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A greener way to recover methane
Oil reservoirs could have an environmental make-over with the help of bacteria. A report in Nature has shown how crude oil in deposits around the world is naturally broken down by microbes to methane. Scientists say that increasing microbe activity would produce a more energy-efficient method of methane recovery. It is likely field tests will start by 2009. The ability to recover methane directly from deeply buried oil reserves means energy-intensive and thermal polluting processes are removed. But methods like injecting steam into the reservoirs to heat and loosen the heavy viscous oil, so it can be pumped to the surface, are no longer needed say the authors of the Nature repo...
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More carbon credit finance for Bulgarian renewable energy projects
The EBRD, through the Netherlands Emissions Reduction Co-operation Fund, is purchasing more carbon credits from a renewable energy wastewater treatment projects in Bulgaria that will help significantly reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. This project entails the production of electricity and heat at Sofiyska voda’s Kubratovo wastewater treatment plant, 20 km outside of Sofia using methane that would have otherwise been emitted into the atmosphere. Methane produced at the plant will be captured and used in a combined heat and power plant for electricity and heat production. It is expected that about 1.1 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent will be reduced by 2012, which is the equivalent o...
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Torino Motors delivered the first Daily CNG in Bulgaria
Torino Motors Industrial Vehicles AD delivered the first Iveco Daily running on methane in Bulgaria. The vehicle is model 50C11GV, with loading capacity 15,6 cub.m. and CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) 2,8l engine with 106 hp. After filling the fuel tank to the top, the vehicle can run from 326 to 360 km. The price for this run accoring the the current market prices is approximately 20 leva. The engines in CNG versions are considered by many for the engines of the future, because of the ecology and much lower expense of the methane engines, compared to the diesel engines. At the moment in Bulgaria is accepted the European standard for ecology and safety Euro 4. At the same moment the CNG engi...
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Methane
Methane is a colorless, odorless gas with a wide distribution in nature. It is the principal component of natural gas, a mixture containing about 75% CH4, 15% ethane (C2H6), and 5% other hydrocarbons, such as propane (C3H8) and butane (C4H10). The "firedamp" of coal mines is chiefly methane. Anaerobic bacterial decomposition of plant and animal matter, such as occurs under water, produces marsh gas, which is also methane. At room temperature, methane is a gas less dense than air. It melts at –183°C and boils at –164°C. It is not very soluble in water. Methane is combustible, and mixtures of about 5 to 15 percent in air are explosive. Methane is not toxic when inhaled, but it c...
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