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We’ve been hearing more and more in recently about biogas, and the trend continues in California, where Republic Services and Ameresco have announced plans for a 4.3 megawatt (MW) capacity landfill gas-to-electricity plant at the Vasco Road Landfill in Livermore.
Video shows an Amersco Methane Plant on another landfill.
Ameresco–which plans to capture the landfill gas generated at the plant and use it as fuel to generate power for homes and businesses in the Santa Clara and San Francisco Bay Area–has entered into a 20-year power purchase agreement with Silicon Valley Power, the City of Santa Clara’s electric utility, for the power from the project. This will help Silicon Valley Power meet its renewable energy obligations under California’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, which mandates that utilities serve 33 percent of their total load with renewable energy by 2020.
Republic Services is no stranger to landfill gas plants in California, having completed six of them already with a total generating capacity of 41 MW. Brian Bales, executive vice president business development for Republic, noted, in a statement, that in addition to converting gas from a landfill into renewable-based electricity, the project’s construction and operation will add new green jobs and economic benefits to the local economy.
The Vasco Road Landfill gas plant is scheduled to commence operations in late 2012.
Related Stories Tags Ameresco, biogas, california, Republic Services
VERBIO Vereinigte Bioenergie AG’s biogas plant in Zörbig, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, is now feeding into MITGAS Netz’ high pressure gas grid. Looking at biogas in Central Europe.
Note: Video and article are not associated.
Biogas could be an important part of EU’s 2020 targets for renewable energy, and the EU project Sustainable and Innovative European Biogas Environment (SEBE) is now looking at technology and regulatory frameworks for biogas. Europe adopts report on biomass sustainability
The European Commission has adopted a report on sustainability requirements for the use of solid biomass and biogas in electricity, heating and cooling, concluding that more detailed legislation is not necessary at this stage. Growth in biogas predicted in Germany
About 760 biogas plants were connected to the German national electricity grid in 2009 - three times the number in 2007 - according to estimates by the German Biogas Association. This is around 100 times more than exist in the UK. Introduction to feed-in tariffs
The feed-in tariff is often held up as a ‘must’ for renewable energy to succeed. David Jacobs explores feed-in tariffs in all shapes and forms, and illustrates what should be taken into consideration when designing them.
11 February 2011
Conergy AG, based in Hamburg, Germany, announces that it has sold its biogas subsidy EUPRON to RES Projects, specialists in biomethane installation.
With this sale RES Projects will acquire a number of biogas ventures at different developmental levels amounting to more than 23 MW of energy being generated from biogas activities.
These new biogas projects are to be installed in the next few years and will be mainly located in Germany.
Published: Feb 11, 2011 The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released its list of the top 50 partner organizations using the most on-site renewable electricity, under its Green Power Partnership.
The Green Power Partnership works with more than 1300 partner organizations to voluntarily purchase green power to reduce the environmental impacts of conventional electricity use.
Overall, partners are using more than 19 TWh of green power annually.In the specialized, on-site renewables category, the top 50 list is headed by the Kimberley-Clark Corporation, which uses on-site biomass plants to supply 180 GWh per year, or around 7%, of its total electricity use.
The City of San Diego uses on-site biogas, small-scale hydro and solar technologies to supply 70 GWh per year, more than a quarter of its total electricity use.
Third place is taken by the US Air Force, which uses biogas, solar and on-site wind to supply 62 GWh per year, although this represents just 1% of its total electricity use.The next largest users of on-site renewables are Wal-Mart Stores,
BMW Manufacturing and the City of San Jose.Among the entities with the largest proportion of total electricity use sourced from on-site renewables are the Encina Wastewater Authority and the City of Tulare wastewater treatment plant, which use biogas to generate 63% and 38% of their total electricity use.
Other partner organizations of note are the hair product manufacturer Zotos International, which uses on-site wind to generate 60% of its total use; and the City of Ann Arbor, which generates nearly a third of its total electricity use from biogas, small-scale hydro and solar technologies.
Largest biogas plant opens in the Netherlands - 8 February 2011
The 7 February 2011 saw Dutch fish processing company A van de Groep open its biogas plant.
We could not find a video about the plant referred to in this article so we decided to include the video above of another Dutch anaerobic-digestion project.
Located in Spakenburg, the Netherlands, the facility is one of the largest in the nation. It has enough capacity to provide 3,500 households with gas.
At the plant, fish and other food waste is converted into 6 million m3 of renewable energy annually. That is 6% of the total biogas produced in the Netherlands.
Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) and the city of Escondido in southern California have begun testing a biogas purification technology at the city’s wastewater treatment plant that, if successful proved, would allow the gas to be directly injected into a natural gas pipeline.
