Team effort

In the drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and meet increasingly stringent regulations, the energy and automotive businesses are developing innovative solutions. The energy industry has been improving the quality of its existing products and introducing new fuels that meet legislative requirements for reducing local emissions. Some of these fuels are derived from fossil fuels, for example, gas-to-liquids (GTL) synthetic fuel is made from natural gas; others are biofuels such as biodiesel and bioethanol, which are made from biological material. In addition, options such as hydrogen as fuel are under development.

The Shell Group (Shell) has been producing alternative fuels for many years, and was the first concern to build a commercial GTL plant. The plant in Bintulu, Malaysia, uses the proprietary Shell middle distillate synthesis (SMDS) process. The organisation is currently involved in building what will be the world’s largest GTL plant in Qatar.

Shell is also active in supporting the manufacture of biofuel. In 2002, it invested in Iogen Corporation, a Canadian company, to develop biotechnology that enables cellulose ethanol to be made from straw. Shell also invested in CHOREN Industries of Germany in 2005 to create the world’s first demonstration-scale biomass-to-liquids (BTL) plant. This plant takes a waste feedstock such as wood chips and uses SMDS technology to produce a high-quality synthetic fuel. Both of these processes produce so-called second-generation biofuels; that is, they are produced from non-food feedstocks and do not compromise the food chain. Used at 100% concentration, second-generation biofuels could reduce well-to-wheels carbon dioxide production by up to 90%; the natural carbon dioxide production cycle is almost closed.

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