Other News

Veolia has launched an innovative online trading platform with the aim of making it easier to sell and buy organic resources. According to the company, the website could be of use to the anaerobic digestion and biomass industries as a way of trading resources. Dubbed BioTrading, the new website will function as a sales and auction market place. The idea, according to Veolia, is to connect buyers…
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A new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) says the EU could double the renewable share in its energy mix, cost effectively, from 17% in 2015 to 34% in 2030. In order to reach long term decarbonisation goals, the report argues that all renewable transport options – both biofuels and electric vehicles, are necessary. The report also argues that biomass will remain a…
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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a $1.14 million grant to install an innovative new sewage treatment solution to Durban, South Africa. The innovative generator is able to process sewage into nutrients, biogas and clean water. University of South Florida associate professor Dr Daniel Yeh designed his innovative NEWgenerator in response to the stress mass urbanisation puts on…
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The waste-to-energy company is sixth out of the ten companies in the energy list. This year, Apple topped the Fast Company general list of the top fifty most innovative companies. Over three dozen editors, reporters and contributors looked at thousands of companies to make the list. The other companies in the 2018 energy top ten are Green Mountain Power, BYD, Sonnen, Drift Marketplace, WePower,…
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Balmoral Tanks is expanding into the pipe arena, following the acquisition of Chesterfield, UK based Servomac. Established in 1999, Servomac designs, fabricates, installs and tests pipework systems for biogas sector, as well as water and renewable energy. Balmoral Tanks specialises in tank design and storage, as well as treatment products. This includes a broad range of services and installations…
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On 10 – 11 October the International Biomass and Biogas Congress & Expo will take place in Berlin, Germany. Organised by the publishers of Bioenergy Insight, the event in the German capital will unite key figures from the international biomass, biogas and pellet industries to address the most pressing issues facing the bioenergy sector – from the continued confusion over RED II,…
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A report by climate change policy think tanks Sandbag and Agora Energiewende shows that renewables generated more energy than coal in 2017. According to their calculations, renewables as a whole were up from 29.8% to 30% of the EU’s energy mix in 2017. Hydroelectricity was the only green source that was down, at 9.1% from 10.9% in 2016. The numbers come from EUROSTAT and estimates modelled…
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John Laing Environmental Assets Group (JLEN) has invested in the Icknield Farm anaerobic digestion plant in the UK. According to JLEN, a listed environmental infrastructure fund, the investment consists of the provision of a debt facility to repay existing loans, as well as acquisition of a minority equity stake from private individuals who were the project’s developers for an aggregate…
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Enviva, the 'world’s largest' producer of industrial wood pellets, has released its latest Track & Trace data. According to Enviva, Track & Trace is a proprietary data system that enables the pellet producer to monitor every truckload of wood it procures from the forest throughout the entire supply chain process.   Controversy Last year, the Natural Resources Defense Council…
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Anaerobic digestion could be used to provide food for astronauts, according to new research from Pennsylvania State University. The Penn State team has shown that it is possible to rapidly break down solid and liquid waste to grow food in microbial reactors, while simultaneously minimising pathogen growth. "We envisioned and tested the concept of simultaneously treating astronauts' waste with…
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Alkol Biotech and Bio Refinery Development have signed a letter of intent (LOI) for the sourcing of up to 500 thousand tonnes of non-woody lignocellulosic biomass for what would be Europe’s ‘largest’ biorefinery. UK based Alkol Biotech adapts plant varieties to grow in colder and drier climates, have better resistance to pests and diseases, and higher productivities. Its first…
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The cell improves on previous plant and algae-based devices, and its Cambridge creators hope that it will be substantially more cost-effective and practical to implement. The device works using biophotovoltaics (BPVs, also known as biological solar-cells): a method for converting energy from the sun into electricity. During photosynthesis algae produce electrons, which are then used to produce…
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A new study from MIT adds to growing criticism of biomass ahead of RED II decision. The European Biomass Association (AEBIOM) and the US Industrial Pellet Association (USIPA) have both taken out editorial space to make their case for biomass before the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) is finalised. In a new study slated to be published in Environmental Research…
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Although renewables accounted for the vast majority of new EU power capacity in 2016, there are signs that the transition away from fossil fuels has lost some momentum in the past two years. Biofuels makes up the bulk of renewable energy use in the transport sector, according to newly released European Environment Agency (EEA) figures. Progress in that sector as a whole has been slow however,…
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