German IT firm uses biogas fuel cell to power server farm
We referred earlier to the trials with this biogas powered fuel cell. Now it is being taking into full operation. The project is a joint initiative of Power and Air Solutions, Voigt und Haeffner, and CFC Solutions GmbH, a subsidiary of MTU, supported by the German Ministry for Technology & Economy. The cell, a 'Hot Module' manufactured by CFC Solutions measures 8 by 2.5 meters and consists of three components: a gas pretreatment section that converts biomethane into hydrogen, the fuel cell, and the electricity converters that convert direct into alternating current. Coupled to the system is a cooling cell that converts the heat generated by the Hot Module (400 degrees Centigrade) into cold air used to cool the server space (image, click to enlarge).
Specifications of the biogas powered Hot Module:
- System efficiency: 90%
- Electrical efficiency: 47%
- Thermal output: 180Kw
- Electrical output: 238Kw
- Coupled heat-power-cooling system
T-Systems has been enthusiastic because the extreme efficiency of the biogas powered fuel cell has allowed it to cut energy costs. The overall thermal and electrical efficiency of the system - combining heat, power and cooling - adds up to more than 90 per cent. Traditional utility power generation plants often have a capacity below 40 per cent.
Bernd Kraus, Business Process Outsourcing chief at T-Systems, says that the company currently spends 29 per cent on energy. Without the fuel cell system, these costs would increase to 38 per cent by 2010. The biogas fuel cell system allows T-Systems instead to push down costs to 20 per cent by 2010. Costs of the project are €2.5 million, partly covered by a €1 million research grant by the German Ministry of Technology and Economy.
Energy costs at the server park are high and have been increasing steeply over the past years due to rising grid electricity prices. The servers devour more energy than all of T-System's other operations. Fifty per cent goes to cooling. Moreover, as new servers keep getting stacked on racks in the same space, cooling needs per cubic meter become bigger and bigger:
biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: biogas :: biomethane :: fuel cell :: servers :: Germany ::
The biomethane for the project is produced by Schmack GmbH, a global biogas leader. The biofuel is produced locally - in Pliening near München - from dedicated energy crops. The crop in question is starch rich maize, the whole crop of which is utilized to generate approximately 5000 cubic meters of methane per hectare. This is enough methane to yield an equivalent of 50 MWh per hectare per year.
To power T-Systems' entire data center in München with biogas, around 40 to 80 of the fuel cells would be required, says Manfred Teumer, T-Systems chief for Infrastructure & Architecture Services. One entire server farm requires around 1 square kilometer of biogas maize.
An advantage of the fuel cell system is that it yields a constant amount of energy, which is exactly what is needed for server farms that do not show sudden peaks in power consumption.
In case of power outages, T-Systems used to rely on its own diesel generators. But this is a thing from the past. By implementing a 'cross-cable' concept in the design of the fuel cell system, two fully independent power circuits are available all the time. In case the grid blacks out, the fuel cell takes over 100 per cent.
All images courtesy of Herman Gfaller, Silicon.de.
References:
Silicon.de: Bildergalerie: Brennstoffzelle im T-Systems-Rechenzentrum - August 30, 2007.
Silicon.de: Biogas fürs Rechenzentrum - T-Systems hat in seinem Rechenzentrum im Euro-Industriepark (EIP) München den Dauertest einer Brennstoffzelle gestartet - August 27, 2007.
Silicon.de: Geiz ist im Rechenzentrum geiler als Ökologie - August 17, 2007.
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Saturday, September 01, 2007
First global satellite survey of gas flaring shows hidden costs of oil
Gas flaring estimates, which were produced for sixty countries or areas around the world, show that global gas flaring has remained stable over the past twelve years, but remains large - in the range of 150 to 170 billion cubic meters (bcm).
According to the satellite data, in 2006 oil producing countries and companies burned about 170 bcm of natural gas worldwide or nearly five trillion cubic feet (graph, click to enlarge). That’s equivalent to 27% of total U.S. natural gas consumption and 5.5% of total global production of natural gas for the year. If the gas had been sold in the United States instead of being flared, the total US market value would have been about $40 billion. Gas flaring also emits some 400 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, more than the total emissions of a country like France.
Flaring or burning of gas is widely used to dispose of natural gas liberated during oil production and processing when this occurs in remote areas far from potential users, where there is often no infrastructure on site to make use of the gas. In recent years, however, renewed efforts are being made to eliminate flaring, such as re-injecting it into the ground to boost oil production, converting it into liquefied natural gas for shipment, transporting it to markets via pipelines, or using it on site for generation of electricity:
energy :: sustainability :: ethanol :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: climate change :: carbon dioxide :: oil :: petroleum :: natural gas :: gas flaring ::
Since this is the first study of gas flaring using satellite observations, scientists warn that these preliminary results should be used with caution, as there still are several sources of error and uncertainty, including variations in flare efficiency, mis-identification of flares, non-continuous sampling, and environmental effects:
In any case the results are welcomed by the climate change and energy community.
According to the satellite observations, 22 countries have increased gas flaring over the past 12 years. These include: Azerbaijan, Chad, China, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mauritania, Myanmar, Oman, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, Russia (excluding Khanty Mansiysk region), Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sudan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.
On the other hand, the satellite observations show that 16 countries have decreased gas flaring from 1995 to 2006, including Algeria, Argentina, Bolivia, Cameroon, Chile, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Libya, Nigeria, North Sea, Norway, Peru, Syria, UAE and USA (offshore).
And nine countries have had largely stable gas flaring across those 12 years. These include Australia, Ecuador, Gabon, Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia, Khanty-Mansiysk (Russian Federation), Romania, and Trinidad.
The authors used low-light imaging data from the U.S. Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program to assess the volumes of gas burned in flares, which are visible in observations of nighttime lights under cloud-free conditions (map at the beginning of this article, click to enlarge). Current and planned satellite sensors will continue to provide data suitable for estimating gas flaring volumes for decades to come. GGFR encourages on-site monitoring as well to help track changes in gas flaring volumes and to report progress in reducing flaring.
In 2002 the World Bank and the Government of Norway started the Global Gas Flaring Reduction (GGFR) initiative, which now has 12 country partners and 10 industrial partners, including the world’s largest petroleum companies. GGFR’s main goal is to bring all major stakeholders around the table so that they can together reduce the barriers to eliminate gas flaring to minimum levels. These main barriers include lack of an effective regulatory framework for associated gas utilization, lack of markets and lack of infrastructure to take the gas to those markets.
The GGFR partnership, managed and facilitated by a team at the World Bank in Washington, DC, includes the following partners: Algeria (Sonatrach), Angola, Cameroon, Canada (CIDA), Chad, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, France, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Khanty-Mansijsysk (Russia), Nigeria, Norway, U.K. Foreign Commonwealth Office, the United States (DOE); BP, Chevron, ENI, ExxonMobil, Marathon Oil, Hydro, Shell, Statoil, TOTAL; OPEC Secretariat, and the World Bank.
References:
National Geophysical Data Center / Global Gas Flaring Reduction: A Twelve Year Record of National and Global Gas. Flaring Volumes Estimated Using Satellite Data [*.pdf], Final Report to the World Bank - May 30, 2007
National Geophysical Data Center: Gas Flaring Survey, global results and country results.
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posted by Biopact team at 8:15 PM 2 comments links to this post