Micro can fuel motor vehicles and power remote residential and industrial locations.

Micro-LNG plants are available in the range of 5’000 to 20’000 metric tons of LNG per year. Micro-LNG facilities primarily aim at local markets.

As for today LNG is more environmental friendly compared to diesel in heavy-duty vehicle cargo transportation. The power market for remote locations can also easily substitute diesel or fuel oil with LNG.

The road movie continues, transporting fuels to remote locations. The production and distribution score is changing, where constant micro productions meet constant micro demands.

Methane gas is easy

Methane rich gas in liquefied form is easy. Easy to produce. Easy to transport. Easy to store. Easy to convert (back into its gaseous form). And – at last – easy to produce electricity from it. No wondrous things involved.

Hitchhikers
Unfortunately, methane gas, whenever exploited or produced as biogas or even landfill gas, is seldom alone. It has company – hitchhikers, and to carry them along is not pleasant, nor recommendable.

Normally, methane gas is a simple combination of one carbon and four hydrogen atoms. An easy catch! Once unleashed from their original source the wanted-quintet – together with unpleasant hitchhikers (CO2 and water to be named) – is passing through several engineering-traps, or pre-treatment facilities to unload the unwanted guests. Finally, the quintet approaches the finely-crafted metal gates – the heat exchangers. Methane enters and cold is everywhere, a grim cold, turning the quintet into liquid form. It is stored at site and ready for further use. The world of creating the tools to convert methane gas-to-liquids – the world of engineering – is less poetic due to constant focus on reliability, robustness, mitigating environmental footprints, overall energy consumption, and not to mention price. What are the costs to make the quintet cold?

Then again, cold is good, because the carbon-hydrogen alliance gets chilly, then liquid, and, more importantly, ready for transport to us – today. And to others – tomorrow! We all need energy – today, tomorrow and the day after!

Back to the giants
And the giants do what exactly again? They provide “the cold”.

The market is dominated by giants, super-sized LNG plants in the range of up to 10 million tons per year (in 2010), which can easily be increased to an enormous 20 million tons per year – there are virtually no limits for giants these days. Their planed and outlined sizes are in the sheer mega-range. Often, the attempt to describe such plants as somewhat bigger fridges, is utterly misleading. No fridge is that big nor complicated to use. Again, these things are giants – designed with cutting-edge technology in terms of engineering, planning, manufacturing, construction and operating. Does liquefaction of methane gas on a micro, small and mid-scale level follow the same challenges, difficulties and complexity as giant’s performances and security of supply (bigger is better) do?

Particularly small and micro-scale LNG technologies are dwarfs compared to their carrying hosts – the giants. But in recent years cheaper yet robust and reliable technologies are easily available. And the demand for methane gas is growing.

Mature giants and growing-up dwarfs
Even giants started small. Every new technology upheaval or breakthrough lead to another generation and the race continued towards more powerful and complicated machinery to produce LNG. Today we are facing the latest generation of base-load LNG plants.

In 2008 some 20 base-load LNG plants in 16 countries can be identified worldwide. In 2020, it’s firmly believed that almost 30% of Western Europe’s natural gas consumption will be supplied by LNG, mainly produced by base-load LNG plants. If so, another 70% of Europe’s natural gas consumption must be supplied otherwise. Major natural gas pipelines are distributing natural gas from Eastern-Europe and thus contributing substantially towards keeping the supply secured. Is this enough? Possible not. Methane-to-liquids-applications on small or even micro-scale may help to cover energy supply in time of great demand with methane gas supply from biogas, landfill gas or flare gas. An integrated industry where giants will peacefully coexist with dwarfs all around them.

Around the corner
Natural gas infrastructures and strategies are shifting towards an “integrated or total-solutions-market”, strongly focusing on bringing methane-to-markets. And the market is just around the corner! More importantly, long-time neglected candidates for methane-to-liquids-applications are recruited from local biogas, landfill gas, or even flare gas sources.

Keep it simple

Simplicity and flexibility power your investment. And they both power your LNG production in a very simple way – today more than ever.

