Dr Sacha Oberweis from Stafford University made the comment ahead of a a series of seminars and workshops on biomass fuel quality and emission testing as part of the ARBOR project launched by the University last year.

The project, a £6 million European funded initiative involving organisations from UK, Ireland, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Belgium, aims to accelerate development and use of biomass fuel in North West Europe.

The project will be profiled as part of SI2 event taking place on March 28, where Staffordshire business community are being invited to visit the University’s Stafford campus and find out more about existing projects and innovative work with companies.

“We are light-years behind countries such as Germany and the Netherlands. We rely on imported energy sources and there is a clear potential for the use of Biomass and sustainable alternatives,” Dr Oberweis said.

“Innovative pilot projects will help both, the implementation of biomass as a viable energy source and to meet the goals set by the National Renewable Energy Action Plans for renewable energy by 2020.”

Under this action plan, 20 per cent of all Europe’s energy consumption must be from a renewable source – in the UK this means an increase from 2.9 percent in 2010 to 14.2% by 2020.

To help combat this deficit, a wood gasification plant and a sawdust burner have been approved for manufacturing in Stoke-on-Trent, with current university students looking at possible design improvements as part of their final year Engineering design project.

“Stoke-on-Trent has the largest number of municipal parks in all of Europe, currently the green cuttings from these parks are not being used to their full potential,” the expert added. “This waste could be turned into a reliable source of energy far greater than wind or solar which is more expensive and reliant on certain weather conditions.”

The ARBOR project has supported the establishment of a European Centre of Excellence for Biomass Trigeneration based at Staffordshire University, which will look to implement innovative approaches from across Europe.

“This centre will be a major step forward by the UK in bringing a closer focus on the role of biomass as a key source of renewable energy,” Dr Oberweis added.

“The belief that Biomass energy would lead to deforestation of woodlands and energy crops replacing food crops is wrong, this centre will highlight to policy makers and the wider public what is possible from using only waste green material.”

A feasibility study is being undertaken to determine the most suitable site for a biomass wood combustion boiler in Stoke-on-Trent.

Source: www.clickgreen.org.uk

The latest Energy Statistics (PDF) from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) show that, over the first three quarters of 2011, Scotland delivered 94 per cent of last year’s totals and 83 per cent of the previous record year.

The Scottish government said that, if the trend continues over the fourth quarter, 2011 will be a record year for renewable electricity in Scotland.

It added that the country’s goal of 100 per cent green energy by 2020 is also on track, as the statistics reveal sufficient capacity in Scotland to meet its interim target of 31 per cent of electricity demand from renewables in 2011.

Installed capacity reached a record high of 4.3GW over the year, while Scotland continued to be a net exporter of electricity in 2010, exporting 21 per cent of electricity generated.

Scottish energy minister Fergus Ewing said that £750m worth of renewables projects were switched on in 2011, while another £46bn worth are in the pipeline.

“2011 has been an exceptional year for renewable energy in Scotland,” he said in a statement. “These figures show that it is on course to be truly the best year yet.”

DECC’s figures also show that the amount of electricity from renewable sources in the UK’s overall energy mix increased by almost 12 per cent on the previous year to 7.45 terawatt hours (TWh). The contribution of coal and gas fell by around four and six per cent respectively to 19TWh and 38TWh, while nuclear shot up 21 per cent to around 16TWh.

Renewables’ share of electricity generation increased from just over eight per cent in the third quarter of 2010 to nine per cent a year later, while overall renewable electricity capacity stood at 10.2GW.

The amount of electricity from onshore wind fell 2.4 per cent to 1.9TWh, but growing offshore wind capacity sparked a 30.5 per cent increase and high rainfall saw hydro generation rise 41.3 per cent.

The figures come as the government gave its consent today for a 53MW biomass station in Yorkshire, the eighth GW and 15th power station approved this year, which marks a new record for capacity consented since the Electricity Act came into force in 1989.

Developer Dalkia’s plant at the former RAF airfield at Pollington will be fuelled by 360,000 tonnes of waste wood per year, set to be delivered to the site via the Aire and Calder Navigation Canal.

