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EPA Moves Closer To Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions

April 18, 2009
By: Webmaster 
www.GreenhouseGasEmissions.com

WASHINGTON — In a major reversal of years of government policy regarding Greenhouse Gas Emissions, the Environmental Protection Agency today proposed regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions to combat and reverse global warming and climate change.

"In both magnitude and probability, climate change is an enormous problem" said E.P.A's Administrator Lisa Jackson in their 130 page report on Greenhouse Gas Emissions. She found that projected levels of Greenhouse Gas Emissions "endanger the public health and welfare of current and future generations."

The finding came two years after the Supreme Court ruled the EPA had the authority to regulate Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act.

"Renewable Energy Technologies such as; Anaerobic Digesters, Biomethane, Concentrating Solar Power, Geothermal Power Plants are "carbon neutral energy" technologies, and generate no new Greenhouse Gas Emissions.  Power generated from Biomass Gasification power plants, are "carbon negative energy" solutions which actually remove carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere, according to the Founder and Chairman of the Institute for Climate Solutions, and the Renewable Energy Institute's Mont Goodell. 

For more information, see the Greenhouse Gas Emissions website at:  www.GreenhouseGasEmissions.com

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Oil and Natural Gas Investments is a related company that has multiple oil and natural gas investments opportunities as well as renewable energy and greenhouse gas emissions reductions projects.  Equity positions now available for qualified joint venture partners in multiple oil and natural gas and renewable energy projects we are now developing. For more information, contact us at:

Tel.  (512) 772 – 3500

Email:  info@OilAndNaturalGasInvestments.com

We provide Vapor Recovery and "Renewable Energy Technologies," and develop clean power/energy projects that will generate "greentags" that include one or more of the following; Renewable Energy Credit, Carbon Dioxide Credits, and/or Emission Reduction Credits. 

We offer turnkey, "vendor-neutral" power/energy project development products and services that may include; Absorption Chillers, Adsorption Chillers, Automated Demand Response, Biodiesel Refineries, Biofuel Refineries, Biomass Gasification, BioMethane, Canola Biodiesel, Coconut Biodiesel, Cogeneration, Concentrating Solar Power, Demand Response Programs, Demand Side Management, Energy Conservation Measures, Energy Master Planning, Engine Driven Chillers, Solar CHP, Solar Cogeneration, Rapeseed Biodiesel, Solar Electric Heat Pumps, Solar Electric Power Systems, Solar Heating and Cooling, Solar Trigeneration, Soy Biodiesel, and Trigeneration project engineering and design services as well as other waste heat recovery technologies that may provide a return on investment in less than 12 months.  We also offer energy-saving technologies that include one or more of the following; absorption chillers, cogeneration, demand side management, energy master planning, trigeneration and energy conservation measures.  

Unlike most companies, we are equipment supplier/vendor neutral. This means we help our clients select the best equipment for their specific application. This approach provides our customers with superior performance, decreased operating expenses and increased return on investment. 

For more information: call us at: 832-758-0027

We also provide mid/upstream products and services, again, on a vendor-neutral basis.  This includes the following products, services and solutions that include: 

• Gas Gathering System Sales

• Flare Gas Recovery

• Gas Compressors

• Glycol Dehydration

• Glycol Dehydrators

• Heater Treaters

• Natural Gas Measurement

• Vapor Recovery Units

• Engineering and Economic Feasibility Studies 

• Project Design & Permitting

• Project Construction

• Project Funding & Financing Options

• Operations & Maintenance 

For more information: call us at: 832-758-0027

What is a Vapor Recovery Unit?

A vapor recovery unit is a device that captures or recovers valuable volatile organic compounds and other rich gas streams that may otherwise be a significant environmental pollutant or hazardous air pollutant.  A well designed vapor recovery unit can pay for itself in less than 3 years and simultaneously mitigate a company's exposure to environmental liabilities. 