The 19th century was the birthmark for the Brayton cycle, developed by George Brayton, a pioneer in the development of turbine engines. There are many forms of Brayton cycles: ranging from single open cycles used in gas turbines and jet engines to the closed thermodynamic cycles. More importantly, the reversed Brayton cycle is used to provide cooling.

Among other refrigerant cycles, the reversed Brayton cycle appeared between 1850 and 1880. Based on its principles, First and Second-Generation Brayton cycles had been established, and ultimately the Third as well as the Fourth-Generation cycles for small- and mid-scale in industrial process plants had been developed.

Can liquefaction of gases based on this simple technology, in the range of up to 1 million tons per year, become easier? More flexible? And what’s most important to you: Can it become more cost-effective compared to mixed-refrigerant-based liquefaction processes?

The fundamentals

The reversed Nitrogen Brayton cycle, or Nitrogen Expansion cycle, strictly follows the tradition of simplicity and robustness. The prime liquefaction medium – Nitrogen – is always kept in the gaseous phase. Also, nitrogen is found in abundance; simple and cheap to produce from the surrounding air by separation. Consequently, no extra hold-up system is required to store several hydrocarbons, i.e. pentane, butane, propane, ethylene to obtain the proper mix (Mixed Refrigerants).

Speaking in liquefaction terms, and in a nutshell: nitrogen is being compressed and subsequently expanded – which provides the necessary low temperature to liquefy gases, i.e. converting natural gas to LNG. All liquefaction plants based on the principles of the reversed Brayton cycle comply with the following:

• fast start-up / shut-down procedures
• flexible turn-down rates in minutes without affecting process stability
• superb specific power consumption, i.e. Third and Fourth-Generation

The reversed First and Second-Generation Brayton cycles are fully established within industrial liquefaction processes. Worldwide, several small-scale LNG plants are based on both generations. From 2011 onwards, the fully developed Third and Fourth-Generation Brayton cycles will be introduced into the market.

In comparison, the graph also visualizes industrial small-, mid-scale and base-load MR cycles.

The extension of the fridge

As the wheel is another extension of the foot, clothing is another extension of the skin. Very simple things – yet necessities in daily life. When industrial liquefaction technology is brushed against liquefaction technology, today’s and upcoming industrial liquefaction plants, based on the principles of the reversed Brayton cycle, are the extension of the fridge – only bigger. Simple in design yet highly efficient. Flexible in terms of storing products. Based on an ubiquitous and all-time safe cooling medium (Nitrogen). Easy to start. Easy to turn off. Easy to regulate. Compact and – of course – fast in delivery.

If oil or coal is produced in areas of the world which lack natural gas infrastructure or a nearby gas market, a significant portion of this associated gas may be released into the atmosphere, un-ignited (vented) or ignited (flared). The gas is alternatively re-injected into the reservoir to help maintain pressure. Flaring and venting of natural gas from oil wells and coal mining represents a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Flaring alone contributes to more than 1% to global emissions of CO₂ .This represent about 13% of committed emission reductions by developed countries under the Kyoto Protocol for the period 2008-2012. The World Bank estimates that over 150 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas are being flared and vented annually. That is the equivalent of the combined annual natural gas consumption of Germany and France. And the 40 billion cubic meters of gas flared in Africa is equivalent to half of the continent’s power consumption.

Many places there are also reserves of stranded natural gas-resources that are abandoned because currently there is no economical way to get it to the markets. With natural gas becoming such an important and marketable commodity, producers would like to recover and get some value out of these resources which to a certain degree already are partly processed.

As a way to meet these demands there is a growing interest in small scale LNG process and plant solutions to help solve the challenges mentioned above from a number of countries on almost all continents. Production capacities of small scale LNG plants vary in the range from 2000 up to 1 million tons of LNG per year. By comparison, a typical large scale plant has a production capacity of between 2.5 and 15 million tons of LNG per year.  As already pointed out in Small is beautiful – LNG your life small-scale LNG applications had been successfully introduced as industrial applications in mid-90ies, pioneered by Norway.

As for today – and started since the new millennium – size matters even more and small-scale LNG plant became even smaller; now called mini-LNG, creating and carving new markets with a plethora of possibilities to think about. New gas sources, i.e. biogas, landfill gas, even coal bed methane gas became interesting for liquefaction, energy storage and distribution. Shortcuts like liquefied biogas (LBG) and liquefied methane gas (LMG) were introduced and became pending slogans in the industry and among customers.

