This invention relates to a power recovery process in waste steam/CO.sub.2 reformers in which a waste stream can be made to release energy without having to burn the waste or the syngas. This invention in some embodiments does not make use of fuel cells as a component but makes use of exothermic chemical reactors using syngas to produce heat, such as Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. It also relates to control or elimination of the emissions of greenhouse gases in the power recovery process of this invention with the goal of producing energy in the future carbonless world economy.

The present invention provides a blended fuel and methods for producing the blended fuel, wherein a low carbon fuel derived from a renewable resource such as biomass, is blended with a traditional, petroleum derived fuel. A blended fuel which includes greater than 10% by volume of low carbon fuel has an overall improved lifecycle greenhouse gas content of about 5% or more compared to the petroleum derived fuel. Also, blending of the low carbon fuel to the traditional, petroleum fuel improves various engine performance characteristics of the traditional fuel.

A plasma processing method for a gas comprises supplying a gas inside a cavity for plasma processing, supplying microwaves having a predetermined frequency and power in order to generate a plasma of the gas, and propagating the microwaves in the gas by means of a waveguide which communicates directly with the cavity so as to provide a plasma cracking processing operation for the gas inside the cavity (2).

Methods and systems for producing light olefins are disclosed. A feedstock comprising crude oil is distilled to produce a plurality of streams including a naphtha stream and a vacuum residue stream. The naphtha is fed to a steam cracking unit to produce light olefins, C.sub.4 hydrocarbons, pyrolysis gasoline and pyrolysis oil. The vacuum residue stream is hydrocracked to produce additional naphtha and heavy unconverted oil. The heavy unconverted oil and the pyrolysis oil from steam cracking unit can be deasphalted to produce deasphalted oil and pitch product. The deasphalted oil can be further hydrocracked to produce naphtha. The pitch product can be gasified to produce synthesis gas, which is further used to produce methanol. The methanol can be used to react with isobutylene of the C.sub.4 hydrocarbon stream from steam cracker to produce methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE).

Applying heat from a heat source to a first region to cause a first pyrolysis process, the first pyrolysis process resulting in a gaseous mixture, and applying heat from the heat source to a second region to cause a second pyrolysis process, the second pyrolysis process being applied to the gaseous mixture, wherein the second region is located closer to the heat source than the first region. Pyrolysis is used to destroy oils, tars and/or PAHs in carbonaceous material.

The invention is directed to a process to prepare an activated carbon product and a gaseous fraction comprising hydrogen, carbon monoxide and a mixture of gaseous organic compounds from a solid torrefied biomass feed comprising the following steps. (i) subjecting the solid biomass feed to a pyrolysis reaction thereby obtaining a gaseous fraction comprising hydrogen, carbon monoxide and a mixture of gaseous organic compounds and a solid fraction comprising of char particles. (ii) separating the solids fraction from the gaseous fraction. and (iii) activating the char particles as obtained in step (ii) to obtain the activated carbon product.

Disclosed is a method for reducing the tar content in pyrolysis gas generated in a pyrolysis reactor (1). The method comprises the steps of: guiding the pyrolysis gas through a filter (2) to remove at least 90% of all the particles in the pyrolysis gas having a particle size down to 7μ and preferably down to 4μ from the pyrolysis gas, partially oxidizing the pyrolysis gas in a partial oxidation reactor (3) to remove tar from the pyrolysis gas, and guiding the pyrolysis gas through a coke bed (4) to further remove tar from the pyrolysis gas. Furthermore, a two-stage gasifier (6) is disclosed.

A process for processing carbonaceous material, the process comprising: delivering a carbonaceous material to a reactor; delivering a catalyst to the reactor; processing the carbonaceous material at a relatively low temperature within the reactor to decompose the carbonaceous material to base compounds.

A method for gasifying carbon-containing materials in which the material for gasification and oxygen, usually in the form of air, are supplied to a gas generator where the gasification takes place in a fixed bed reactor. The product gas is drawn off via a product gas line and introduced into a hot gas filter. A filter, preferably provided with filter candles, removes solids such as particles not yet gasified, ash and foreign bodies, while clean gas passes through and is taken off via a clean gas line. An outlet is provided in the bottom region of the hot gas filter to remove residual solids. The hot gas filter is supplied through a line with oxygen, preferably in the form of air, in its middle height region, between the filter bottom and the outlet.

Fuel and fuel additives can be produced by processes that provide Fischer-Tropsch liquids having high biogenic carbon concentrations of up to about 100% biogenic carbon. The fuels and fuel additive have essentially the same high biogenic concentration as the Fischer-Tropsch liquids which, in turn, contain the same concentration of biogenic carbon as the feedstock.