Natural grass as bioenergy

we can get a significant amount of energy from land which is currently not being used, for minimal input and without disrupting the local wildlife too much or diverting land currently used for food.

Science Deobfuscator

Bioenergy receives a lot of attention as a fossil-fuel alternative.  In principle, it’s a renewable resource, as well as being approximately carbon neutral (it neither adds nor removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, though this depends on the crop).  Some popular types of bioenergy are ethanol derived from corn, sugar cane, switch grass, palm oil, as well as fast-growing trees like poplar and willow.  These latter two are generally not made into liquid energy (i.e. they cannot be used to power automobiles), but in Europe they are gaining popularity in homes and industry when the wood is chipped and pressed into energy-dense pellets.

    Bioenergy is not without its problems, however.  Ethanol derived from corn diverts a food product into the energy sector, raising food prices.  In the tropics, conversion of native forests to bioenergy plantations for palm oil is a significant driver for deforestation as well as indirect carbon…

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Briquette: The “Green Charcoal”

The “green charcoal” is one innovation from the existing materials that we have, now converted to produced energy essential for human’s everyday living. Charcoal doesn’t have to be black, it is also “green”, thus it is sustainable.

devcomconvergence

For sustainable development, we can make charcoal “green”!

The General Systems Theory influences us that elements on earth from the simplest to the most complex one are interconnected. We are all part of a system-the environment. Barry Commoner, a scientist, politician and a publisher introduced the four laws of ecology; these say that everything is connected with everything else, everything must go somewhere, nature knows best there no such thing as a free lunch. These would only mean that our waste either biodegradable, non-biodegradable and or recyclable must go somewhere, sadly most of the time it goes back to our own backyards as we neglect the aspect of waste management and environmental protection.

Embracing these ideas we became aware of the emerging societal problems such as the improper waste management and sound recycling practices.

Moreover, environmental demise, poor waste management and lack of livelihood are, for years, been tormenting the…

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Meeting sanitation and energy needs with Biogas

So is it possible to feed a biogas digester with human waste? Yes it is. The problem however is getting enough of it into the digester. The traditional answer to this has been to build latrine stances which feed, by gravity, directly into the digester

Wantokism

So we’ve been doing some investigation into installing biogas into schools which are using huge amounts of firewood for their cooking needs. These are BIG institutions! We’re talking upwards of 1500 boarding students!

There are a lot of challenges with biogas even at a small scale. Most notably for me the pure amount of unsavoury work it takes to feed the beast! The calculations say that about 60% of fuel needs can be met by Biogas…best case.

These schools happen to have a huge problem with sanitation as well. With no water borne sewage they rely on pit latrines. The maintenance of these systems (either digging new ones, or emptying them) imparts another financial cost of the schools. Not to mention the possible damage to the ground water system! In the area we are working there is no ‘honey sucker’ truck to dispose of human waste…it’s dumped on site, in…

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FROM WASTE TO ENERGY

Sweden sends just 1% of its residential solid waste to the landfill, recycling 50% and thermally processing 49% for heat and power generation in their WTE plants (waste to energy).

Planet Earth Weekly

By Lin Smith

August 11, 2013–Sweden, a country of 9 million people, is one of our planet’s leaders in creating a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Their goal is to achieve a completely oil free economy by 2020, replacing fossil fuels with renewable alternatives before “climate change undermines national economies worldwide and diminishing oil supplies force astronomical price increases.” Their renewable alternative–turning trash into power! Although at the present time Sweden relies on other forms of energy, burning of garbage accounts for an equivalent of 810,000 homes being heated and the electrical equivalent of 250,000 homes being powered. The waste to energy plants are burning garbage faster than Swedes can produce it, so their solution? Import garbage from Norway!

Sweden sends just 1% of its residential solid waste to the landfill, recycling 50% and thermally processing 49% for heat and power generation in their WTE plants…

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Cane Straw & Bagasse to Energy

If surplus biomass is required to produce more energy to achieve economical feasibility of investing in more efficient industrial equipment, sugarcane straw is an alternative. With an average yielding of 14 tonnes of dry biomass per hectare, one tonne of this feedstock produces around 700 kWh of energy (depends on industry technology).

An Energy Source Few People Know About

One source of energy that has been around for a long time is the methane gas generated by the wastewater treatment process. Twenty years ago some WWTP’s explored the idea of cogeneration to offset their high energy costs. At the time, the cost of converting the methane gas to energy was more expensive than buying it off the grid. Now that has all changed.