LNG, another general-purpose-fuel

On the supply side, stranded gas reserves, flare gas, landfill, coal bed methane, or biogas are abundant but had not been economical viable in recent years. Turning these reserves of gas into value-added general-purpose-fuel seem to be both economically feasible and very attractive for an environmental stand point. What is a general-purpose-fuel? Regarding today’s infrastructure, and due to inter-dependencies between producers and customers gasoline, diesel and natural gas are considered general-purpose-fuels, enabling a non-disruptive mobility market, constant heat and electricity production and – above all – energy storage.  Many business venture are spinning around general-purpose-fuels. The major disadvantage of natural gas, compared to gasoline and diesel, is its inherent low energy density, which, in fact, is simply implied by its gaseous character. LNG on the other side, turned into liquid state is  comparable to gasoline or diesel, regarding energy density.

Small-scale LNG

Small-scale LNG or, to bluntly spoken, small-scale LMG applications may become everybody’s darling in the industry, simply because the proof is in the pudding, which, in fact, is response time. Business is strongly related to response time, as already pointed out in the article Another day before the energy crisis? and short response time in the market is the key to satisfy customers and secure further investments. In short, small-scale LNG applications require upstream, midstream and, of course, downstream players. Methane gas will be pre-treated, liquefied, stored and distributed and, as it reaches its final destination, regasified. Most interestingly, the appeal of LNG is the use of the existing infrastructure for the before mentioned general-purpose-fuels, today’s gasoline stations to secure mobility and, decentralized energy productions applications in form of gas-turbines, gas motors or, even fuel cells, to constantly provide electricity and heat, where it is locally required. As we reexamine the scope of LNG it can be noticed, that LNG may help markets to undergoes a more moderate shift away from oil, coal and nuclear power, prior to entering renewable energies.

Also, LNG and its substitutes, i.e. LBG (Liquefied Biogas) and LMG (Liquefied Methane Gas, retrieved from stranded gas sources such as flare gas) are entering the mobility market, powering engines for heavy-duty trucks and buses in public transportation.

The use of LNG in  sea- and ocean-going vessels had been neglected, so far. From 2010 onwards, and with respect to the introduction to national bonus-malus systems (incentive programs), particularly in Scandinavia, LNG will be become interesting as fuel in marine transportation. Key drivers are NO_x emission figures, which, in fact, must be reduced by 20 in 2011, and by 80% from 2016 onwards; favouring substantially the use of clean LNG. Also, sulfur in marine fuels must be reduced from 2020 onwards to 0.1% for near shore going vessels, and to 0.5% for ocean-going vessels. On the contrary, heavy fuel oils can contain up to 4.5% sulfur, which will be converted to SO_x.

Interestingly, ferries operating at the Baltic Sea will be firstly converted towards to alternative use of LNG as fuel, favouring new “onshore” based small-scale LNG production sites. Again, LNG, the general-purpose-fuel, finds another downstream player:  ferries – sounds pretty fair to me.

Energy comes in form of, mainly, electricity, fuel, and heat; fundamental things, yet so interlinked in today’s complex world. We do need them and will need them again and again. To sing a common theme, primary energy is always created foremost through energy production that strongly depends on fossil fuels or renewables. This then may imply a sort of limitation; are fossil fuels and renewables endless? And what is the corollary? And can this limitation tamper with the nowadays-perfect dance of business, commerce and our way of spending energy? Without any doubts, we are now entering a very contentious matter by raising such questions.

Let us remember what opinions the mavens of the last decades have expressed about centralized energy production: reliable and safe energy production in tandem with exploitation and distribution of secured fossil fuel provision. It is widely believed and constantly repeated that fossil fuels is not scarce. It is with so many promises that we began to feel like the boy who plugged the dyke with his fingers, only to find out leaks breaking out all around him. Abundance is everywhere and all the time.

Centralized trivia?

