Researchers

Researchers at theSwiss Federal Institute of TechnologyZurichhave developed a hybrid engine powered mostly by natural gas that could get the equivalent of 80 miles per gallon. The ultra-efficient engine, powered by a combination of natural gas and diesel, would achieve that lofty number when combined with a battery and electric motor, according toMIT Technology Review. The researchers said their hybrid engine would be more efficient and would have lower emissions than gasoline or diesel engines. The technology would add an estimated $8,000 to the cost of conventional gasoline vehicles, they said.

A membrane-based filtration system being developed by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) could improve the efficiency of mobile water recycling systems used in conjunction with hydraulic fracturing (fracking) activities.

Concerned groups like the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) are raising new greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions concerns related to the North American natural gas production boom, citing a new paper on methane leakage in Utah’s Uintah Basin released Monday by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and University of Colorado.

University of Adelaide researchers in Australia are developing a new type of laser system that will monitor methane levels across large areas in order to monitor emissions of the greenhouse gas. The system has the potential to detect methane leaks from long-distance underground gas pipelines and gas fields, including coal seam gas extraction operations, and to measure methane emissions from animal production, the university said. “We hope to accurately measure methane concentrations up to a distance of 5 kilometers,” said project leader David Ottaway, senior lecturer in the university’s School of Chemistry and Physics. “This will give us an ability to map methane over an area as large as 25 square kilometers in a very short time. At the moment current technology only allows detection at a single point source as it blows past the detector.”

With $2.375 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Gas Technology Institute (GTI) is working on two projects with Northwestern University researchers and a startup they have created, NuMat Technologies to develop lightweight, affordable natural gas vehicle (NGV) fuel tanks for passenger cars, along with natural gas compressors that can fuel the vehicles in the home or office settings. The projects are part of DOE’s Methane Opportunities for Vehicular Energy program. GTI plans to develop “a low-pressure adsorbent material” to be used in gas storage tanks designed exclusively for NGVs to overcome the current heavy, large tanks that must withstand pressures of up to 3,600 psi, which adds to the cost and weight of the NGVs compared to gasoline and diesel vehicles. GTI received $1.5 million from DOE to develop the advanced adsorbed natural gas technology for fueling tanks and $875,000 to develop a unique low-pressure NGV fueling technology.

Shale gas is the “magic bullet” the U.S. petrochemical industry needs to make a full recovery from a decade of economic stagnation, according to researchers from Chemical Market Resources Inc. (CMR), a Houston firm that advises the chemical, petrochemical and plastics industries.

A natural gas vehicle (NGV) that can provide its own onboard compression for fueling? That is the concept of some Oregon and Colorado university engineering researchers who earlier this month received $700,000 from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) advanced research projects agency (ARPA-E).

The Carlyle Group LP and Sunoco Inc. on Monday stepped up with an ambitious plan to keep the doors open at the oldest continuously operating refinery on the East Coast. The new venture is eyeing growth from the gassy Marcellus Shale that surrounds the refinery, while the oily Bakken Shale would provide up to 140,000 b/d of low-cost fuel supplies.

Improved development and drainage of shale plays is among the topics researchers at the University of Texas (UT) will investigate as part of an energy partnership agreement signed by UT and Statoil in Austin, TX, Monday.