Wind, solar, biomass and hydroelectric is having an impact on your life and could have an even bigger impact in the future. Renewable energy, in the most basic terms, is precisely what it sounds like. It’s power that comes from sources that regenerate, unlike fossil fuels, which only exist in a limited amount.
via Renewable Energy and its Applications — BioEnergy Consult
Public transportation like subway or buses in Sweden’s Hammarby sjostad city are running by 100 percent recycled energy. Hammarby sjostad is known as “the city with zero carbon emission.” It is easy to spot people putting bio-gas in their vehicles at every gas stations in Hammarby sjostad city.
the benefits of wood-based bioenergy all depend on what is harvested, where it is harvested from, how it is harvested, how it is transported, how it is utilized as an energy source, the time horizon considered, and the alternative fate of the feedstock material. An energy portfolio that includes wood-based bioenergy is a better long-term strategy than other viable alternatives.
Much of our nation’s energy (both liquid transportation fuels and electric power) is derived from “fossil fuels,” which include oil, coal, and natural gas.
There are several drawbacks to these energy sources:
The advantages of bioenergy is that it can be renewable, locally…
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Rather than sitting in a landfill, organic wastes such as food leftovers are put into anaerobic digesters that produce biogas rich in methane. This biogas can be used as fuel for heat and power generation, and the stuff that’s leftover can be used as composting material.
Americans throw away about 30% of all food produced domestically each year, and since at least 8% of the U.S. energy budget goes towards bringing food to tables across the country, energy waste is closely tied to food waste [1]. In fact, all of that wasted food equates to about 350 million barrels of oil per year [1].
The energy embedded in food waste comes from many sectors of the food industry: production, transportation, storage, and preparation. Since food waste is a cultural problem, it is not likely that it will stop any time soon. A better solution to waste prevention could be to take advantage of the energy potential of food in our landfills. Rather than sitting in a landfill, organic wastes such as food leftovers are put into anaerobic digesters that produce biogas rich in methane [2]. This biogas can be used as fuel for heat and power…
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Researching the use of biomass in energy production I have found a lot of contention and passionate views on the sustainability of this energy source, particularly where large power stations including the likes of Drax are in the process of switching a significant proportion of their fuel to biomass. As always the situation is a lot more complex than it first appears…
Before we launch into the debate lets first take a look at what ‘biomass fuel’ encompasses and what makes it ‘renewable’
Biomass can be extracted from a variety of sources including crop residues (straw etc.), woody biomass (sawdust etc.), urban waste (untreated wood and paper), forest residues, and short rotation (re-planted or coppiced forest). Some biomass can be directly burned to produce energy; some can be converted into another energy product like biofuel and some can be anaerobically digested to produce methane, which can then be burned to…
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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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Fuel cell technology is emerging as a base-load power generation technology as well as back-up power for intermittent renewable energy such as solar and wind, substituting conventional storage batteries. However, Fuelcell requires a Fuel in the form of Hydrogen of high purity. The advantage of Fuel cell is, its high electrical efficiency compared to conventional fossil fuel power generation technology, using Carnot cycle. Fuel cell is an electro-chemical device like a battery and generates power using electro-chemical redox reaction silently with no gaseous emission, unlike engines and turbines with combustion, rotary movements and gaseous emissions. The fuel Hydrogen can be generated using a renewable energy sources such as solar and wind as described in my previous articles, “Solar Hydrogen for cleaner future” dated 4 July 2012, and “Renewable Hydrogen for remote power supply “dated 28 June 2012.
Alternatively, Hydrogen can also be generated using biomass through Biogas. Biogas…
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By Elton Alisson
Agência FAPESP – Biorefineries, as are called the industrial complexes that produce fuel, electricity and chemicals from biomass, are becoming enterprise capable of converting a wide variety of materials, including agricultural waste, into several products. This process with more energy efficient, economic and environmental benefits compared to conventional technological processes that give rise to only one or two products.
According to Jonas Contiero, a professor at Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Campus of Rio Claro, the first biorefineries plants were characterized by production of ethyl alcohol by grinding dry grains such as raw materials and have a line of fixed production , which consists of ethyl alcohol in co-products and carbon dioxide.
Later, began to emerge in second generation Biorefineries that use technology for grinding “wet”, which enables the production of various final products, depending on demand, using mainly grains as raw materials. There are currently undergoing research…
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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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We live in a technological world where fuel and power play a critical role in shaping our lives and building our nations. The growth of a nation is measured in terms of fuel and power usage; yet there are many challenges and uncertainties in fuel supply and power generation technologies in recent past due to environmental implications. Fossil fuels accelerated our industrial growth and the civilization . But diminishing supply of oil and gas, global warming, nuclear disasters, social upheavals in the Arabian countries, financial problems, and high cost of renewable energy have created an uncertainty in the energy supply of the future. The future cost of energy is likely to increase many folds yet nobody knows for certain what will be the costs of energy for the next decade or what will be the fuel for our cars. Renewable energy sources like solar and wind seem to be…
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Palm Oil processing gives rise to highly polluting waste-water, known as Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME), which is often discarded in disposal ponds, resulting in the leaching of contaminants that pollute the groundwater and soil, and in the release of methane gas into the atmosphere. POME is an oily wastewater generated by palm oil processing mills and consists of various suspended components. This liquid waste combined with the wastes from steriliser condensate and cooling water is called palm oil mill effluent (POME). On average, for each ton of FFB (fresh fruit bunches) processed, a standard palm oil mill generate about 1 tonne of liquid waste with biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) 27 kg, chemical oxygen demand (COD) 62 kg, suspended solids (SS) 35 kg and oil and grease 6 kg
POME has a very high Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), which is 100 times more than the municipal sewage. POME is a non-toxic waste, as no chemical is added during the oil extraction process, but will pose environmental issues due to large oxygen depleting capability in aquatic system due to organic and nutrient contents. The high organic matter is due to the presence of different sugars such as arabinose, xylose, glucose, galactose and manose. The suspended solids in the POME are mainly oil-bearing cellulosic materials from the fruits. Since the POME is non-toxic as no chemical is added in the oil extraction process, it is a good source of nutrients for microorganisms.
Currently, recovery of renewable organic-based product is a new approach in managing POME. The technology is aimed to recover by-products such as volatile fatty acid, biogas and poly-hydroxyalkanoates to promote sustainability of the palm oil industry. In addition, it is envisaged that POME can be sustainably reused as a fermentation substrate in production of various metabolites through biotechnological advances. In addition, POME consists of high organic acids and is suitable to be used as a carbon source
Anaerobic digestion is widely adopted in the industry as a primary treatment for POME. Biogas is produced in the process in the amount of 20 m3per ton FFB. This effluent could be used for biogas production through anaerobic digestion. At many Palm-oil mills this process is already in place to meet water quality standards for industrial effluent. The gas, however, is flared off. Liquid effluents from Palm Oil mills in Southeast Asia can be used to generate power through gas turbines or gas-fired engines.
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