About Natural Gas Measurement

Natural gas measurement is needed to accurately measure the flow of natural gas, whether from an oil and gas production well, gas gathering system, pipeline delivery point, city gate delivery points for local distribution companies/natural gas utility companies, as well as sales to residential, commercial and industrial customers.  Natural gas measurement also includes the physical and chemical makeup of gas mixtures, how the mixtures are affected by temperature and pressure, and how to best determine and select the best natural gas measurement equipment for the specific application. Accurate natural gas measurement also includes the requirements to properly calibrate and maintain natural gas measurement devices, whether they may be orifices or meters.

About Heater Treaters

A heater treater is utilized in oil and gas production facilities and gas gathering systems to make and transfer/apply heat to the natural gas that is produced from one of more production wells. Heater Treaters prevent the formation of water, ice and natural gas hydrates. These solids can plug the wellhead, chokes and flowlines. As water, and salt water is a by-product of many natural gas and oil production wells, the water may cool during the production process, and up through the well, as it nears the surface or wellhead. Since chokes in the wellhead restrict the flow of the oil and gas from the well, temperatures may drop due to the pressure changes of the choke. This may cause the water or hydrates to freeze and plug the well, thereby slowing or stopping the oil and gas production.

Glycol dehydrators are utilized in oil and gas production facilities to dry or condition the natural gas before sales to the gathering system or pipeline. 

About Gas Gathering:

The physical facilities that accumulate and transport natural gas from a well to an acceptance point of a transportation pipeline are called a gas gathering system. 

Prior to FERC Order 636 in 1992, many interstate pipeline companies had a completely integrated supply system that was capable of delivering natural gas from the wellhead to the ultimate retail gas consumer. But, following Order 636, which separated gathering, marketing, and transmission operations, many pipeline companies reorganized and broke up this system into discrete parts and assigned them to affiliated companies. 

The facilities, functions, and services required for gathering, processing, and transportation were placed in affiliated companies or were spun off or sold to other companies. Since most gas prices were no longer regulated, gas gathering service charges became subject to market forces and were a function of buyer/seller negotiation, isolated from the transmission charges imposed by the pipeline transporter.

More about Gas Gathering:

The corporate reorganizations brought about under the influence of FERC Order 636 caused a shift in the jurisdictional entities regulating the various facilities and services. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had once regulated the entire integrated interstate pipeline system, but after the reorganizations, FERC became the regulating entity for only the interstate pipeline transportation and processing facilities and services. The spun-off or affiliated gathering facilities and services generally fell under state jurisdiction or other Federal agencies, such as the Department of the Interior, but in some cases FERC maintained jurisdiction. Especially unclear, and still contested in 2004, is the jurisdictional status of some Gulf of Mexico gathering systems.

These cases involve FERC's reclassification of portions of a pipeline's system operating on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) as non-jurisdictional gathering facilities and FERC's determination that a pipeline company can transfer those facilities to its non-jurisdictional gathering affiliate. The key consideration in these, and similar onshore cases, is that FERC retains rate jurisdiction over those reclassified facilities that the pipeline retains and thus may regulate rates charged for transportation on the pipeline's own gathering facilities performed in connection with jurisdictional transportation. Rates on non-jurisdictional facilities are market based and not subject to FERC oversight or review. Consequently, some shippers have raised complaints that rates on non-jurisdictional facilities may exceed a reasonable rate by an undue degree.

As a result of FERC's decision in Order 636 to promote competition by requiring interstate pipelines to "unbundle" their previously bundled sales and transportation into separate services and to transport natural gas for all qualified shippers, some such pipelines have sought to shed OCS facilities that primarily perform a gathering function. Accordingly, those pipelines have asked FERC to reclassify OCS facilities that were previously classified as transportation, and to authorize "spin-downs" of OCS gathering facilities to affiliates.

To differentiate jurisdictional transportation and non-jurisdictional gathering for pipelines, FERC for many years has employed two principal tests. Under the "behind-the-plant" test, facilities upstream of compressors and processing plants (i.e., toward the wellhead where the gas comes out of the ground) were presumptively gathering facilities, while facilities downstream of the plants (i.e., toward the consumer) were presumptively transportation facilities. For gas that requires no processing, FERC employed a "central-point-in-the-field" test, under which lateral lines that collect and transport gas from separate wells that then converge into a single large line were classified as gathering facilities, while facilities downstream of the collection point in a field were classified as transportation. Since 1983, FERC has subsumed those two tests into a "primary function" test that focuses on a number of physical factors (e.g., length, diameter, and configuration of a pipeline) and certain other criteria, to determine whether facilities are primarily devoted to gathering or transportation. Under the primary function measure, no one factor is determinative, nor do all factors apply in every situation.

