#105 - Tenova Goodfellow mentioned in Globe and Mail Special Feature

Canada’s Clean-Tech Sector - Jobs, Revenues and New Ways of Doing Business

From the GLOBE AND MAIL
Special Information Feature
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2013




“It is estimated that the global demand for innovative clean technologies will grow to $3 trillion by 2020. This is a massive export opportunity for Canada,” says Dr. Vicky Sharpe, president and CEO of Sustainable Development Technology Canada.

Vicky Sharpe has no doubt about the current state of Canada’s clean-tech sector. As president and CEO of Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), she sees clean tech advances being applied every day in traditional sectors of the economy, such as oil and gas and forestry, and in new and emerging sectors such as renewable energy and water treatment.

“Ask anyone in the natural resources sector, and you will find someone eager to increase efficiency and productivity, and reduce costs and waste. That is just what clean-tech does – and that is why the industry is quickly becoming a centrepiece of the Canadian economy,” says Dr. Sharpe, noting that it is this desire to do more with less that is launching the clean-tech industry to new heights.

Our clean-tech sector is already worth $10.6 billion in revenues and now employs 50,000 people – up 18 per cent over last year. These are impressive numbers and we are confident they will continue to rise.” She points out that the growth of the sector in Canada is in line with the growing global move toward new ways of doing business through improved and cleaner technology.


“It is estimated that the global demand for innovative clean technologies will grow to $3 trillion by 2020. This is a massive export opportunity for Canada. Of course, there is also strong domestic demand for clean-tech, especially within the natural-resources sector, which is a cornerstone of the Canadian economy,” says Dr. Sharpe. Funded by the Government of Canada, SDTC is a not-for-profit corporation that finances and supports the commercialization of clean technologies.


One such company is Quadrogen Power Systems. As a beneficiary of SDTC support, Alakh Prasad, P.Eng., knows the value of the organization to him as an entrepreneur. And as an engineer, he appreciates the expertise and knowledge needed to advance Canada’s clean-tech sector. Mr. Prasad is president and CEO of Quadrogen, a Vancouver-based clean-tech company that designs, builds and installs high performance gas clean-up solutions for the renewable energy sector. The technology his company is developing converts and removes fuel contaminants to ultra-clean level and reduces the operating and maintenance costs of renewable energy production while improving system reliability.

That’s important because biogas such as landfill gas or syngas derived from organic waste for renewable power generation is green, but not clean and can cause equipment problems that negatively affect performance, drive up cost and reduce reliability. “The global market for biogas clean-up systems is over $15 billion,” says Mr. Prasad. “Quadrogen has long-term plans to achieve 20 per cent penetration into this market and generate $3 billion in revenue for its products and services.”

Another company in the SDTC portfolio is Tenova Goodfellow Inc., (TGI), an Ontario firm whose technology is helping the steel industry reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Company director Howard Goodfellow, Ph.D., P.Eng., says the technology has significant benefits for operators of electric arc furnaces (EAFs), which are used in the energy intensive, scrap metal melting process that currently produces about one-third of the world’s steel with a total energy consumption of almost 385 million MWhours per annum globally.

“The EAF remains one of the least automated, energy intensive heavy industrial processes largely due to the harsh operating environment that makes sensor reliability and related process monitoring and control extremely difficult,” explains Dr. Goodfellow.







SDTC is working with TGI to demonstrate the company’s clean technology in collaboration with leading Canadian steel producer ArcelorMittal Dofasco. The technology has already been demonstrated successfully in full-scale basic oxygen furnace (BOF) steelmaking facilities, cement plants and coal-fired power plants, and global market opportunities are being pursued, says Dr. Goodfellow.

To help companies like Quadrogen and TGI, SDTC operates two funds aimed at the development and demonstration of innovative technological solutions. The $590-million SD Tech Fund supports projects that address air quality, climate change, clean water and clean soil. The $500-million NextGen Biofuels Fund supports the establishment of first-of-kind large demonstration scale facilities for the production of next-generation renewable fuels. To date, the SD Tech Fund has completed 19 funding rounds, committing more than $560 million to more than 228 projects. The NextGen Biofuels Fund has over half its fund earmarked, with four projects approved for funding.

Dr. Sharpe emphasizes that SDTC does much more than simply finance groundbreaking technologies. It also works closely with an ever-growing network of stakeholders and partners to build the capacity of Canadian clean-technology entrepreneurs, helping them form strategic relationships, formalize their business plans and build a critical mass of sustainable development capability in Canada. SDTC leverages its network to help portfolio companies secure private-sector expansion capital and enter global value chains and markets through multinational corporations.

“Ten years ago there was confusion about what constituted clean-tech. We worked with the industry to position it as a recognized driver of productivity, competitiveness and export revenues, and we have helped develop and deliver Canadian technology innovations to market. In the process, we have established a commercialization funding model that has become recognized in Canada and globally for its effectiveness,” she says.

The results are impressive. Revenues of SDTC-supported companies grow at twice the rate of non-SDTC companies, says Dr. Sharpe. SDTC’s investments have helped create 7,000 jobs in rural and urban communities across Canada, and are expected to generate $5 billion in revenues by 2015.

Tenova Goodfellow Inc.