The lights of the dark ages were based on firewood, turf and petroleum. Over the years we stumbled upon coal, crude oil, natural gas and even harnessed the power of the atoms. Centralized energy production was the key to successfully provide electricity to households and industrial areas alike. We were ‘smothered” with life-long promises about cheap and reliable electricity and even heat to keep households warm. Finally, and for the moment, perhaps most mysteriously, we never question the fuse of energy production and commerce. We simply rely on it. Are there any restraints related to the given centralized trivia, which, in fact, works so perfectly fine until now? Very often the argument goes that centralized energy production stifles innovation, and, consequently, competition, which goes alongside the emergence of decentralized energy production. Nothing in the argument of securing energy production, nor in the argument that most people make when talking about the subject of doing business as usual, should draw into doubt this simple point; competition, and the necessity to integrate a variety of different energy production solutions provided by variety of players.

Idea sharing?

Idea sharing is a self-propelling mechanism, which gives room to even more ideas, driving competition forward, and in case of free markets, grants contracts to secure energy production. Does that imply centralized energy production, operated by a few companies, squelches idea sharing, even competition? Hard to tell, yet currently, less than 20 mega-companies, both state and commercial-based, dictate the terms by which energy flows in our world. By centralizing power over the Earth’s energy resources, the energy companies create the very conditions that reward economies of scale, and centralization of economic activity, in many other industries.

As for today, and with the market already divided into strikingly homogenously acting monopolists, who follow the idea of protecting the given monopoly position; will if they are rational, be willing to spend the net present value of their monopoly to defend it. They are more than ready to shoot – even back.

Never aim if you are not ready to shoot

Does decentralized energy production supply key arguments to aim and shoot? Is there really a difference in business approach compared to successfully acting monopolists? Imagine the following:

You are standing at the side of the street. Your flat is on fire. You are definitely annoyed and upset because to some extend you helped start the fire. Next to you is a bucket, filled with gasoline. Most apparently, gasoline will not put out the fire.

As you ponder the overall mess, someone else comes along. In a panic mood, he grabs the bucket. Before you have a chance to tell him to stop – or before he realizes just why he should stop – the bucket is in the air. The gasoline is about to hit the already blazing flat. And the fire that the gasoline will ignite is about to ignite everything around.

The given example indicates how difficult it is to overcome commonly accepted models in nowadays world. You may not solve the energy production and distribution problem by using the same kind of approach you started that set up the problem. It may do mischief because everything around will be affected too. A gentle shift, towards a leaner, cleaner energy production and distribution is the key; starting with natural gas, that can be simply provided from a variety of sources – fossil fuel based, such as conventional natural gas, on coal mine gas and flare gas; and renewables, such as biogas and even landfill gas.

Getting started by accretion in the natural gas market

Natural gas is widely accepted as fossil fuel – with the lowest impact on greenhouse gas emissions if burned or converted to CO2. Oil produces one-third more CO2 than natural gas equivalent unit of energy produced, while coal produces two-third more CO2.  More importantly, it is fast becoming the fuel of choice for the generation of electricity. It is also increasingly being used as a fuel for transportation, which, in fact, is crucial for tomorrow’s markets. New technological breakthroughs in converting gas-to-liquids have reduced costs and brought liquids gas to a range that is competitive with traditional commodities, such as gasoline and diesel.  Without any doubt, natural gas is one of the key elements to help set up a decentralized energy production and distribution scheme – speaking globally, but acting locally.

Small-scale LMG contribution

As already pointed out in the article “Small is beautiful – LNG your life” LNG and its derivatives, such as LMG (Liquefied Methane Gas) and even LBG (Liquefied Biogas), might be the missing link between traditional commodities, i.e. coal, uranium, natural gas. Do we really need liquefied methane gas produced in small-scale quantities? Is not methane itself considered a traditional commodity?

The very beauty of small-scale LMG applications is the rapid response time between idea sharing and turn-key ready plant delivery. Response time is crucial in businesses where energy commodity prizes are becoming even more volatile in the upcoming future as today. Everything turns to be uncertain, yet energy production and distribution MUST be secured, but not by using old business models. Moreover, LMG is a respected way of energy storage and easy to transport as it will use an existing infrastructure. Small-scale LMG applications follow the philosophy of mainly off-the-shelf-components, which is an intrinsic part of doing business in the future due to small prices and increased competition. More than that, the utopia of LMG is inherently plausible because LMG is the fuel-of-all-trades, the general-purpose-fuel: it can be produced in many ways but stored and distributed in only one.