The above video is not associated with the article, but we thought it would be of interest to our readers.
What makes the system unique in nature is that instead of burning or flaring the methane without generating energy, which is currently done at the facility and is typical at wastewater treatment plants because the gas is not suitable for pipelines, the pressure swing adsorption system takes the raw gas originating from sewage, upgrades and purifies it through a multistate process to meet pipeline-quality gas standards for direct injection. Quebec-based Xebec Adsorption Inc. provided the technology.
Denise King, SoCalGas spokeswoman, said the company has been working with the city for more than a year on the project, which is being funded by the company’s research and development group. “We’re testing this technology and validating that it can consistently, reliably produce methane gas that meets the stringent California gas standards for injection into the pipeline system,” she said. Testing will continue for the next 12 months.
With completion of the demo project, there are a number of options as to what the next step will be, a likely one is that the city will choose to commercialize the equipment and keep it on site, according to King.
If the city makes that decision, some other costs would be involved, including an interconnection with the pipeline system, but it would eventually save ratepayers money.
“We’re very excited about this project, because it’s the first in California and there’s only one other similar project in the U.S.,” King said. “If the technology proves itself, it would open up a whole new market for renewable natural gas that could be used by electric utilities to create green power. Yesterday [the system] was producing 99.9 percent methane, and that’s exactly what we want and expect.”
SoCalGas has been closely evaluating the potential for a renewable natural gas market, according to King. “We’re looking to help create the market, talking with dairies, wastewater treatment facilities and others that have organic waste. “
The opportunities to transform organic waste into power are seemingly boundless, King points out. For example, Gills Onion, the largest onion producer in California, uses its waste to produce energy to power fuel cells on-site. “In California, there’s probably enough organic waste to produce 16 percent of the state’s energy,” King said. “We think this is a growing market, and we’re working to help make it happen.”
Sustainable technology specialist, Metso has won a 30 million Euro order to supply a gasifier to Swedish energy supplier, G?teborg GoBiGas20MW project.
The video above may not be associated with this article.
The GoBiGas20MW project aims to use gasification of forest waste and biofuels to produce bioga. A demo gasification plant is scheduled to be built in two stages to demonstrate the technology of the green gas concept.
The first stage will supply around 20MW gas, and is due to be operational in early 2013.
Stage one is to be built in the Rya harbour, on the same site as the existing Rya hot water plant. The plan for the location of Stage 2 is on a nearby plot of land with jetty access.
G?teborg Energi say that the location was chosen so that the plant is close to a hub for Gothenburg's electricity, gas and district heating, and also allows a long-term and flexible fuel reception because it has the potential for both ship and rail transport. Cooling water to the process can be taken from adjacent G?ta River.
Metso will be involved in the first stage when the gasification plant is built on the existing premises of Rya V?rmecentral in Gothenburg, Sweden. The final plant will have a capacity of approximately 100 MW biogas, and an operating period of 8000 hours per year.
Ownership and responsibility for operating the plant will be transferred to GoBiGas AB, mainly owned by G?teborg Energi AB.
With forest residue and wood pellets as the main fuels, the gasification system, together with the subsequent methanation and up-grading system, will produce high-calorific gas, biomethane, for distribution in the existing gas grid.
"We see a huge market potential for biogas in replacing fossil alternatives and our mission is to show that gasification can play an important role in biogas supply", says ?sa Burman, CEO of the GoBiGas project.
"The quality of the gasification is essential for the success of the project and with the equipment from Metso together with the selected methanation and gas-upgrading technology we are now able to proceed to the next step, building the plant in order to meet our targets to replace natural gas by synthetic natural gas - from fossil energy to renewable energy".
Metso says that its gasification solution is based on new licensed technology for indirect gasification developed by Austrian company REPOTEC.
Utilization of biomass as an alternative energy source has attracted people to promote its use. This is caused by a decline in fossil energy reserves. This is a dangerous point for energy security in the last decade.
To avoid future energy crises, they began to increase use of renewable energy sources such as biomass. More than that, the use of fossil fuels increases the concentration of sulfur and greenhouse gases in nature.
Governments in various countries around the world have adopted policies favorable to the use of biomass as an energy alternative. So that industry players will get a subsidy from the government.
Biomass can be used as energy with a wide variation. Utilization of biomass produces electricity, heat for industrial facilities, home heating and fuels vehicle.
Conversion of biomass for energy is called bio-energy. This conversion can be achieved with some solutions that thermochemical and biochemical technologies. Thermochemical process is divided into three technology solutions are combustion, gasification and pyrolysis.
To understand the meaning of each Technology solution, we can learn from the final product On combustion, have the final product steam, process heat and electricity energy. Each has its own type of function. Steam can be used to drive steam engines, while the heat can be used for processing in the chemical industries.
