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Date Published:
29 October 2018

Volume 9, Issue 6


Beacons for the future

Feature
Sharing our regional focus this issue between Asia and Africa seems, at first glance, to be an attempt to compare the bioenergy equivalents of chalk and cheese. Just about wherever you look in Asia there’s something happening on the bioenergy front, while Africa appears to be quite the opposite, at least on the surface. Viewed from another perspective, however, the two continents command... [read more]

The demand for biomass in Japan

Feature
Providing us with insight into the wood pellet industry in Japan is Enviva, the world’s largest producers of wood pellets. Enviva’s seven plants around the South-Eastern United States produce over 3 million metric tons of wood pellets per year. These pellets are then largely exported topower plants in the United Kingdom and Europe that were once fuelled by coal. Optimistic about the... [read more]

Untapped potential

Feature
The biogas industry in Asia appears to be growing and as it does, so does the necessity for prosperous biogas plants. The region is looking to reduce its methane emissions generated from wastewater, consequently creating a demand for biogas fuel rather than fossil fuels. German biogas company EnviTec, covers the entire value chain for the production of biogas. They plan as well as turnkey the... [read more]

Opening doors onto a huge market

Feature
Innovative UK-listed technology firm Eqtec has ambitious goals for its advanced gasifier conversion technology following a successful 2018. Here, Bioenergy Insight speaks with its newly appointed CEO, Ian Price, to discuss current plans and the company’s future, including exciting advancements in the Asian gasification market.

Biochar opportunities knock

Feature
While planning for future growth,the City of Lebanon’s mayor and council were looking for a “green” way to address the growing municipal solid waste issues. The closest and largest landfill, just in the next county, was (and still is) filling up fast and expecting to close in a few years. Lebanon, Tennessee, USA, is located 25 miles east of downtown Nashville. The city engaged... [read more]

Reduce CO2 and save the planet

Feature
Animal manure has become a modern pollution problem, worldwide. Where to dispose the tons of manure produced per day and how to reduce production of CO2? Mavitec Environmental— part of Mavitec Group, a leader in the rendering industry — has developed an innovative gasification system that converts various kinds of manure into green energy and high value EcoChar :a powerful soil... [read more]

Biomass trains and robots

Feature
The Drax power station in North Yorkshire, UK, is currently undertaking a major pilot project to see if the use of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can help manage the booking in of millions of tonnes of fuel delivered to the power station each year. The UK’s biggest power station, two thirds of Drax’s facility currently runs on biomass. Each day, around 20 freight trains deliver the... [read more]

Contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Feature
In Denmark wood-waste such as sawdust, shavings and wood chips used to present a major challenge. Oil and other energy sources were cheap and the wood wastes had no significant economic value, while the lack of storage space created inefficiencies in production. Instead of giving an economicbenefit, most of the waste was given away for free to different types of workshops to soak up oil spills,... [read more]

Double benefit

Feature
Degassing of manure in a biogas plant before using it as a fertiliser in agriculture not only yields a cash gain to the owner of the plant, but also a remarkably large environmental profit. The immediate environmental benefit comes from the fact that fossil fuels are replaced by an equivalent amount of methane, typically in the form of renewable natural gas. The actual environmental gain is,... [read more]

A commercial incentive to heed IPCC's warnings

Feature
The recent publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on global warming provided dire warnings of devasting climate change unless we can reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. According to the United Nations, the world will be 2.7°C warmer than preindustrial levels by 2030, resulting in significant increases in sea level, violent storms and crop... [read more]

Stripping away pollution

Feature
Byosis’ ByoFlex stripping technology is especially designed to remove ammonia from manure, digestate or heavily polluted industrial wastewater with minimum heat consumption. Removal efficiency can be as high as 95%, but 60-80% is more common, according to the company. Nitrogen is recovered as a valuable liquid fertiliser in the form of ammonium sulphate or ammonium nitrate. Depending on... [read more]

Keeping the bugs happy and the gas flowing

Feature
For those who are unfamiliar with AB Agri, our speciality is feed. For over 30 years we have been supplying feedstocks to the animal feed industry, with an expert team of nutritionists able to produce precise specifications to suit all climates and demands on livestock. Four years ago, we turned our skills to anaerobic digestion.