How many days left until the energy crisis?

We have pulled down the stars to our will, one may argue, why not secure energy supply, production and distribution on a global scale without incurring any crisis?

What day will be tomorrow? Someday after dawn. So will there be a crisis related to the supply, even the distribution of energy? Easy to tell, if you use the missing link between traditional and renewable energies.

Considering the Russian-Ukrainian natural gas dispute in 2008, which, in fact, climaxed in a total delivery stop of Russian gas to Western Europe for several days, LNG may help to fill the gap and beyond. Despite its global impact and importance and with yearly growth rates of up to almost 10%, comparing to 2% natural gas pipeline growth rate on a yearly basis, LNG imports verifies significantly in Europe. In 2008, virtually none LNG was directly imported in Germany (of course, due to lacking LNG receiving terminals). In France, LNG imports cover almost 30%, in Spain over 70% of all natural gas consumption. Even Great Britain, recently re-opening and expanding its receiving capacities, hits the magical, starting, 1% marker. These figures indicate that LNG play and will play a pivotal role in securing natural gas supply widely over Western Europe, except Germany? Not quite; in times of international, border-crossing, pipeline infrastructures, Germany’s natural gas companies purchase free slots (regasification capacities) on existing LNG receiving terminals all over Europe, i.e. Huelva or Barcelona in Spain, in Italy, Croatia or even Great Britain. Without the restraint of lacking receiving terminals in Germany, LNG will be bought, stored for a certain time, regasified and distributed – where demand is crucial.

Worldwide some 20 base-load LNG plants in 16 countries can be identified in 2008; roughly 60 LNG receiving terminals, with the majority in Japan, define the lower end of the LNG value chain. Its if firmly believed that in 2020 almost 30% of Western Europe’s natural gas consumption will be supplied by LNG. With the existing natural gas infrastructure and strategy, which is strikingly homogeneous divided by a small group of companies, small, locally produced LNG/LMG/LBG solutions may find a hard time to compete.

Originally, starting in the 1960ies, liquefied methane gas, or more precisely Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), is related to the process of liquefying natural gas, found mostly at remote areas. The gases will be pretreated, processed, cooled and stored as LNG; awaiting to be shipped to energy hungry markets, i.e. the US, Europe and Asia. Big piles of money and efforts are established; equipments are designed and moved to set up base-load LNG plants and everything related to it.

Since the 1990ies, liquefaction technologies retrieved from base-load LNG plants were used and down-sized to carve a new market niche: Small-scale LNG. Intentionally, Norway, among others, was pioneering the set-up of several small-scale LNG plants, driven by several decision, i.e. remotely placed industrial and private customers, introduction of leaner, less CO2 emitting, technologies compared to heavy oil and, of course, diversifying the existing energy market.

Since the new millennium, size matters even more and small-scale LNG plant became even smaller; now called mini-LNG, creating and carving new markets with a plethora of possibilities and difficulties to deal with. New gas sources, i.e. biogas, landfill gas, even coal bed methane gas became interesting for liquefaction and distribution. Shortcuts like liquefied biogas (LBG) and liquefied methane gas (LMG) were introduced and became pending slogans.

If not considering LMG produced from small-scale and mini-LNG plants seriously at the present, the future may show on thing: The cruel comes and go, like cities and thrones and power, leaving their ruins behind. They had no permanence. Who is the cruel, who is to blame? Certainly, the cruel is considered to be rather ignorant than cruel, driven by blindness towards a more decentralized energy provision including many players, even teams, arbitrators and, of course, different play grounds, i.e. solar, wind, geothermal energy, water and biomass. The latter contributes to produces biogas, which, in fact, will be processed to LNG/LBG/LMG – the missing link. Are you ready to LNG your life and the life of others?