The final products of electric can be used more flexibly. This product of gasification is the steam, the process of heat, electrical energy and methane gas fuel and hydrogen. Methane and hydrogen can be used as a fuel cell system. This system is increasingly popular as the technology of the future.
Pyrolysis technology solutions, has the final product is charcoal, coal and bio-gas fuel. Charcoal and bio-coal can be an analogy as coal but more environmentally friendly. This is because emissions from the production of bio-coal and charcoal lower than coal. Biochemical process produces anaerobic digestion the technology solution. This technology has the final product of ethanol, water for irrigation, compost and biogas.
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Many governments, towns and communities throughout the Western world are making new rules concerning the treatment of Municipal Solid waste (MSW). New concepts of waste management are needed in which the idea of recycling is of major importance.
Incineration will be used for the easily burnable fraction of what cannot be recycled, and for some kinds of hazardous wastes such as hospital waste, while the left over will be disposed of in sanitary MSW landfills.
The recycling of products is best done at source by the public when they put their waste out for collection and this is called source separation. However, if the waste is mixed up when collected it can still be separated again by mechanical separation plants or by hand picking using human labour and a conveyor.
The plants in which the separation of mixed wastes is carried out are usually called Mechanical Bioligical Treatment Plants, or MBTs. These plants cost a lot to build, are expensive to run. They also use a lot of power which reduces the value of recycling by expending non-renewable energy in the process.
The last decade has seen source separation introduced in many countries, especially in Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and Canada. Now, more recently source separation is being implemented in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe now that European Waste Regulations require so much of the MSW produced not to be landfilled.
The most important reasons to separate waste at the source are:
- The difficulty to find sites for new landfills and the negative attitude of the public towards landfilling and incinerating.
- Source separation improves the quality of the products which will have to be recycled. The fact that the organic fraction is separated from the inorganic fraction means that the organic fraction will have a low concentration of heavy metals and will be free of metals, glass and stones, while the inorganic fraction will be drier and less dirty.
The degree of recycling which can be achieved depends of the system used for source separation but it is the highest if the separated waste is picked up at the houses in separate containers.
A high percentage of recycling can only be achieved though by recycling the organic fraction of MSW whereby anaerobic techniques such as the anaerobic digestion process are very promising since they not only produce a humus-like residue, comparable to the compost produced in aerobic conversion techniques, but also a form of energy, biogas, which can be easily upgraded to several forms of valuable energy.
So, by source separating your waste you can make a difference - especially if there is an Anaerobic digestor in your area.
Why not find out more about waste technologies, and encourage your friends to recycle. Your children and later generations will benefit - don't they deserve the same opportunities you had?
Changing the way the earth is affected by the consumption of oil is a top priority for many right now. It is a global concern that directly affects each and every person for many generations to come. Reducing the consumption of fossil fuels can be done in many ways. The alternatives to petroleum gasoline vary from green vehicles to different fuel sources altogether. Biogas is another way that vehicles and machinery can be powered as an alternative to burning fossil fuels. It is currently undergoing investigation and study in the hopes that it may one day be a leading energy source.
Biogas is created during the breaking down of organic waste inside a landfill. It is called anaerobic digestion. Organic matter such as plant life releases the gas after it has been buried without any oxygen for awhile. A landfill will actually generate biogas for many years after the organic waste has been buried. This gas has been proven to be effective in producing energy that can be used to power cars. There are now landfills designed just for the purpose of creating biogas.
Biogas is actually made up of several different types of gases. The two primary gases found in biogas are carbon dioxide and methane. Along with that can be various traces of oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen. The biogas does have to be put through a cleaning process before it can be used. Once it is ready though it could possibly power everything from cars to businesses. It can even be used for cooking.
Collecting biogas from the landfill is a pretty large task. It involves the use of gas wells which have to be drilled to properly obtain the biogas. The cost involved in this can be quite substantial which may be one of the downfalls to the use of this fuel source. Sweden is currently running a train solely on biogas between the cities Linkoeping and Vaestervik. The biogas used in the train is derived primarily from the waste of cattle and sewage. It certainly is interesting to see how waste can be made into something viable and useful.
Biogas certainly has other great attributes. It has far less carbon dioxide than diesel and gasoline. The emissions do not contain any of the same toxins and fossil fuels. If it could be obtained easier then perhaps it would be useful to the general public. However, even the best resources will have disadvantages. There are many pollutants that can be found in the burning of biogas which makes it an environmental risk. There is also a really high risk of bacteria because the management of it can be very sensitive. Production of biogas is not a simple process at all. The hard work involved does make biogas rather difficult to obtain.
