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Artist's rendering of "SHEC Station #1" a solar hydrogen production station to be deployed in the City of Regina at the Fleet Street Landfill. Each solar array measures 13 x 13 meters (40 x 40 feet) and is estimated to produce 40,000 kg of hydrogen per year.
SHEC LABS has developed advanced solar thermo-chemical reactors, solar arrays and a complete suite of complimentary technologies that can efficiently produce hydrogen (H2) from renewable methane sources (CH4). |
SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA - Solar Hydrogen Energy Corporation, with its partners, Giffels
Associates Limited (Ingenium), and Clean 16
Environmental Technologies in conjunction with the University
of Toronto Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry will
deploy the world's first Solar Hydrogen production station using methane, an
environmentally damaging greenhouse gas expelled from city landfills.
Methane gas from landfills released into the atmosphere is 21 times more harmful
to the environment than Carbon Dioxide. With the technology and processes
developed and now being commercialized by SHEC, a value added method of hydrogen
production will be demonstrated. The City of Regina's city council unanimously
approved this revolutionary project for the city's Fleet Street Landfill. (See video
of the Regina City Council meeting.)
The underlying technology could allow for methane from a variety of sources such
as biogas, landfill gas, flare gas, stranded gas and coal bed methane. The
gas is recovered through a collection system, such as a series of collection
pipes in the ground; and the low quality methane is cleaned to remove
contaminants. That methane is then dry reformed into clean hydrogen in a SHEC
reactor heated by solar energy.
The process eliminates and mitigates harmful landfill and flare gas emissions,
two of the largest sources of air pollution and greenhouse gases in the world.
Hydrogen is seen as "The Fuel of The Future" by many. When Hydrogen is used in a fuel cell to create electricity it combines with oxygen from the air and the only by-product is pure water. Hydrogen is a main component in gasoline, fertilizer production, hydrogenating edible fats and oils and host of other industries. Today the most common method of hydrogen production is the steam reformation of our depleting supplies of natural gas causing greenhouse gases to be exposed to our atmosphere. The technology to be demonstrated at "SHEC Station #1" in Regina solves numerous problems such as the destruction of harmful greenhouse gasses as well as the production of clean, green, high purity, renewable hydrogen. It also displaces the use of our diminishing resources of natural gas for hydrogen production.
This project, "SHEC Station #1" is a two stage project with the
first stage including the implementation of Clean 16's gas cleaning technology.
This technology will remove impurities from the landfill gas and provide methane
and CO2 in proper proportions to five SHEC "Solar Reactors"
that use sunlight for the required process heat supplied by SHEC's "Solar
Concentrators". Each "Solar Concentrator" measures 40 feet by 40
feet and will have the capacity of producing 40,000 kg of high purity hydrogen
per year as well as commercial grade carbon dioxide. The Corporation will also
demonstrate an additional solar module dedicated to the demonstration of SHEC's
direct water splitting technology.
The cost of this phase of the project is anticipated to be approximately 6
million dollars with just over 2 million dollars of this project coming in the
form of a grant from Sustainable Development Technologies Canada (SDTC). The
company's partners have also indicated that they are willing to provide
"Like and Kind Contributions" towards this portion of the project in
the amount $500,000.00. In addition, the City of Regina will be responsible for
installing the 1.9 million dollar gas collection system at the Fleet Street
Landfill site.
The second stage of SHEC's first commercial project at Regina's Fleet Street
Landfill will see another 24 solar hydrogen production modules bringing the
total number of modules to 30. The project will have the capability of producing
1.2 million kg of hydrogen annually. When fully operational, this first project
will prevent more than 1.6 million tonnes of Carbon Dioxide equivalent (CO2e)
from entering the atmosphere over the next twenty years and will significantly
improve local air quality and reduce smog.
This project will be reproducible at thousands of locations around the world and
will be expandable to not only other landfill sites, but to biogas, flare gas
and vent gas from the oil and gas industry, stranded gas, coal bed methane and
natural gas.
This phase of SHEC Station #1 is projected to cost another 10 to 11 million
dollars bringing the total cost to about 17 million dollars.
The company will initially target the merchant hydrogen market as it commands
a higher end user price per kilogram than traditional hydrogen markets. SHEC is
anticipating the cost of hydrogen production to be between 75 cents per kg when
using sunlight for process heat and $1.25 per kg when using surplus methane for
its heat source in non sunlight conditions. This is very competitive with
traditional hydrogen production methods. The selling point could be $5 per kg
and higher, depending on purity and volume for this market application.
Negotiations are underway to secure a purchase/supply agreement with
multinational, Fortune 500 companies to purchase and deliver the product to the
end user giving SHEC revenues in the millions of dollars per year.
About
SHEC Labs
SHEC LABS was incorporated in 1996 with a mandate to develop technology to
produce hydrogen from renewable sources. In 2004, after 8 years of research and
development the Corporation received third party validation that its Dry Fuel
Reformation technology was ready to move into commercialisation.
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Page posted by Sterling
D. Allan May 25, 2006
Last updated June 03, 2006
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