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This is the first time we have heard of the tobacco inductry using anaerobic-digestion to provide heat and power plus digestate fertilizer usiing their orgnaic waste as the "fuel". We have included the Press Release issued by the Biogas EPC company involved, below:
An international biogas plants construction company will supply a 999 kW el. co-generation heat power unit for “Virginia Trade,” one of the largest manufacturers of tobacco products in Italy.
Maintaining high level of vertical integration, “Virginia Trade” owns an agricultural company growing tobacco for its merchandise. Merchandise Biogas for the co-generation unit will be produced from corn silage supplied by the subsidiary.
With four earlier orders from Italian companies for technical design of biogas plants, current contract is the first to move to equipment supply stage for Zorg Biogas AG.
About ZORG:
ZORG executes full range of engineering services within biogas industry. The company designs and builds biogas plants under German state-of-art technology and know-how license.
ZORG works on a global scale: company’s projects have been successfully implemented in 12 countries, such as Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Latvia, Turkey, Russia, Moldavia and Indonesia.
ElectraTherm has installed its first Green Machine in Austria. The wonderfully-named power producing facility has been installed at a biogas power generation facility to increase electrical production at the site without adding fuel or emissions. The site produces biogas through the anaerobic digestion process to fire a 500kWe GE Jenbacher 312, generating electricity to power up the local grid while using heat to dry crops during harvest. With the addition of the Green Machine, we are told that the excess engine heat will now be utilized to generate additional electricity. This is claimed to be the first known application where an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is incorporated into a biogas facility to supplement this efficient use of renewable energy. Please click through to visit the original article for full details:
ElectraTherm's Green Machine generates distributed power from waste heat, and patent pending technology offers unprecedented efficiency and flexibility for biogas power plants with anaerobic digesters. Hot water enters the Green Machine at 190 degreesF (88 degreesC), where it heats a working fluid into a pressurized vapor, using ORC technology. The high pressure vapor expands through ElectraTherm's patented twin screw power block, spinning an electric generator and creating up to 65kWe. For the size engine and available waste heat at this site the power generated averages at 32kWe. Since its commissioning in September 2011, the machine has operated approximately 3,000 runtime hours.
The anaerobic digestion process requires heating of the anaerobic digester tanks, to keep the bacteria at the appropriate temperature to effectively decompose the biomass to create methane (biogas). The system is designed to recover as much waste heat as possible to sustain the anaerobic digestion process as well as produce fuel free, emission free electricity using the ElectraTherm Green Machine.
The Jenbacher 312 engine is equipped with an exhaust gas heat exchanger designed to combine both the heat available in the exhaust and the heat available in the jacket water into a single heat stream. The waste heat from the engine is used to heat the anaerobic digestion process, as well as dry maize after harvest. The excess heat not needed to optimize the anaerobic digestion process and the seasonal grain drying is utilized by the Green Machine to produce fossil-fuel free electricity 24/7 as required.
"In addition to increasing plant efficiency, the power generated by the Green Machine meets Feed-In Tariff requirements by the utility, which can pay up to 18.5 Euro cents per kWe," said Karl Leisch, President of WTI and project developer. "The value of the Green Machine provides a significant revenue stream for 20 years."
ElectraTherm is exhibiting at Bio Gas World 2012 in booth number C46. The event takes place February 21-25, 2012 in Berlin, Germany.
About ElectraTherm, Inc. ElectraTherm, Inc. is a renewable energy company headquartered in Reno, Nevada. ElectraTherm's product, the Green Machine, generates fuel-free, emission-free power from low temperature waste heat using the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) and patented technology. Our machines are modular, robust power generators with an attractive payback. For more information on ElectraTherm and its clean energy products, please visit www.electratherm.com .
For More Information, Contact: Celeste Dodge Email Contact 775.398.4690
Nestlé: green waste treatment plans given go-ahead Post a commentBy Lynda Searby, 24-Aug-2011
Nestlé’s plans to build an anaerobic digestion plant for treating waste at its Fawdon site in Newcastle, UK, have been given the green light by planners.