FERC developed its primary function test in the context of onshore gathering patterns. For natural gas produced on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), pipelines generally are configured differently and typically do not gather gas at a local, centralized point within a field as they would onshore to prepare it for traditional transportation. As stated in EP Operating Co. v. FERC (5th Circuit, 1989), "Rather, on the OCS, relatively long lines are constructed to carry the raw gas from offshore platforms where 'only the most rudimentary separation and dehydration operations' are conducted, to the shore or a point closer to shore, where it can be processed into 'pipeline quality' gas." It also notes that pipelines on the OCS must construct large pipes to carry (often over a 100 miles away) the raw gas from offshore rigs to the shore for processing. In response to the practical and physical differences between onshore and offshore pipeline configurations, FERC modified its primary function test for the OCS to allow for the increasing length and diameter of OCS gathering lines, and later announced that it would "presume facilities located in deep water [over 200 feet] are primarily engaged in gathering or production."

* Some of the above information from the Department of Energy website with permission.

What is Flare Gas Recovery?

Flare Gas Recovery, Vapor Recovery, Waste to Energy and Vapor Recovery Units recover valuable "waste" or vented fuels that can be used to provide fuel for an onsite power generation plant.  Our waste-to-energy and waste to fuel systems significantly or entirely, reduces your facility's emissions (such as NOx , SOx, H2S, CO , CO2 and other Hazardous Air Pollutants/Greenhouse Gases) and convert these valuable emissions from an environmental problem into a new cash revenue stream and profit center.

Flare gas recovery and vapor recovery units can be located in hundreds of applications and locations.  At a Wastewaster Treatment System (or Publicly Owned Treatment Works - "POTW") gases from the facility can be captured from the anaerobic digesters, and manifolded/piped to one of our onsite power generation plants, and make, essentially, "free" electricity for your facility's use.  These associated "biogases" that are  generated from municipally owned landfills or wastewater treatment plants have low btu content or heating values, ranging around 550-650 btu's.  This makes them unsuitable for use in natural gas applications. When burned as fuel to generate electricity, however, these gases become a valuable source of "renewable" power and energy for the facility's use or resale to the electric grid. 

Additionally, if heat (steam and/or hot water) is required, we will incorporate our cogeneration or trigeneration system into the project and provide some, or all, of your hot water/steam requirements. Similarly, at crude oil refineries, gas processing plants, exploration and production sites, and gasoline storage/tank farm site, we convert your facility's "waste fuel" and environmental liabilities into profitable, environmentally-friendly solutions.

Our Flare Gas Recovery and Vapor Recovery units that are designed and engineered for these specific applications.  It is important to note that there are many internal combustion engines or combustion turbines that are NOT suited for these applications.  Our systems are engineered precisely for your facility's application, and our engineers know the engines and turbines that will work as well as those that don't.  More importantly, we are vendor and supplier neutral!  Our only concerns are for the optimum system solution for your company, and we look past brand names and sales propaganda to determine the optimum system, which may incorporate either one or more; gas engine genset(s) or gas turbine genset(s), in cogeneration or trigeneration mode - in trigeneration mode, we incorporate absorption chillers to make chilled water for process or air-conditioning, fuel gas conditioning equipment and gas compressor(s). 

Our turn-key systems includes design, engineering, permitting, project management, commissioning, as well as financing for our qualified customers. Additionally, we may be interested in owning and operating the flare gas recovery or vapor recovery units. For these applications, there is no investment required from the customer.

For more information, please provide us with the following information about the flare gas or vapor:   

• Type of gas being flared or vented (methane, bio-gas, landfill, etc.).
  

• Chromatograph Fuel/Gas analysis which provides us with the btu's (heating value) and the composition of the gas and its' impurities such as methane (and the percentage of methane), soloxanes, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, hydrogen sulfide, and any other hydrocarbons. 
  

• Total amount of gas available, from all sources, at the facility.