170-7070 Mississauga Rd

Mississauga, ON, L5N 7G2, Canada

Phone +1 (905) 567 3030

http://www.tenovagroup.com/

http://www.nova-gas.com/

https://twitter.com/NOVAGAS

http://www.linkedin.com/company/nova-analytical-systems-inc-

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#103 - Snow Day

Today’s weather:

 

This is probably another good occasion to mention the cold weather package that is available on all Nova analyzers.

 

For more info, see this post.

Stay safe today everyone!

Dave @ NOVA

sales at nova-gas dot com

websales at nova-gas dot com

http://www.nova-gas.com/

https://twitter.com/NOVAGAS

http://www.linkedin.com/company/nova-analytical-systems-inc-

http://www.tenovagroup.com/

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#102 - Triple Point Analysis of Biogas at Palm Oil Facility

As Nova’s business has evolved over the years, we have noticed various trends with respect to customer requirements. One such trend is the gradual predominance of biogas inquires over landfill inquiries.

Anaerobic digester facility.

Excellent diagram of a full biogas system.

This is no doubt a reflection of the fact that new biogas projects are much more frequent than new landfill projects. Instead of paying to have their garbage hauled away to a landfill, many companies have preferred to invest in biogas systems that produce energy while reducing waste. Communities often push back on initiatives to start up large landfills in their regions, while they might be more favorable to biogas initiatives. Biogas projects are more tenable because they are smaller scale and do not consume large tracts of valuable land. By design, biogas digesters are covered and are therefore not as offensive to neighbors or attractive to vermin.

Land use of biogas vs. landfill

One such recent project involved one of our partners in Malaysia who is working with a customer to minimize waste effluent while recovering energy. The customer is in fact the largest palm oil producer in the world.*

The customer has an anaerobic digester and a gas scrubber. The requirement was to have analysis of methane (CH4) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) at two points in the process – before and after the scrubber. The net result was that an analyzer system would be required to sample raw and cleaned biogas.

For this project, the customer also a requested a third sample point as follows:

1.     Raw biogas

2.     Scrubbed biogas

3.     Fresh air

The reason for points 1 & 2 is to determine the energy value of the produced gas, and to evaluate the efficacy of the scrubber. On these applications, there is often a stationary combustion engine of some kind which burns the produced methane. The engine will require input of at least a minimum methane content to function properly. Because methane is a strong greenhouse gas, it is often profitable for the stakeholders to know how much methane they are diverting from release into the atmosphere. Hydrogen sulfide is also a concern; if the H2S levels in the gas rise because of a scrubber failure, the engine will be damaged.

If a big heavy engine made out of hardened steel will be damaged by poorly cleaned gas, imagine what will happen to an analytical instrument that is continuously sampling the raw gas. To manage this reality, we have upgraded the valves, internal tubing, and other components in our biogas instruments to make them more durable.

This project required a 3-point sequencer and a gas analyzer. The sequencer automatically advances through the sample points in a cyclical pattern, spending a few minutes on each sample. The active sample is sent to the gas analyzer for analysis.

The third sample point mentioned above will be used by the customer to pump in clean air. The project stake-holders all agreed that this would be a good idea to increase sensor longevity. Even though H2S sensors are intended to be exposed to H2S, they will be consumed over time as their internal electrolyte is used up. This process will be accelerated if the sensor is exposed to high levels of H2S for long periods of time. To mitigate this process, we configured the sequencer to spend a few minutes sampling clean air after sampling the raw biogas. This will purge out the concentrated gas and ‘re-fresh’ the sensors.

The customer recently updated us with new information about the quality of their biogas. Apparently, it has a much higher moisture content than was originally expected. So they obtained a gas cooler which will be mounted ahead of the sequencer on the raw biogas stream. This will reduce the intensity of the gas that the sequencer will be exposed to during its operation.

We expect that we will continue to see an increase in biogas applications. We have also seen the same trend with syngas inquiries. The basic pattern of produced gas, gas cleaner, and combustion engine is frequently the same as with biogas.  (See this post.)

One additional point of analysis with both types of applications is at the exhaust of the combustion engine. Measuring the exhaust gases will help determine the operational health of the engine, and will determine the pollutant levels being emitted from the engine. Perhaps we can talk about this in a future post.

For information on gas analyzer systems, give Mike or Dave at Nova a call, or send us an e-mail.

1-800-295-3771

sales at nova-gas dot com

websales at nova-gas dot com

http://www.nova-gas.com/

https://twitter.com/NOVAGAS

http://www.linkedin.com/company/nova-analytical-systems-inc-

http://www.tenovagroup.com/

* Palm oil production is apparently an environmental issue because of its contribution to deforestation. See http://www.celsias.co.nz/article/true-costs-palm-oil-video/ and http://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/campaigns/forests/work/palm-oil/

Deforestation resulting from development
of palm oil plantation.

Digester picture - http://sites.duke.edu/environ398_10_f2010_ct95/?page_id=46

Biogas system picture - http://www.unendlich-viel-energie.de/en/biomass/details/article/155/functioning-principles-of-a-biogas-system.html
Landfill site picture - http://www.co.stevens.wa.us/publicwrks/Landfill/landfill.htm
Biogas site picture - http://www.bbfm.de/1.html

Palm oil picture - http://mattermore.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/kelloggs-supports-sustainable-palm-oil-producers/

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