The facility will receive all of the solid food waste and waste water generated by the factory, which makes much of the Rowntree range, including fruit gums and pastilles, as well as a number of other confectionery lines such as Caramac, Rolo, Munchies, After Eight Bitesize, Matchmakers, Drifter, Blue Riband and Breakaway.
The plant will treat 80,000 cubic metres of factory waste water annually to generate biogas that can be used to heat/power the factory and facilitate the recycling of ‘grey’ water back into factory processes. It will also recover energy from the 1,200 tonnes of waste food that arises from the confectionery production operation, of which 500 tonnes is currently sent to landfill and 700 tonnes ends up as animal feed.
The process will leave a residue of about 200 tonnes a year, which is rich in nutrients and can be used as an agricultural fertiliser.
The planners at Newcastle City Council who approved the scheme, said: “The proposals will result in less waste being required to be transferred to landfill sites and will equally decrease the amount of energy that is used by the factory from non-renewable sources... the proposals will benefit the business by using energy and water more efficiently, culminating in lower costs, reduced emissions and improved environmental performance and compliance.”
A Nestlé spokesperson told ConfectioneryNews.com: “We are delighted that Newcastle City Council has supported Nestlé Fawdon by approving the application for this facility. This project supports Nestlé’s commitment to sustainable manufacturing in the UK with Fawdon taking lead. In addition, the factory has recently planted a wild flower meadow within the factory grounds, creating a mini wildlife sanctuary with the aim of attracting many species of butterfly back to the area.”
Anaerobic digestion is a process in which micro-organisms break down degradable material in the absence of oxygen. The process is widely used to treat industrial waste water and is now seen as a renewable energy source. An efficient anaerobic process produces biogas (methane, hydrogen and carbon dioxide). This biogas can be used to generate heat and/or electricity. The process also negates the need for waste to be transferred to landfill.
Last October a young entrepreneur named Daniel Bida got together with a group of like-minded individuals and approached the management of the Toronto Zoo with an innovative idea.
They knew the zoo was interested in building a biogas facility that could turn manure from elephants, giraffes and other animals into renewable electricity and heat. They also knew that after several years of trying the zoo, despite its good intentions, couldn’t make it happen. The project it envisioned was simply too complex and risky for commercial investors.
Bida proposed a new approach: build a smaller, more manageable facility and open up investment to the broader community through the issuance of bonds.
He was inspired after watching Toronto’s Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) purchase and retrofit a building using $2 million it had raised selling community bonds at $10,000 apiece. The bonds, which could be purchased by anyone, offered a 4 per cent annual rate of return over five years and were RRSP-eligible.
If the banks wouldn’t lend the money to a not-for-profit organization like CSI, then individuals who support the organization’s mandate just might. Tapping into CSI’s “social asset” proved a good gamble, as the community was quick to scoop up the bonds.
“This told me that the whole community bond thing was for real,” say Bida, convinced he could adapt the approach to support renewable-energy projects.
The zoo executives liked the idea and several months later Bida helped form the ZooShare Biogas Co-operative, a not-for-profit community co-op that plans to build a 500-kilowatt biogas plant at the zoo for about $5 million.
Electricity from the plant will be sold into the grid under the province’s feed-in-tariff program, while waste heat could end up being pumped into a nearby greenhouse, potentially used to grow bamboo for the new pandas expected to arrive in 2014.
About 70 per cent of the project, or roughly $3.5 million, will be funded through the sale of community bonds that, like the CSI bonds, could be purchased through a self-directed RRSP. ZooShare hopes to offer bonds with a seven-year term and up to a 7 per cent annual return on investment.
(Above advertising video is has no association with the text.)
For existing zoo members and those living within one kilometre of the zoo, the bonds will be sold in $500 units. Everyone else can pick them up for $5,000 each, unless they want to purchase a zoo membership. “We’re hoping this will sell more memberships for the zoo as a result,” says Bida, whose company ReGenerate Biogas is managing the project.
ZooShare is just one of several co-op ventures going the community bond route to raise capital for renewably-energy projects. Others include Options for Green Energy, SolarShare and WaterShare.