From today’s perspective, the world need 50% less CO2 emissions until 2050, if the CO2 concentration of 450 ppm (parts per million) in the atmosphere shall be kept below this threshold. Conservatively speaking, between 2008 and 2012 the amount of global Internet traffic is going to be quadrupled. Energy, particularly electricity is the overall key to provide constant and reliable access to the world’s information grid – the Internet. As information service providers, powering the Internet by their massive server farms, electricity reliability is crucial.

Many self-commitments had been given to reduce carbon emissions. From tomorrow’s perspective, innovative information services need innovative yet reliable electricity supply, easing the need for atomic or even coal-fired power plants. A sound combination of renewable energies may be the answer. Intermediately speaking, low-value-gas-to-LNG application might help to step forward into this direction. LNG, short for Liquified Natural Gas, is being produced by cooling down gases (natural gas, biogas, landfill gas and even flare gas) to -163 deg C, where is take only 1/600th of its original volume at atmospheric pressure. From today’s perspective, only base-load LNG production facilities, being provided by sub sea natural gas sources, are of interest, simple because the conventional LNG value chain involves upstream and downstream players with long-time commitments, both economically and technologically.

Stepping down in size, small-scale LNG infrastructures may help to decentralize energy provision, reduce substantially carbon emissions, and outline the way to a complex renewable energy system. Also, they inherent a substantial innovation potential due to the fact that a substantial amount of players will be involved. To access the Internet in the future we need innovative energy provision.

Situation Information Technology

Information technology providers have a tremendous interest in cheap, but yet reliable electricity to provide energy to server farms, powering the internet, production lines, providing the necessary tools for surfing the grid, or anything else related to our information driven society. As seen today, supporting renewable energies, e.g. solar industry, seems very attractive, simple because our sun does not write any energy bills.

The core idea is always the same: Electricity, provided by renewable energies, shall be cheaper than electricity produced from coal power plants, running constantly on base load. They produce tremendous amounts of CO2, being released into the atmosphere; simply because commodities which inherent a lot of carbon produce a lot of CO2. Why not investing into CO2 catching technologies, but common sense tells a different story. What about atomic power plants? Point taken, but due to the sheer scope, delivery time and investment necessary they may simply scare off people, companies and investors. People want something new, small and lean, compared to the existing massive infrastructure related to coal and atomic power.

Nuclear Lazarus?

Nuclear power already, in 2008, provides almost 20% of the world’s electricity production, with no CO2 while running. Although it is believed that its share will fall – to just 10% of production within the next decade. In discussing nuclear power as a means of creating electricity, it is important to keep in mind that nuclear power plants are nothing more than very complicated and potentially hazardous machines for boiling water, which creates the steam used to drive turbines. As with coal, nuclear power stations are very large in terms of space and electricity production – up to 2 GW. With a starting price of 2 billion USD apiece they are expensive, too.

Because they are large, and many factors relating to safety must be considered, the permitting process for a nuclear power plant can take up to a decade. Lead-times, from planning to commissioning, of up to 17 years are required, prior to first production of electricity. Worldwide, at the moment, 34 projects are under construction with 12 being planned and constructed for over 20 years. In terms of new projects, 6 plants in China, 6 in India and 2 in Europe can be identified. These projects and with respect to the average lead-time, electricity production eventually will start in 2025.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change needs to be stopped within the next 15 years to slow down any further increase in earth’s temperature on a global scale. In economic-speech, with a 17-year gestation period before any power is generated, and even longer before any return on investment is seen, nuclear power is nothing for impatient investors. These factors, as much as the concern about safety, disposal of waste and bombs, whenever nuclear power is mentioned, are leading to the only argument in favour of nuclear power: zero CO2 emissions.

While running on constant base-load, no emissions will be noted from nuclear power plants, but in general, CO2 will be emitted upon the production of uranium or any other nuclear substitute being used as fuel. Within the nuclear fuel chain, between 30 to 120 g CO2 per produced kWh electricity will be emitted. By comparison, natural gas power plants emit almost 150 g CO2 per kWh.

