financing for the construction of what it says will be the largest wind farm in the U.S. The funds will deliver four projects at the company’s Alta Wind Energy Center in Kern County, California, with a capacity of 570 megawatts. A total of 190 3.0 MW Vestas-American Wind Technology turbines will be used in the new initiative. These will be added to the already underway 150 MW Alta Project I which uses GE turbines. Eventually it’s envisioned that the Alta Wind Energy Center will deliver 3,000 MW of wind power.

Construction is expected to begin immediately and Terra-Gen says the 720 MW potential of the first five projects at the Alta Wind Energy Center will increase the installed wind capacity in California by more than 25% and deliver enough clean, renewable energy to supply up to two hundred thousand homes. Commercial operations are slated to begin in 2011.

“We are delighted to have closed this financing and to be working with Vestas and GE on the Alta projects. The project represents an important expansion of the renewable generating base of California and helps us advance our nation’s goals of achieving energy independence in an environmentally responsible manner,” said Jim Pagano, CEO of Terra-Gen. “The Alta projects I-V will create more than 1,500 domestic manufacturing, construction and operation and maintenance jobs, and inject more than $600 million into the local economy. We are grateful to Kern County, the State of California, the U.S. Congress, and the Treasury Department for their supportive renewable energy policies, without which ambitious projects like the Alta Wind Energy Center would simply not be possible.”

The company signed a purchase agreement with Southern California Edison in 2006 to deliver 1,550 MW of power and currently has 21 renewable energy projects in operation in six states, with more than 5,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity under development.

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for Mobile Facilities

Science (July 11, 2010) — Chemical engineers at Purdue University have developed a new method to process agricultural waste and other biomass into biofuels, and they are proposing the creation of mobile processing plants that would rove the Midwest to produce the fuels.

“What’s important is that you can process all kinds of available biomass– wood chips, switch grass, corn stover, rice husks, wheat straw …,” said Rakesh Agrawal, the Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering.

The approach sidesteps a fundamental economic hurdle in biofuels: Transporting biomass is expensive because of its bulk volume, whereas liquid fuel from biomass is far more economical to transport, he said.

“Material like corn stover and wood chips has low energy density,” Agrawal said. “It makes more sense to process biomass into liquid fuel with a mobile platform and then take this fuel to a central refinery for further processing before using it in internal combustion engines.”

The new method, called fast-hydropyrolysis-hydrodeoxygenation, works by adding hydrogen into the biomass-processing reactor. The hydrogen for the mobile plants would be derived from natural gas or the biomass itself. However, Agrawal envisions the future use of solar power to produce the hydrogen by splitting water, making the new technology entirely renewable.

The method, which has the shortened moniker of H₂Bioil — pronounced H Two Bio Oil — has been studied extensively through modeling, and experiments are under way at Purdue to validate the concept.

Findings are detailed in a research paper appearing online in June in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. The paper was written by former chemical engineering doctoral student Navneet R. Singh, Agrawal, chemical engineering professor Fabio H. Ribeiro and W. Nicholas Delgass, the Maxine Spencer Nichols Professor of Chemical Engineering.

Agrawal, Ribeiro and Delgass are developing reactors and catalysts to experimentally demonstrate the concept. Another paper by Agrawal and Singh addressing various biofuels processes, including fast-hydropyrolysis-hydrodeoxygenation, also appeared in June in the Annual Review of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

The Environmental Science & Technology paper outlines the process, showing how a portion of the biomass is used as a source of hydrogen to convert the remaining biomass to liquid fuel.

“Another major thrust of this research is to provide guidelines on the potential liquid-fuel yield from various self-contained processes and augmented processes, where part of the energy comes from non-biomass sources such as solar energy and fossil fuel such as natural gas,” said Singh, who is now a researcher working at Bayer CropScience.

The new method would produce about twice as much biofuel as current technologies when hydrogen is derived from natural gas and 1.5 times the liquid fuel when hydrogen is derived from a portion of the biomass itself.

Biomass along with hydrogen will be fed into a high-pressure reactor and subjected to extremely fast heating, rising to as hot as 500 degrees Celsius, or more than 900 degrees Fahrenheit in less than a second. The hydrogen containing gas is to be produced by “reforming” natural gas, with the hot exhaust directly fed into the biomass reactor.

“The biomass will break down into smaller molecules in the presence of hot hydrogen and suitable catalysts,” Agrawal said.”The reaction products will then be subsequently condensed into liquid oil for eventual use as fuel. The uncondensed light gases such as methane, carbon monoxide, hydrogen and carbon dioxide, are separated and recycled back to the biomass reactor and the reformer.”

Purdue has filed a patent application on the method.

The general concept of combining biomass and carbon-free hydrogen to increase the liquid fuel yield has been pioneered at Purdue. The researchers previously invented an approach called a “hybrid hydrogen-carbon process,” or H₂CAR.

Both H₂CAR and H₂Bioil use additional hydrogen to boost the liquid-fuel yield. However, H₂Bioil is more economical and mobile than H₂CAR, Singh said.

“It requires less hydrogen, making it more economical,” he said. “It is also less capital intensive than conventional processes and can be built on a smaller scale, which is one of the prerequisites for the conversion of the low-energy density biomass to liquid fuel. So H₂Bioil offers a solution for the interim time period, when crude oil prices might be higher but natural gas and biomass to supply hydrogen to the H₂Bioil process might be economically competitive.”

The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and is affiliated with the Energy Center at Purdue’s Discovery Park.

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Peabody Energy is the world’s largest coal company, still growing in Australia, and an innovative provider of low-cost energy. Our mission is to be a leading worldwide producer and supplier of sustainable energy solutions.

In Australia, Peabody Energy Australia has nine operations located in Queensland and New South Wales and is an active coal trader in all major coal regions. Our Australian operations currently employ more than 3,500 highly skilled people, all of whom are helping us to achieve our goals of being a long-term participant in the Australian coal industry – powering economic prosperity and delivering a better quality of life.

Our dynamic growth strategy offers exceptional careers and ensures there are ongoing opportunities to work at the forefront of the resources industry, in both our Australian and international offices and sites.

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45 Clarence Street
Sydney  NSW  2000
PH: 02 9249 6100 FAX: 02 9299 1519
Email: Unknown
Website: www.seda.nsw.gov.au

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PO Box 6366,
Blacktown NSW 2148
Phone: 131 081
Facsimile: 02 9853 6000
Website: www.integral.com.au
Email: integral@integral.com.au
The second largest state-owned energy corporation in New South Wales, Integral Energy was incorporated under the Energy Services Corporations Act 1995

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570 George Street
Sydney  NSW  2000
PH: 131 535 FAX: Unknown
Email: Unknown
Website: www.energy.com.au

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227 Elizabeth Street
Sydney  NSW  2000
PH: 02 8281 7777 FAX: 02 8291 7799
Email: Unknown
Website: www.deus.nsw.gov.au

or                www.energysmart.com.au

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Enertrade

Level 10, Comalco Place, 12 Creek Street, Brisbane QLD 4000
GPO BOX10, Brisbane QLD 4001

PH: 07 3331 9900 FAX: 07 3331 9901
Email: enertrade@enertrade.com.au
Website: www.enertrade.com.au

Enertrade owns and operates the North Queensland Gas Pipeline, a gas-fired power station at Barcaldine and purchases electricity from privately owned power stations through Power Purchase Agreements and trades this into the National Electricity Market.

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