Their approach represents a low-risk investment for people who want to support “green” community projects and make some money, but who don’t want to spend thousands of dollars putting solar PV systems on their own rooftops.
It also offers a way for those without property, such as renters, or without the proper land or rooftop exposure, to participate in the feed-in-tariff program. Community bonds, in essence, make the FIT program more inclusive and get the broader population directly invested in their energy future, be it solar, wind, biogas or hydro.
“This idea of massive public involvement in the ownership and economic benefit of these projects is what we’ve all been working towards for the past 15 years,” says Deb Doncaster, executive director of the Community Power Fund, which supports community co-op projects with grants and low-interest bridge financing.
“All it will take is for one or two of these projects to be successful and the approach will take off.”
Social media will certainly play a role. Facebook, Twitter and other social networking applications make it much easier for community co-ops to reach out to supporters. Spreading the word to the right people has become almost effortless.
Still, a couple of barriers need to be overcome before you or I can purchase such bonds. For one, RRSP-eligible community bonds must be approved and registered with the Financial Services Commission of Ontario before they can be sold. Some say the commission is dragging it feet.
SolarShare, for example, wants to issue community bonds in $1,000 increments that would offer a 5-per-cent return annually and be redeemable after five years. The funds raised from the bond issue will support construction of solar PV projects across southern Ontario.
It’s all new territory for the financial services commission, which has proved a major bottleneck. “They’re tight on the resources needed to deal with this new landscape,” says Matt Zipchen, who as project manager for the Toronto Renewable Energy Co-operative is overseeing development of SolarShare.
Zipchen says another roadblock is the banks. “These community bonds may be RRSP-eligible, but whether or not your bank will let you hold them is another question,” he says. “Banks are finicky about them. We’re just starting the process with the banks to see which ones will hold these bonds and which won’t.”
It will all get sorted out over time. Indeed, all it will likely take is for one big bank to break from the pack before others start to follow.
If demand for community bonds is high enough, that will likely happen. That’s what SolarShare, ZooShare and others are counting on.
Tyler Hamilton, author of the upcoming book Mad Like Tesla, writes weekly about green energy and clean technologies. Reach him at tyler@cleanbreak.ca
Trisha Sertori, Contributor, Payangan, Bali | Tue, 05/03/2011 9:49 PM | Life
The green movement is taking hold around the globe.
People are choosing to “go green” by taking their own shopping bags to supermarkets, others leave the car at home and bike to work, saving on emissions and getting healthy into the bargain.
Then there are the myriad of businesses who see having a green logo stamped on their products ups sales — green is a good business move.
But most of these actions are thought to take place amid the urban, the well informed and socially conscious; few guess that in villages going green at the grassroots is a way of life. And it is because of the grassroots nature of agricultural families that the disconnect between the earth and chemical fertilizer impact on the soil is so closely realized.
Since September 2010 people of one Bali village have been rolling up their sleeves and getting down and dirty in their return to organic farming with a side benefit of free methane gas supplying their homes.
“Here in Desa Kerta we wanted to go organic because we learned that people got sick from chemicals. In our past we didn’t use chemicals as fertilizer and people didn’t get sick, so our village is moving to being totally organic,” says Subak (irrigation managers) head Nyoman Suardana of the village of Penyabangan in Bali.
The village’s decision to go organic opened the door to the new technology of making their own biogas from the waste of pigs and cattle raised to produce organic fertilizer for their rice fields and gardens.
In the back yard of Suardana’s modest home, a dozen pigs of varying ages are busily making the methane gas that fuels the stove in his kitchen with unlimited free gas, that Suardana says is non-explosive.
They are also unwittingly creating the valuable fertilizer that this rice farmer believes will improve his rice yield within three years.
The system is simple, waste from the pigs is harvested, mixed with water to form a slurry that passes underground through a set of tanks.
The natural way: The pigs at the heart of the biogas operation offer organic fertilizer, methane gas for cooking and can be sold at a profit.The central tank collects the methane produced from the waste which is then piped into Suardana’s home. In the final septic tank the slurry overflows, is dried and returned to the soil, a closed system that now everyone in his village of 42 homes has invested in.
