Unconventional oil types (oil shale, oil sands, heavy oil) play an increasingly considerable role in the worldwide fossil-fuel production process. However, more advanced technical solutions are required to extract such oil, and the majority of them are disclosed in the latest patent applications. On the date of publication of the proposed review of the leading participants in the patenting process in 2017, 1627 patent applications were...

Associated petroleum gas is often considered as the undesirable by-product of oil production. However, the development of innovative technologies makes it possible to solve many of the challenges related to it, including environmental compliance and provision of additional economic benefits. The present review provides the latest patent application data, in which the dedication to the technologies of utilization and the conversion of...

Controlled extraction of methane from coal formations is an important challenge, both in terms of preserving ecological balance and to utilize additional source of fossil fuel. The present patent review provides essential statistical figures of the patenting activity of inventors in 2017 in the field of exploration, production and processing of Coal Bed Methane, Coal Mine Methane and Abandoned Mine Methane. In total, as of the date of...

In the previous comments, which included an analysis of patent applications registered in 2017 around the world and related to the field of methane extraction from gas hydrate formations, mainly statistical data was provided concerning the distribution of documents by patent offices of the world, as well as by unified groups of problems and elements of technological processes. This paper discloses the data concerning the main...

The proposed review includes brief statistical information on the 2017 patent applications, which describe various technical solutions in the field of Unconventional Oil production (oil shale, oil sands, and heavy oil). In total, 1627 patent documents were collected for review, published in 32 patent offices around the world by 466 applicants from 36 countries. In this year the number of patent applications found on this subject was...

Gas hydrates are one of the most attractive forms of energy commodities for the future thanks to the huge resource potential that is many times larger than all other existing fossil fuel resources put together. A great number of scientific papers are published annually all over the world, dedicated to the analysis of gas hydrate formations in different geographical regions of the world, to the perfection of scientific research methods,...

Please find below the commentary, reflecting the statistical information on the array of publications in Concentrated Solar Power, dated 2017. All of them have been preselected from Google Scholar database with the help of typical keywords. The present list contains 994 papers, written by 875 investigators from 78 countries as authors or contributors. These scientific studies in their entirety are available in our Library section on...

The present report provides information on the most active participants of innovation processes in the field of biogas production that comprised the top 10 applicants list in the collection of documents from this industry. The reviewed collection consists of 269 patent applications published in 2016. In total, 188 applicants from 25 countries participated in the collection. The reviewed applications were filed in 26 different patent...

Biogas is an alternative to conventional natural gas that is produced from biomass feedstock by fermentation processes. During the last 10 years the total volumes of electric energy produced with biogas as the energy source have almost tripled. According to the data of International Renewable Energy Agency IRENA, in 2016 this value comprised 87500 Gigawatt hours globally. The object of the present review is to provide information on...

The present review provides information on the 10 most productive patent applicants who published applications in the field of cellulosic ethanol production in 2016. The review aggregates data from around 261 patent applications. The patent applications examined were filed in 18 patent offices by 115 applicants from 23 countries. Global ethanol production is predominantly concentrated in such regions as the USA, Brazil, the European...