News

Russia is turning to biogas in a bid to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels. According to the Energy Ministry, Russia has the potential to generate 66 billion m3 of biogas a year from agricultural waste. This could produce 110 billion KW/h of electricity, 1 billion GJ of heat or 8.7 billion gallons of petrol or diesel. The Energy and Agriculture Ministries are now urging the Russian government to…
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Construction on a proposed biomass plant in Rothschild, Wisconsin, US, is due to begin shortly, after Domtar, a paper company behind the proposal, agreed to certain conditions. The plant, which is a joint venture between Domtar and energy firm We Energies, was originally announced back in September 2009. According to Craig Timm, manager of public affairs at Domtar, the project is due to break…
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Wyke Farms, a UK-based independent cheese and milk producer, has signed major new deal with supermarket giant Sainsbury's to supply the retailer with green gas generated at its dairy farm in Somerset. The milk producer will supply Sainsbury's with biogas from its anaerobic digestion (AD) plant alongside its cheese and butter products. The company said the deal would see enough green gas provided…
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Canada-based renewable energy firm StormFisher Environmental has acquired an anaerobic digester, called London Energy Garden, from Ontario firm Harvest Ontario Partners. Chris Guillon, vice president of StormFisher Environmental, said: "These developments open up even more opportunities to serve the organic waste processing needs of the region." The facility, which was developed by anaerobic…
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Under RENEW LA, a scheme designed to help the US state of Los Angeles send 0% of its waste to landfill, a new waste-to-energy plant is being developed in the region. Los Angeles has now started contract negotiations with Green Conversion Systems (GCS), which will design and construct the plant. Domestic waste designed for the tip stands at around 3,300 tonnes a day in Los Angeles alone.…
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The owner of the Kawasaki biomass-fired power plant in Yokohama, Japan, could potentially open another in Fiji. Company officials from the Japanese plant and Fiji's President Ratu Epeli Nailatikau met on 21 June 2011 to discuss the possibility of setting up a biomass plant in the country. Fiji is an ideal country in which to develop a bioenergy industry, due to the high availability of wood…
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In Scotland, UK, a wood pellet production plant is being developed that, when operational in March 2012, will produce wood pellets. Land Energy is behind the project, which will come to realisation on a site previously occupied by a textile factory. Work at the site is scheduled to get underway in July 2011. Based in Belfast, Ireland, Lagen Construction will be responsible for the civil,…
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Wood pellet manufacturer Biomass Secure Power is developing a torrefied wood pellet plant in British Columbia, Canada. The production facility will have an annual production capacity of 500,000 tonnes of pellets, made from wood harvested by the company itself. A small portion will come local logging businesses. One hundred per cent of the pellets produced at the site will be exported to Europe…
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In France, bioenergy firm Meta-Bio Energies has broken ground on a biomass-to-biogas plant in Bel-Air de Combrée. The new biogas plant will handle around 23,000 tonnes a year of biomass, including food, agricultural and municipal waste, and convert it into 1MW of energy – enough to benefit around 4,000 households. Electricité de France will purchase the electricity, while the…
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A university has produced jet fuel from a mixture of both coal and biomass feedstocks which will be tailored to be used in US military jet fuel applications. The Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) at the University of North Dakota says its refining technologies helped to produce the coal-biomass feedstock which will be used as another source of fuel that is an alternative to…
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Four Rivers BioEnergy’s UK subsidiary, Verta Energy Trading, is to purchase all the shares of ML Oils, a UK waste oil procurement and handling business. ML Oils currently buys about 6,000 tonnes of waste liquid biomass each year which will be enough to power 4MW of electricity at Verta’s waste-to-energy plant. Last financial year, ML Oils made $4 million (€2.7 million) of revenue…
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BioHiTech America, a US-based technology company which develops data driven solutions for food waste disposal, has partnered with New Jersey-headquartered water management specialist Natural Systems Utilities to convert commercial food waste to energy. The firms will also be working with New Jersey-based utility specialist Ridgewood Green RME and the village of Ridgewood. They will be testing a…
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Metso, an energy company, says it will build the world’s biggest biomass gasification plant for Vaskiluodon Voima in Finland. The plant will provide 140MW to the grid, replacing some coal use with domestic wood-based renewable fuels and helping to cut down on CO₂ emissions. The plant will be located in Vaasa and will be connected to a 565MW coal-fired power plant which uses mostly forest…
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The US-based Florida Keys islands may use gasification technology to convert waste into electricity, according to media reports. According to news website Waste360, Monroe County, which encompasses Key West and about 95% of the rest of the Keys islands, is finalising a contract with Annapolis, Maryland-based Energy3 LLC to build a gasification plant capable of processing 50,000 tonnes of organic…
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