The majority of new nuclear power plants are being built in the developing world, where a less tight-laced bureaucracy and greater central control make things easier. China is planning to commission two nuclear power plants per year for the next twenty years, which from a global perspective, speaking CO2 emission reduction, is highly desirable, for 80% of China’s power now comes from coal, which in term emits more than 300 g CO2 per kWh. Providing the uranium necessary to fuel these reactors will be a challenge, for world uranium reserves are not large, and at the moment around a quarter of the world’s demand is being met by reprocessing nuclear weapons. With uranium on scarce, CO2 emission released within the nuclear fuel chain will increase. The very essence of nuclear power as a low emission technology will be compromised.

Yes, We Can

The change towards new, leaner technologies is giving a new boost for investors. Today, a turnover of roughly 1000 billion USD is made referring to sustainable energy provision, soaring to 2000 billion USD in 2020. In 2007, companies obtained 2 billion USD from investors in order to spin their ideas in to valuable products. As we undergo this radical shift, we should re-examine the scope of energy security with respect to information technology. Between 2008 and 2012 the amount of global Internet traffic is going to be quadrupled. Huge amount of data needs to be stored in real-time and being accessible at any time. To store this huge amount of data the world is relying on servers, which, in fact, rely on electricity.

Since the dawn of the Internet in the mid-1990s we cannot imagine how we ever lived without it. Statistics indicate that, in 2007, 1.3 billion people were online worldwide, almost 3.5 times as much as in 2000. Two out of five Internet users are located in Asia and the number is strikingly increasing. In 2007, more than 270 million computers had been sold; an increase of 13% compared to 2006. More than 70 million computers were sold in Asia. Behind every search, direct deposit, YouTube request and rant on a blog is a data center, or server farm crammed with machines called servers and, behind them, a power plant.

To run these servers, located at special server farms, electrical energy and backup systems are required to guarantee non-disruptive service at any time to anybody. Globally, in 2007, an estimated 2 percent of worldwide carbon emissions come from producing the electricity that powers the worldwide server farms, or about 300 million tons CO2 a year.

As the amount of users and content is increasing, the amount of servers is increasing by a yearly rate of 8%. Due to the development of the Internet, most server farms are located in the US and in Europe. With almost 70 million users from Asia in 2007 and an estimated population of almost 3 billion people, future server farms will and must be located in Asia. As mentioned before, Asia is investing majorly in coal and atomic power plants to cope their steadily increasing energy consumption.

Key factors that are known to influence the set-up of server farms until today are:

The availability of large volumes of cheap electricity to power the data centers.

Today and future commitments to carbon neutrality, which has sharpened its focus on renewable power sources such as wind, hydro, and solar power.

The presence of a large supply of water to support the chillers and water towers used to cool the data centers.

Distance to other data centers. They are in constant need of lightning-fast response time for their searches, and prizes fast connections between the data centers, speaking of low latency in connections between facilities.

Tax incentives.

In response to the above mentioned key factors some may argue that:

There might be no more cheap electricity as being provided today from existing atomic power plants, existing coal fired power plants and common natural gas power plants – electricity prices will certainly increase in the nearby future.

Commitments to carbon neutrality could be a perfect match with low-value-gas-to-LNG applications. The produced LNG will be transported and regasified to power plants, which may provide server farms with electricity.

Partly, LNG could provide cooling duty for the server farms upon regasifying, taken from the LNG.

Expanding server farms may create new markets and increase the need of diverse energy supplies.

Most pressing, as CO2 trading activities become mandatory in the nearby future and hence any mitigation of CO2 is driving future energy provisions.

Each server, powering the Internet, at the server farms produces up to 1 kW of heat by consuming up to 1 kW of electricity. This in terms implies substantial cooling by air-coolers or water coolers, supplied by nearby rivers. It gets hot enough that for every dollar spent to power a typical server, another dollar is spent to keep it cool.

Flipping The Coin

In the future, all information technology providers will struggle to find adequate supply of reliable electricity, if not supporting nuclear power or power produces from coal. As for the LNG value chain; today, gas pre-treatment and energy efficient liquefaction technologies, distribution, storage and regasification of LNG at the satellite stations with an adjacent power plant are state-of-the-art. Flipping the coin – decision making – may be an option; and with the coin already in the air, speculations will certainly rise which side to find atop. Doing business as usual or small is beautiful, towards a more diverse and leaner energy provision to power the Internet of the future?

Further Readings

The energy nightmare of web server farms (by Jane Anne Morris)