Bogas Plant Accident in Austria

At this blog we have recently had reason to question the UK industry's questionable practises by Biogas Plant installation and maintenance Contractors, and the Client's who appoint them, both of which have been seen to be less than perfect in the manner in which they are treating health and safety on Biogas Plant Sites.

(Please don't expect to see any safety problems in this video - we simply thought you might like to see some good examples of biogas plants.)

Here we have another example. Is this a coincidental occurence or a warning to te industry to tighten its Health and Safety procedures before we see some really nasty accidents?

26. 10. 11. A man from Vienna is recovering after plunging from a factory in Burgenland.

The worker fell off a biogas station in Güssing, well known for its eco-friendly approach to electricity and heating issues this morning (Weds). He was busy removing casing fragments when he slipped and fell, according to radio news. The worker was taken to a clinic in Oberwart by ambulance.

The incident occurred three days after the body of an elderly holidaymaker was discovered at a hotel’s inner courtyard. The man, 62, from Linz in Upper Austria is understood to have lost his balance on the balcony of his room at night before plunging to his death. No one witnessed the incident, police in the Styrian town of Arnfels said on Monday. They said a physician examining the body ruled out foul play.

The number of industrial fatalities decreased by 57 per cent between 1990 and 2010, according to a labour ministry spokesman. The office of Social Democratic (SPÖ) Labour Minister Rudolf Hundstorfer said in August that 90 people lost their lives at work last year.

Around 280,000 Austrians sustained injuries doing household chores in the same year, according to insurer Allianz Austria (2000: 230,000). Cuts are most common at 40 per cent, followed by bruises (21 per cent), according to magazine profil which presented the insurance company’s figures.

Austrian Times

Maybe, Austrians need to be more careful when not at work, as well! See our site at www.anaerobic-digestion.com .

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Holton: Bernard Matthews plans £4m biogas plant - East Anglian Daily Times

Rob Mears, UK managing director of Bernard Matthews Foods

Friday, November 11, 2011 - 6:00 AM

TURKEY giant Bernard Matthews has unveiled a £4million project to convert waste into biogas at its Suffolk factory which it hopes will save energy and reduce the number of lorries going into the facility.

The firm has teamed up with Glendale Power for a renewable power project at the site in Holton, near Halesworth, which it hopes will supply 13% of its electricity and 10% of its heat.

A planning application is expected to be submitted to Waveney District Council in the coming weeks, and if approved the firm hopes the facility, which will be funded by venture capital, will be up and running by April 2013 with work likely to start next year.

The proposal would see the construction of an anaerobic digestion facility which would treat 28,000 tonnes of liquid waste including blood fluids and fat and see it converted into gas which can be turned into electricity.

The digester will be connected, by pipeline, to the existing on site effluent treatment system, and the liquid waste will then be converted into a methane rich gas, which will be piped back into the factory to power an engine connected to a generator.

Electricity produced will be fed into the factory power grid and heat recovered from the cooling system and exhaust will be used to heat water.

Spent “fuel”, which will be largely water, will be returned to the on site effluent treatment system to be cleaned up and discharged.

Richard Smithgate, group procurement director at Bernard Matthews Foods, said the facility would consist of three towers which would be integrated into the existing factory.

“This ensures that we treat our own waste rather than have it treated by a third party,” he said. “We want to become more self-sufficient and all energy will be used on the site and none of it will be exported.”

Around 60% of the factories traffic is linked associated with waste and Mr Smithgate said the proposal would removed more than 1,200 lorry trips in and out of the site.

He also said the process involved would not be open to the air and that would mean no odours would be emitted from the facility.

“It will be like a soup,” he added. “It will sit in the cylinders for about 35 days and that process will generate the gas to produce the electricity.

“We hope to get a positive reaction because we are taking 1,200 vehicles off the road and we hope that will enhance the community.

Rob Mears, UK managing director at Bernard Matthews Foods, said: “This is an important development for Bernard Matthews and the local community.

“It will not only reduce our carbon footprint and help create a sustainable, constant, environmentally-friendly source of power for the factory, but it will also provide significant environmental benefits to the local community and help strengthen our long term competitive position for the site.”

View the original article here

Biogas to solve LPG crisis in rural Dakshina Kannada - Times of India

Biogas to solve LPG crisis in rural DK - Times Of India

MANGALORE: Rural schools, anganwadis and backward class and minority hostels in the Dakshina Kannada (DK) district need not shell out money to get refilled LPG cylinders anymore. DK zilla panchayat plans to set up biogas production plants in schools, anganwadis and backward class and minority hostels which would convert waste into cooking gas.

(Video and article are not connected.)

Many of the rural schools in the district find it difficult to get refilled LPG cylinders due to irregularities in the supply by the gas agencies. Biogas plants will help the schools cut down their dependence on LPG and firewood for cooking and not just save money.

While biogas produced in the plant will be used to cook mid-day meals in schools, it will be used in the kitchens of anganwadis and hostels. The zilla panchayat has already earmarked Rs 20,000 each to set up biogas plants in four centres in the district.

The plants will be initially set up in the anganwadi centres of Daddelakadu and Soornadu in Bantwal taluk, backward class and minority hostels in Bajpe in Mangalore taluk and Balthila in Bantwal taluk. See also www.anaerobic-digestion.com

Total sanitation officer of the district Manjula told STOI that an agency that quotes a suitable price will be given the task of setting up the biogas plants, which will reduce the burden on rural schools, anganwadis and hostels in several ways. In addition to saving money, it will also help to maintain cleanliness in the schools, the anganwadi and hostel premises as kitchen waste and other bio-degradable waste can be used as a raw material for the plant, she said.