Enviro-Care

As the United States moves toward energy independence, it has been exciting to see the many new sources of energy that are available to this country.  On the renewable energy side of the equation, there are hundreds of projects in the wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, tidal, and biofuels sectors.  Many of these are good sources of renewable energy, although currently some are either not practical or readily available.

One source of energy that has been around for a long time is the methane gas generated by the wastewater treatment process.  Twenty years ago some WWTP’s explored the idea of cogeneration to offset their high energy costs.  At the time, the cost of converting the methane gas to energy was more expensive than buying it off the grid.  Now that has all changed.

Private and public wastewater treatment and landfill facilities have jumped on board this cogeneration movement in order to…

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BioCNG : Fuel of the Future

BioCNG has the abilities and the properties to run any vehicle or motor which can be run on CNG. Every application or motor which uses CNG today, can easily switch to using BioCNG without any hassle. The attributes of BioCNG and CNG are nearly the same in this respect. Thus, BioCNG is the direct and easy replacement of CNG and LPG appliances.

Carbon Clean Solutions

How many times do you wake up to the news of petrol prices hiking? In today’s world with its rampant usage of non-renewable energy resources, this is a major concern for most individuals and organizations. Unfortunately, it doesn’t just stop at petrol and oil resources. Coal and gas are also rapidly running out. As the result effect of the usage of non-renewable resources on the environment is more than alarming, we as the human beings have to accelerate the deployment of more sustainable alternatives.

Although many such sustainable options have been discovered and put to use, the biggest challenge that mankind now faces is the affordability of these options on the whole. However clean a sustainable energy resource be, it must possess the ability of mass production at affordable rates. Only after mass production will an energy resource be considered an actual, viable source.

As of now, we have following…

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Biofuels and energy production dominate Europe’s landscape

Barber's Meaty Issues

After a week in England and a month touring central Europe by road, rail and river, I have gained a superficial impression of the predominant types of agricultural activity in the region. I am talking about Austria, Bavaria, Rhineland and some of the old Communist countries – East Germany, Poland, Slovakia and the CzechRepublic.

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Animal Manure to Solve Energy Problems in Pakistan

Energy from Food Wastes

Jay F. Nelson

Animal waste may become our next source of green energy.

Private corporations in the U.K. have begun investing big bucks to convert leftover food and animal byproducts into a new source of green energy that produces electricity and cuts costs.

Marketplace BBC World Service recently reported that big U.K. chains such as Walmart and Tesco are now actively running some of their stores on electricity converted from leftover foods.

Fish heads, old lamb chops, stale sandwiches, and chicken fat represent just a few of the food waste products whose biogas can be burned to create electricity.

How do you get electricity from stale sandwiches?

Basically speaking, large vats of rotting organic waste ferment in the absence of oxygen in a kind of biogenic bath. Fermentation produces biogases, such as methane, which can be burned to run the machinery that generates green electricity. Anyone who’s kept a compost pile knows that…

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Waste to Energy for India

Melting Coal

Urban India produces 55 million tones of municipal solid waste and 38 billion litres of sewage annually. Further, large amounts of waste are produced by industries.

Waste generation in India is growing at a very fast pace and is expected to rise rapidly in the future. This has mainly been due to industrialization, increase in living standards and urbanization. This waste needs to be contained.  The most profitable and feasible option is conversion of this waste to energy. Advancement in conversion technologies has made it easier to undergo this process thereby minimizing waste and utilizing its energy potential.

Waste to Energy India Scenario

According to the ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE) 2010-11 annual report, there exists a potential of 3600 MW from urban and industrial waste. MNRE is actively promoting the generation of energy from waste by providing incentives and subsidies. Estimates from the Indian renewable energy development…

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Hydrogen’s Energy Potential

The Pipeline

Questions swirl around the idea of bioethanol as an alternative to gasoline for powering transport, but researchers from the University of Birmingham have started creating clean hydrogen from food waste, an idea that could revolutionise the bioenergy industry.

A look at Brazil — the world’s most intensive user of bioethanol — finds that mass-producing bioethanol from sugarcane is not as sustainable in the long-term as would be hoped. Bioethanol generates carbon dioxide as well as agricultural waste.

However, creating clean hydrogen from food waste not only uses up that waste, but provides a fuel that is emissions free and can be generated sustainably.

“Fuel cells need clean energy to run them. If you provide bacteria with a supply of sugary waste from, for example, chocolate production, the bacteria can produce hydrogen,” said Professor Lynne Macaskie, Professor of Applied Microbiology at the University of Birmingham, who presented the research at a collaborative bioenergy…

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