Other News

More than 40% of the electricity generated on Christmas Day came from renewable sources, according to a Drax-commissioned report. On average, 12.4GW of electricity generated came from green sources – 63% more than in 2015 when just 25% of the electricity generated came from renewables, and up 195% compared to five Christmases ago in 2012 when just 4.2GW (or 12% of the energy generated) came…
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The use of residual forest biomass for rural development faces significant economic hurdles that make it unlikely to be a source of jobs in the near future, according to new research by economists from Oregon State University. In a model of the forest industry, researchers in the College of Forestry combined an evaluation of costs for collecting, transporting and processing biomass with the…
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China will invest 2.5 trillion yuan ($361 billion) into renewable power generation by 2020, as it moves away from coal to renewable energy.  The investment will create more than 13 million jobs in the sector, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said in a document that lays out its plan to develop the nation's energy sector during the five-year 2016 to 2020 period. The NEA said installed…
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A new 15-year combined heat and power (CHP) contract is set to provide low carbon electricity and heat to Churchill College in the University of Cambridge. The contract will continue the energy services started in 1993 and see one of the latest generation of Veolia CHP units installed to provide the campus with secure energy supplies.   The service will replace the previous CHP that had…
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US researchers have maintained that miscanthus, long speculated to be the top biofuel producer, yields more than twice as much as switchgrass in the US using an open-source bioenergy crop database gaining traction in plant science, climate change, and ecology research. "To understand yield trends and variation across the country for our major food crops, extensive databases are available —…
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North India-based city Jaipur’s waste-to-energy plans have hit a roadblock due to the lack of a power purchase agreement (PPA), according to media reports. The Times of India reported that officials said that, in November 2015, the JMC had given its consent letter to establish the plant. Following this, the government departments and awarded company had to sign a PPA with Vidyut…
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Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources Association’s (ADBA) chief executive Charlotte Morton has written an open letter to the editor of UK-based newspaper The Mail on Sunday in response to the article published on AD on 1 January 2017, claiming it was misleading. The article, written by journalist David Rose and published on 1 January, claimed that AD plants increasingly rely on special…
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Martin McGuinness has stepped down as Northern Ireland's deputy first minister in protest against the handling of the renewable heat incentive (RHI) scheme that could cost taxpayers £490m, accoridng to media reports.  The Sinn Féin MLA's resignation took effect from 5pm GMT Monday, according to the BBC. He cited the Democratic Unionist Party's (DUP) conduct over the RHI…
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China Everbright International has signed an investment agreement with the municipal government of Can Tho to develop its energy-from-waste (EfW) project in Vietnam. In a statement, the Hong Kong-based environmental services specialist said it had obtained a project investment license issued by the municipal government. In attendance at the signing ceremony were representatives of the Vietnamese…
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Signing off for Xmas. The editorial team will be closed for the festive period from Wednesday 21 December 2016. The team will be in the office and back to business on Tuesday 3rd January 2017. Have a wonderful, relaxing break and we'll see you all next year!
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Irish agri-tech business BHSL has agreed to sell eight of its manure-to-energy units to UK-based poultry farms. In a statement, the company said that the move has generated €13 million in sales. The firm manufactures manure-to-energy technology which is aimed at transforming the environmental impact of the global poultry industry. The eight new BHSL Energy Centre units will all be installed…
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Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Vinod Khosla, Jack Ma, John Doerr and 15 other high-profile investors have formed a new venture firm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, that will pour at least $1 billion (€943,000,00m) into cleantech companies over the next 20 years. The firm’s goal, according to its own website will be: “to provide everyone in the world with access to reliable,…
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Denmark’s largest power station Avedøre is now producing energy from wood pellets instead of coal. This is a major step towards Copenhagen's goal of being CO2-neutral by 2025. For the past 18 months, Avedøre Power Station has been converting its coal-fired power station unit, and the entire CHP plant is now able to produce electricity and heat based on wood pellets and straw,…
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Officials in the US state of Maine have approved a $13 million (€12m) taxpayer subsidy to reopen or keep open several biomass electricity generation plants in the state. According to Maine Public.com, earlier this year, lawmakers approved a plan to use surplus state revenues to prop up the biomass industry, and the forest-products workers who depend on it, by supplementing the prices the…
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