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Date Published:
14 June 2012

Volume 3, Issue 3


Long awaited draft Energy Bill prompts scepticism

Feature
The draft UK Energy Bill that was eagerly anticipated by the renewable energy industry, and delivered by energy secretary Ed Davey in May, has not won many producers and suppliers over with its vision for the future.   The bill was designed to encourage major investment in cleaner energy generation and outlines long-term contracts in both nuclear and renewable sectors, as well as reducing... [read more]

Whatever happened to common sense?

Feature
According to the Commerce Department, the US’ petroleum-related trade deficit for 2011 amounted to $265 billion (€212 billion), and it is costing another $84 billion for the US military to keep the nation’s petroleum transit routes open, not counting what it has been spending in recent years to support its forces in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.   Renewable energy is no... [read more]

Densified fuel standards continue to progress

Feature
In 2009, the US EPA announced that for the first time in 20 years it would be updating its New Source Performance Standard for Residential Wood Heaters (NSPS). The NSPS has traditionally governed emissions from wood stoves. It is anticipated that a revised NSPS would include all wood-burning appliances, including pellet stoves.   The revision of the NSPS suggests that the EPA has... [read more]

New US bill set to help commercialise renewable chemicals

Feature
During April US congressmen Bill Pascrell Junior and Brian Bilbray introduced a bipartisan bill called the Qualifying Renewable Chemical Production Tax Credit, designed to encourage job creation in the biotech sector by providing tax incentives for biotechnology companies that use renewable sources like soyabeans, algae, switchgrass and non-harvested wheat.   The legislation would establish... [read more]

The crystal connection

Feature
Nanocrystalline cellulose — the fundamental crystal structure contained within cellulose — has a number of characteristics which make it suitable for a vast range of uses within industrial applications.   It is very strong, making it ideal for material reinforcement in the construction and transportation industries, for example.   The optical properties of nanocrystalline... [read more]

The pellet Motherland

Feature
Sweden has steadily increased its pellet production over the past few years. The first pellet factory was built in the town of Mora in 1982, when demand was quite low.   The breakthrough in the market occurred nearly 10 years later when Stockholm city decided to convert one of its main power and heating plants, Hässelbyverket (today owned by the power company Fortum), from fossil fuels... [read more]

Leading the way

Feature
Denmark is a country making great strides towards the provision and use of bioenergy and biofuels in northern Europe.   It is home to enzymes developers like Novozymes and Danisco, the former having recently announced a new $200 million (€161 million) plant in Nebraska, US with the sole purpose of helping to advance the biofuels market.   And the country’s largest energy... [read more]

Turning straw into gold

Feature
When Inbicon built a new biomass refinery in the Danish port of Kalundborg, the company set an ambitious goal: to turn 30,000 tonnes of harvest leftovers — baled wheat straw — into 1.5 million gallons of clean, second generation ethanol per year.   Thanks to an innovative energy exchange system, plus a series of patented techniques for extracting renewable fuel from biomass, the... [read more]

Biomass combustion troubleshooting

Feature
The transition to burning biomass for renewable energy is becoming increasingly prevalent among utility companies.   This is due to the rising cost of fossil fuels, more strict environmental regulations to reduce emissions, the increasing demand for utilising renewable fuel sources to reduce CO2 output from fossil fuels, and the general desire to operate equipment more efficiently to... [read more]

Reliable readings

Feature
Anglian Water Services (AWS) serves around 5.8 million wastewater customers and operates 1,114 waste water treatment works in the UK.   Earlier this year the company decided it wanted to quantify methane emissions from its wastewater treatment processes. As these are less well understood and less well defined than indirect carbon emissions associated with electricity use, the company set up... [read more]

Water meets waste

Feature
Organic waste comes from a number of sources in the UK. The major ones are sewage sludge (1.4 million dry tonnes), food waste (10-20 million tonnes) and agricultural slurries (about 90 million tonnes). With anaerobic digestion (AD) infrastructure still at an early stage, a significant proportion of operational AD infrastructure today is at sludge treatment centres located at wastewater treatment... [read more]

Meat market opens up

Feature
The meat processing industry is entering uncharted waters as governments worldwide introduce carbon pricing regimes and expand community awareness about which industries are posing environmental challenges in terms of air and water purity.   Meat processing — including cattle, sheep, pig and poultry plants — will attract increasing attention, both in terms of its energy use to... [read more]

Sugarcane: the new oil

Feature
The international financial crisis has put in check several renewable energy technologies which, regardless of their potential, still require government subsidies to stay afloat.   In Spain the recent RDL 1/2012 law near enough eliminated any subsidies, Feed-in-Tariffs or bonuses to the entire renewable energy sector.   In the US, the VEETC (Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit), which... [read more]

Micronutrients brew benefits for Heineken Spain

Feature
At Heineken Spain’s brewery in Seville, opened in 2007, wastewater generated is treated in the two Waterleaudesigned UASB (Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket) reactors. Although the plant manager, José Manuel Asensio Montenegro, had a lot of experience in treating wastewater, the plant startup did not run smoothly and the anaerobic digesters did not perform as well as expected —... [read more]

Take a load off

Feature
An increasing demand for wood pellets from European utilities has seen wood pellet exports from North America reach a record high.   In 2011, over 2 million tonnes were shipped to Europe; a 300% rise from 2008, according to a report from Wood Resources International.   For the four years between 2008 and 2011, shipments rose in every quarter from 130,000 tonnes in Q1 2008 to 600,000... [read more]