The proposed plants will have the capacity to produce biogas, sufficient for two hours of cooking, with two kilograms of waste. Also power can be generated from the plant with the help of a generator, she said, adding that the work will commence soon.

More rural schools will be chosen where such biogas plants will be set up in near future, she added.

View the original article here

ENERGY: Regulators reduce wind, biogas subsidies for on-site generators - North County Times

Residents and businesses looking to install wind power, fuel cells or other alternative electricity generators - but not solar power - will get lower subsidies after a decision made this week by the California Public Utilities Commission.

The new rules apply to the Self-Generation Incentive Program, which provides subsidies to businesses and residents who install power generators on their own property. The new rules require new generation projects to reduce to the net production of global warming-causing gases such as carbon dioxide in order to be eligible for the subsidy. They also reduce the subsidies by as much as half, depending on the technology in question.

"Today's decision represents a team effort between the California Air Resources Board and the CPUC as we strive to reach goals of achieving 33 percent renewable energy by 2020 and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020," said commission president Michael Peevey in a written statement issued Thursday. 

A 2006 state law established a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. 

Under the rules for the program, applicants must show that proposed generation reduces the amount of net greenhouse gases produced compared with the amount of greenhouse gases produced from normal electricity generation. The exact amount of reduction was left open for a future decision after the commissioners disagreed with staff's method of calculation.

The commission also ruled that some technologies had become popular enough that subsidies could be reduced. Wind turbines will now be eligible for $1.25 per watt, down from $1.50 per watt; fuel cells, which produce electricity from natural gas without burning it, will be eligible for $1.25 per watt, half the previous subsidy; and biogas generators, which are fueled by methane from sewage and landfills, will see no reduction in a $2 per watt subsidy, but companies must buy it on a 10-year contract, twice as long as before.

The new rules require businesses applying to undergo an energy audit, which will highlight areas where the applicants could make better use of their electricity, before they receive a subsidy.

Call staff writer Eric Wolff at 760-303-1927 or follow him on Twitter at NCTRealEstate.

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Biogas attraction grows in rural Arghakhanchi - Himalayan Times

ARGHAKHANCHI: In the face of lack of access to electricity, people in rural areas in Arghakhanchi district have been attracted towards biogas plant, one of the sources of alternative energy.

Many people in rural Arghakhanchi areas are still without power. An increasing number of villagers are preparing to build biogas plants at their home due to double benefits—power generated from cow and buffalo dung meets the basic need for cooking fuel and lighting up home and at the same time the residues can be reused in agriculture.

Though many villagers may not have known the benefits of biogas plants, the attraction towards this source of alternative energy will be boon to them in many ways. Since all villagers are depended on firewood for their energy consumption that leads to deforestation and is harmful to health, biogas plants ensure healthy environment both inside and outside home.

Biogas companies say continuous load shedding in other areas have fuelled attraction towards biogas plants among rural folks in the district.

According to statistics available here, around 4,200 biogas plants have been already installed in the district.

The government provides subsidy in the installation of biogas plants. An estimated cost of Rs 10,000-Rs 25,000 is required to build on biogas plant.

Farmers say the attraction towards biogas plant will go up overwhelmingly if the government increases subsidy.

View the original article here

Bloom Energy Biogas Powered Fuel Cells Attract Data Center Operators

Silicon Valley’s fuel cell maker Bloom Energy continues to add customers looking to power part of their data center operations with distributed, cleaner power in California. On Thursday, the U.S. division of Japanese telecom giant NTT, NTT America, said it will install five Bloom fuel cells at one of its data center facilities in San Jose, Calif.

Nine-year-old Bloom Energy sells an industrial-sized fuel cell (which looks like a large refrigerator) that uses a chemical reaction to produce electricity. The Bloom Boxes suck up oxygen on one side and fuel (usually natural gas or biogas) on the other side, and produce power on-site for companies in a more efficient and less carbon-intensive manner than using the grid (depending on what fuel the company uses).

NTT America says it will use biogas (gas generated by decomposing organic material) produced at a California dairy farm as fuel for the Bloom fuel cells. That means NTT’s fuel cells won’t emit as much carbon as many of the Bloom fuel cells that are being powered by natural gas. Updated: NTT America has corrected the source of the biogas to two landfills in Pennsylvania.

Five Bloom fuel cells have a capacity of 500 kilowatts, which is the equivalent power for about 500 houses or five large office buildings. Each Bloom fuel cell costs around $700,000 to $800,000 before subsidies, so NTT is spending a couple million dollars on the installation.

Data center operators are looking for ways to make their facilities more energy-efficient and greener as a way to cut growing energy bills and also to highlight company sustainability. While fuel cells are still not commonly used to power data centers, Bloom has been slowly growing its customer list of telcos and Internet companies that want to use the Bloom boxes for part of their data center operations.

Earlier this month, AT&T said it plans to install a whopping 7.5 MW worth of Bloom fuel cells (that’s 75 fuel cells) at 11 AT&T offices in California. AT&T said it would use the fuel cell power for data centers as well as administration offices and facilities that house network equipment.

Fuel cells likely won’t be used as a main, or stand alone, power source for a data center. As we pointed out on GigaOM Pro (subscription required) last year, data centers need a power source that is so-called “five nines” (99.999 percent). Google has said the Bloom Box it was using on its campus had an availability rating of 98 percent, which translates into around seven days of downtime a year: no good for a stand alone power source for a data center running web sites that can’t go down.

Bloom has also found success with data center operators in California because state subsidies make the Bloom boxes a lot more economical in California. Customers in the state include Google, eBay and Adobe .

Top image is NTT’s installation, and the bottom is the installation at Adobe.

View the original article here