“It has been a priority for this administration to remove the backlog in planning applications [and] to demonstrate our commitment to economic growth,” said energy minister Charles Hendry. “A record number of decisions shows that we have delivered on this, helping ensure our long-term energy security and creating jobs.”

Source: www.guardian.co.uk

The reason for this dramatic turnround? Shale gas. It has been known for decades that gas exists in shale rock, says Andy Steinhubl, co-head of the North American oil and gas practice at Bain, but it was only recently with advances in the technology of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and horizontal drilling – and an increase in energy prices – that it became viable to extract it.

The shift in the US market, where gas prices have fallen from $10-$13 per million cubic feet to $4-$5/mcf, has led to great excitement in other parts of the world as governments savour the prospect of reducing their energy dependence and perhaps building an export industry of their own.

Significant shale reserves have been discovered in Europe, Australia and China, among others. In Europe, the biggest reserves are believed to be in Poland, Ukraine and France, and a significant source has also been discovered in the UK.

It has also led to fears that the discovery of this new source of gas will hit investment in other, cleaner forms of energy such as nuclear and renewables.

However, there are a number of reasons to be cautious about the likely impact of shale outside the US, where a number of factors combined to help the industry take off.

The country had 2,000 land rigs involved in drilling in declining oil fields and thus readily available to switch to shale gas exploration, a dense service sector and a highly skilled workforce, along with supportive economics, says Luis Barallat, head of gas and LNG at Boston Consulting. “Almost none of this applies in Europe,” he adds. “There are fewer than 50 rigs operating in Europe today. The amount of resources in terms of drilling rigs, human capital and know-how are not comparable with the US.” Similar considerations apply in Asia and Australia.

Another stumbling block is property rights. “In the EU, landowners do not generally own rights to the subsurface so the willingness for landowners to permit the carrying on continuous drilling could well prove an impediment as compared to the US, where the landowners share in the financial benefits of the development through royalty payments and similar arrangements,” says Martin Stewart-Smith, a partner at law firm Morgan Lewis.

In addition, the geology of most reserves outside North America is less conducive to development because deeper drilling is required. Drilling for shale gas requires a large number of wells, which is more problematic in densely populated Europe than in the US.

“And if anyone thinks China is suddenly going to emerge as a major shale gas producer, just look at where their shale gas basins are,” points out Ben Caldecott, head of European policy at Climate Change Capital. “They are in the most water constrained parts of the country. The Tarim basin, for example, is literally underneath a desert.”

Finally, environmental fears over drilling may also hold back the development of the industry. There have been concerns about fracking fluid getting into the water table and France, for example, has imposed a moratorium on shale gas exploration. However, this stance may have more to do with the preponderance of nuclear power in its energy mix than safety concerns.

The safety concerns have been overstated, suggests Elizabeth Shepherd, head of environment at law firm Eversheds. “Hydraulic fracturing has been conducted in developed countries since the late 1940s and it has never been found to contaminate underground sources of drinking water. The technology has been safely applied so far to more than 1.2m individual wells, mostly in North America, but also in thousands of wells (including geothermal energy wells) across Europe.”

Nonetheless, Europe is still some years away from developing shale gas at significant scale, says Ronan O’Regan, a director at PwC. “Most of the work happening at the moment is around drilling to establish the size of the resource and there has been no real confirmation of the quality or quantity of resources.”

But if the growth of the industry will not be as rapid as in the US, it will develop in time into a significant source of supply with implications for energy markets. However, its main impact will be on other fossil fuel sources such as LNG, Russian gas and coal rather than on renewable energy and it will largely hit individual markets.

“We think Poland will be among the countries with the best opportunities for shale gas development,” says Rafa? Dudzinski, vice-president of PGNIG, the Polish oil and gas group. Poland is keen to develop shale gas both to move it away from dependency on Russian gas and to help it shift its power sector, which is 95 per cent coal-powered, to less polluting gas. It has the additional advantage that in the areas where its shale reserves are located, population density is much lower than in western Europe.

