View Issue Contents

← Go Back

Issue cover
Date Published:
13 March 2018

Volume 9, Issue 2


A new era for the woodchips market

Feature
The wood chip for energy market is starting to see some significant changes due to the advent of some large projects which could open up new supply markets. Traditionally, woodchips have been used across Europe for power and heat generation in small-scale plants, often no larger than 20MW, using locally-sourced wood. It makes sense if you are using locally-sourced wood not to process that wood... [read more]

A powerful story

Feature
With processing plants and deep-waterexport terminals across five US states, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi and Florida, Enviva is the world’s largest producer of industrial wood pellets. The company exports its pellets to power plants in the UK and Europe that were previously fuelled by coal, reducing their lifetime carbon footprint by between 74 and 85%. Enviva also... [read more]

Belt, chain or screw?

Feature
There are various ways in which biomass can be used to generate power, heat or fuel. The predominant technology for biomass utilisation is combustion and co-firing. Other popular methods are gasification, pyrolysis, anaerobic digestion and fermentation. The common feature among all biomass conversion routes is that they all need a steady supply of biomass from the storage facility to the... [read more]

Good vibrations

Feature
It was only in 2017, more than 15 years after the UK introduced its renewables obligation initiative, that renewable power generated more energy than coal and gas. This power came from solar panels, wind farms and the burning of wood pellets. The latter is a form of fuel that has become increasingly popular in recent years. According to statistics shared by WPAC in early 2017, the global demand... [read more]

Grinding out a gasification solution

Feature
Rawlings wood grinders are currently operating at several of the largest biomass power plants in the United States. Since 1976, the company has focused on manufacturing grinding equipment that turns low grade materials like woodwaste into valuable fibre commodities. The United States is currently the largest producer of electricity from biomass having more than half of the world’s installed... [read more]

With innovation comes potential

Feature
In the face of evolving environmental pressures, clients naturally create new ongoing challenges for the firms appointed to handle their ‘waste’. But when installing shredding systems to ensure the effective processing of such materials, operators can often also expand the commercial potential of their business. There was a time when shredding was considered a functional process which... [read more]

A promising new biomass technology

Feature
The interest inenergy carriers from biomass, especially waste-biomass is increasing in view of the global efforts to promote a bio-economy. The use of carbohydrate-based organic residues, such as straw, wood scrap and waste, grass clippings, vegetable waste, sewage sludge or digestate as an energy source is currently in strong focus because of the diverse positive effects of the use of such... [read more]

Small is beautiful

Feature
Two trends are currently dominating the bioenergy industry — a strive to utilise as many potential feedstocks as possible to reduce waste and boost the circular economy, and a drift towards decentralised energy production. Entrade, a company dedicated to the development of carbon negative, micro-CHP units, is at the forefront of both of these trends. Here, Bioenergy Insight speaks with... [read more]

Making bioenergy great again?

Feature
A year and a bit on from the arrival of President DonaldTrump in the White House, the question of how bioenergy developers are faring in the US yields a range of answers depending on who you ask and where they’re located. Starting out with a pretty simple ‘are you better or worse off under Trump’ question, the response from Greg Stangl, chair of BAC, was extremely positive,... [read more]

AD in the Golden State

Feature
Dairy farmers face regulatory challenges today that did not exist a generation ago. In addition to manure/nutrient management and water consumption issues, new regulations for air quality and land management add to the complexities of the health and production of dairy cows. Future regulations will likely further complicate this. There are, however, options; with careful foresight and planning,... [read more]

Stepping up to the plate

Feature
Municipalities, businesses and residents increasingly choose to divert their organics from landfill-bound waste streams. It’s the circular economy at its finest: what was waste becomes a resource. These organic materials, or feedstocks, then trundle down an evolving path: one that is shape-shifting each year as the relevant components to facilitate a closed loop of energy and nutrients... [read more]

Biogas: opportunities for you and me

Feature
The European renewable energy industry knows that the EU’s revised Renewable EnergyDirective, (RED II) is going to have a huge impact on their prospects. “This single piece of legislation will impact the entire industrial segment for the next decade, which is incomparable with any previous legal item because all of these 2020 targets were in [multiple] pieces of legislation”,... [read more]

Working towards an integrated European biomethane market

Feature
The European Renewable Gas Registry (ERGaR) is striving to create an ‘independent, transparent and trustworthy’ administrative system to facilitate cross border transactions of renewable gases across Europe. On 15 December 2017, ERGaR announced it had submitted an application to the European Commission to be recognised as a voluntary scheme under the Renewable Energy Directive (RED).... [read more]

Could poultry manure be the future for bioenergy?

Feature
Late in 2017, Professors Amit Grossand Vivian Mau fromBen-Gurion Universityof the Negev in Israelreleased a study claimingthat when converted to combustible solid biomass,the treated excrement of chickens, turkeys and other poultry could replace approximately 10% of the coal used in electricity generation. Key to the researchers’ work is hydrothermal carbonisation, a process first developed... [read more]