Biogas simply is not common enough for public consumption at this point. Perhaps with more time and work it could become something that would be a great option that would also help the earth. Biogas remains a fantastic option that is still better than fossil fuels.
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It seems like everywhere you look there are more and more fossil fuel alternatives being investigated. From ethanol to air, literally everything has been considered. Biogas is another one of these possibilities.
It might be a term that is not familiar to some but it is not all that new of a resource because it is completely natural. Biogas comes from the anaerobic digestion of organic matter. In simple terms, this means that organic waste is compressed in a certain way that creates biogas which can be used as fuel. In fact, it is so natural that it almost makes one wonder why we did not consider using it sooner.
Biogas is created in landfills. When organic matter such as compost or natural waste is buried without oxygen, it starts to create a gas. This is biogas and it can be contained and used to produce energy. A landfill that is properly designed will produce biogas for several years. This gas is released into the earth's atmosphere, so it just makes sense that harnessing it and making use of it would be a better solution. As far as natural resources go, this might be one of the best.
For the most part biogas is made up of carbon dioxide and methane. However, quite often there are also varying quantities of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and various other natural gases. Special wells have to be drilled in order to properly get biogas out of a landfill. It is a much more efficient way of capturing all of the gas. At this time there is a train in Sweden that is currently powered by biogas. The use of sewage and cow waste is the primary fuel source for that train. It has been determined that biogas has virtually no trace of toxic emissions in comparison with fossil fuels.
There are several great benefits to using biogas as fuel. Not only does it produce much needed energy but it also eliminates all of the organic waste in landfills by giving it a purpose. This in turn also improves conditions in landfills regarding insects and the reduction of pathogens. Reducing the amount of methane in the earth's atmosphere is also a good idea which biogas helps with as well. Those that are interested in the benefits of biogas should do the necessary research in order to understand it better. As consumers and members of this earth, we all must do our part to make an educated choice.
There are a handful of disadvantages associated with biogas as well. The actual product value of biogas is incredibly low, which does not necessarily make it economically feasible. The process that is required to obtain biogas can also be quite expensive since special wells must be drilled. There is also reason to believe that some of the gases in biogas are corrosive to metal. This can be a problem because metal is a major component of automobile engines. Weighing the benefits and disadvantages is necessary in order to conclude if biogas will work for you. Enjoy your car and find the best deal on the insurance coverage you need. Visit us for money-saving tips, no-obligation auto insurance comparisons and advice for finding affordable insurance rates at Auto Insurance Rates Direct.
Green energy refers to the use of power that is not only more efficient than fossil fuel but that is friendly to the environment as well. Green energy is generally defined as energy sources that dont pollute and are renewable.
There are several categories of green energy. They are anaerobic digestion, wind power, geothermal power, hydropower on a small scale, biomass power, solar power and wave power. Waste incineration can even be a source of green energy.
Nuclear power plants claim that they produce green energy as well, though this source is fraught with controversy, as we all know. While nuclear energy may be sustainable, may be considered renewable and does not pollute the atmosphere while it is producing energy, its waste does pollute the biosphere as it is released.
The transport, mining and phases before and after production of nuclear energy does produce and release carbon dioxide and similar destructive greenhouse gases. When we read of green energy, therefore, we rarely see nuclear power included.
Those who support nuclear energy say that nuclear waste is not, in fact, released into our earths biosphere during its normal production cycle. They stress as well that the carbon dioxide that nuclear energy production releases is comparable, in terms of each kilowatt hour of electricity, to such sources of green energy as wind power.
As an example of the green energy production the average wind turbine, such as the one in Reading England, can produce enough energy daily to be the only energy source for 1000 households.
Many countries now offer household and commercial consumers to opt for total use of green energy. They do this one of two ways. Consumers can buy their electricity from a company that only uses renewable green energy technology, or they can buy from their general supplies such as the local utility company who then buys from green energy resources only as much of a supply as consumers pay for.
The latter is generally a more cost - efficient way of supplying a home or office with green energy, as the supplier can reap the economic benefits of a mass purchase. Green energy generally costs more per kilowatt hour than standard fossil fuel energy.
Consumers can also purchase green energy certificates, which are alternately referred to as green tags or green certificates. These are available in both Europe and the United States, and are the most convenient method for the average consumer to support green energy. More than 35 million European households and one million American households now buy these green energy certificates.
While green energy is a great step in the direction of keeping our environment healthy and our air as pollutant free as possible, it must be noted that no matter what the energy, it will negatively impact the environment to some extent.
Every energy source, green or otherwise, requires energy. The production of this energy will create pollution during its manufacture. Green energys impact is minimal, however.
James Copper owns www.propertycareerskills.co.uk who offer energy training and assessment.