“I became interested in biogas because the LPG [liquefied petroleum gas] canisters can explode. We see that on TV a lot and that concerned us greatly. Also the price of LPG is going up all the time. We felt that with the LPG canisters you need to be always checking if they are in good condition, we always had to be aware and we were frightened, but with methane it does not explode — if pressure builds up it is released into the air and it’s natural so it does no damage,” says Suardana.
He points out implementing biogas systems and organic faming in his community faced no difficulty because, “our water is still clean, people are not allowed to throw rubbish and plastics into our rivers — we have a fine of Rp 100,000 — so the area is clean.
This comes down to our Subak and Awig Awig being strong and still very active,” says Suardana of the role Subak and Awig Awig [traditional laws] play in protecting the environment.
Up the road a kilometer is the home and organic garden of Ketut Suweno. His garden is laden with oranges, papaya, bananas and coconuts that earn him top dollar as organic produce.
A dozen healthy cattle supply all the fertilizer needed in this veritable garden of Eden, they also supply the 10 cubic meters of methane gas that feeds two families with free gas daily.
Wonders of nature : Literally up to his knees in it, this worker harvests slurry from cattle to fertilize organic gardens after the methane has been piped off to fuel the home’s stove.The positive impact on the lives of people since the introduction of biogas is witnessed in the reduced workload for people like Suweno’s 80-year-old grandmother Ni Wayan Bondol.
“In the past I was not brave enough to light the [LPG] gas stove. I was traumatized by gas because it explodes. Now with biogas I am happy to light the stove and cook. It’s safe and easy. In the past I only cooked on wood fires. Because I was afraid of the LPG exploding, I had to search each morning for firewood in the forest to cook the evening meal, then I had in the afternoon to again hunt for wood to cook the breakfast,” says this elderly woman who now has time to rest.
A local cooperative assists families with the loans of about Rp six million to build their own biogas systems, loans that Suardana says can be repaid from the savings on gas and chemical fertilizer purchases.
“When you look at the money side — you can’t see how much you save, but when you do the figures we see we have the money to reinvest into buying more pigs, these we sell and we don’t pay for gas and fertilizer, so once the loan to build the system is repaid we see we are better off financially,” says Suardana.
His Subak team, with six members trained under the HIVOS foundation (Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation) from Holland with its on the ground wing, the BIRU Foundation (Biogas Rumah Tangah) is now introducing biogas to other nearby villages.
“We are now looking at helping other villages, such as Puhu, to also have their own biogas and organic systems. But the skill share is coming from here [Penyabangan] as we have six people trained in this and certificated by HIVOS,” says Suardana of the quiet achievements being made in environmental protection at the very grassroots of society.
“We want to see this technology introduced Bali wide. This was a test project and it’s very successful. The Governor calls for Bali to be ‘Clean and Green’ — we farmers also want that very much.”
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.
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.
29 October 2010 Last updated at 17:22 The firm hopes to generate 33% of its energy needs from renewable sources An Edinburgh-based distillery has secured a £3m loan to develop an ambitious green business strategy.
North British Distillery will use the cash to part-fund a three-year £9m investment programme which could generate 33% of its energy needs from renewable sources.
The firm hopes to save between 9,000 and 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually from the programme.
The £3m loan was provided by Lloyds Banking Group.
The programme includes the installation of a biogas boiler and gas engine that will enable North British to generate its own electricity via anaerobic digestion of its distillate residues.
David Rae, managing director of North British, said: "Our sustainable business strategy will enable North British to make savings in terms of energy costs whilst at the same time significantly reducing the environmental impact of our production process."
The distillery, which has been based in Edinburgh's West End since 1885, already recycles residual low-grade waste heat to heat classrooms at nearby Tynecastle High School.
The firm said the supply enabled the school to make significant energy savings and reduce its own carbon dioxide emissions by 500 tonnes per year.
Most the firm's whisky spirit is sold to other companies for blending purposes, with Famous Grouse, Johnnie Walker Black Label and J&B Rare among its customers.