Spending on clean energy is unlikely to be affected because it is so linked to national and EU climate targets, backed up by incentives such as feed-in tariffs. “At an EU level I don’t think shale gas will have a negative impact on renewable investment as the primary drivers for renewable investment is government commitment to renewable energy as a means to achieving carbon reduction,” Mr O’Regan says.

But if it brings down gas prices, shale gas will compete directly with nuclear as a supplier of baseload power, that is generation capacity that runs continuously, and at an expected lower cost, so it may add to the pressures on the nuclear industry.

The bigger danger from the point of view of meeting emissions targets is that fossil fuel production gets “locked in” for another 20-30 years because of the advent of this new source of supply.

“In Europe there is a real risk that we lock in more gas infrastructure than is desirable” on the basis that gas prices will be permanently low, warns Mr Caldecott, even though it is more likely that lower prices in the near term will give way to rising prices in the longer term “given global demand and supply fundamentals”, he says.

However, Mr O’Regan says shale gas supplies could help the transition from fossil fuels to low carbon energy by switching from the provision of baseload power to being used as back up for intermittent power sources such as solar and wind as these sources make up a larger part of the energy mix. “If gas plants built in the 2015-2020 period are designed to run baseload and convert to more flexible operation in later life, this will minimise the risk of lock in,” he says.

Source: www.ft.com

The investment announcement follows approval from the UK government for BP and partners Shell, ConocoPhillips and Chevron to proceed with the £4.5bn Clair Ridge project, the second phase of development of the North Sea Clair field.

In a statement BP said its £4bn investment Clair and three other projects represents the highest level of annual investment the company has ever made into the UK North Sea.

`Although it began more than 40 years ago, the story of the North Sea oil industry has a long way yet to run. BP has produced some five billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent so far from the region and we believe we have the potential for more than three billion more,’ said Bob Dudley, BP’s group chief executive.

‘After some years of decline, we now see the potential to maintain our production from the North Sea at around 200,000–250,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day until 2030. And we are working on projects that will take production from some of our largest fields out towards 2050.’

The company added that the four BP-operated North Sea projects are said to be part of a wave of major oil and gas projects around the world that BP expects to come on stream over the next five years.

The Clair Ridge project, which BP said will install two new bridge-linked platforms with the capability to produce an estimated 640 million barrels of oil, is planned to come on stream in 2016 and to extend production from the greater Clair area to 2050.

The Clair partners also announced the successful appraisal of an extension to the Clair field — South West Clair — confirming the overall Clair field complex’s status as the UK’s largest hydrocarbon resource with more than seven billion barrels of oil and gas initially in place.

In the central North Sea, with partner RWE, BP’s £550m development of the Devenick gas field recently passed a significant milestone when its 600-tonne module was lifted onto Marathon Oil’s East Brae platform.

Earlier this year, BP and its partners also announced plans for the £3bn redevelopment of the Schiehallion and Loyal fields, west of Shetland, and the £700m development of the Kinnoull field in the central North Sea.

BP said that together with development drilling and a number of smaller projects, the four projects represent almost £10bn of project investment by itself and its partners.

Source: www.theengineer.co.uk

Stephen Green said that a number of British businessmen took part in his meetings with Libya’s new leaders and established businessmen to begin discussing future deals and contracts.

He said that he did not expect Libya to give the U.K. better bidding options or business advantages.

“They (Libyans) are appreciative of the role the UK played, but do we have better options? No,” Green said.

Energy giants Shell and British Petroleum, as well as oil and gas consultancy firm AMEC were among the businesses that accompanied the trade minister for talks in Libya.

Libya’s economic future could hinge on the performance of its lucrative oil and gas sectors, of which production was ground to a near standstill during the past six months of civil war.

Libya sits atop Africa’s largest proven reserves of conventional crude, raking in $40 billion in revenue last year from oil and gas exports. Still, experts say it could take more than a year to get Libya back to its prewar production rate of 1.6 million barrels per day.

Green said that while it’s not too early to talk business in Libya, no contracts will be signed until an elected government is in place.

“No strategic decisions will be made until there is a proper constitution and a legal government,” Green said.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com