In addition, their costs decrease, whereas the average trend in fossil fuel costs, notwithstanding its current volatility, is in the other direction. One of the most important problems of today’s world is the transfer to renewable energy. According to the IEA, energy has to be decarbonized four times quicker than previously to cut emissions substantially by 2040.

More international firms are using sustainable practice as they begin to recognize that the climate problem is affecting them most significantly.

Top Renewable Energy Companies

The damaging emissions that our current fossil fuel energy sources generate will only continue to rise without any attempt to rely on renewable energy sources – clean, emission-free, and naturally replenished sources. Reducing these emissions is essential if carbon levels are to be reduced and climate change consequences reduced.

Huge advancement in environmentally-friendly power development requires an interest in the organizations that foster these advances, which range from sun-oriented and wind capacity to hydropower, biofuels, and geothermal energy.

Here is the list of top renewable energy companies from across the world:

1. Tbhawt

Tbhawt Manufacturing OÜ is an Estonia-based wind turbine manufacturing company that projects and develops microgrids. A microgrid is a small self-balancing energy system that can be disconnected from main power lines to operate autonomously and further be reconnected back to them.

Microgrids usually involve different types of energy generation such as solar panels, small and large wind turbines, heating units, etc. Nikolai Grebenkine, the Project Coordinator at Tbhawt Manufacturing OÜ, comments, “At Tbhawt, we pay attention to environmental safety and will do our best to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions in wind turbine production.

Subsequently, we will cut down our product’s carbon footprint. We also apply the best technologies on all stages of operation and production, excluding the risk of failures or scams due to human error.”

2. Kohl’s

Each year since 2009, in its annual Green Power Partnership Top 30 Retail rating, EPA has therefore ranked Kohl’s department stores as the country’s leading green retailer. 1.001 of its 1,160 stores in 49 countries are certified to Energy Star, and the company reports that 163 sites have solar panels on-site.

Kohl’s is dedicated to this sustainable, renewable resource. To that aim, the technological development of solar energy continues to make it more efficient than renewables.

The business has been buckling down on carbon-impartial activities, and it was the principal US store related to EPA to set up a carbon-unbiased target. It accomplished the 2010–2014 Net Null Emission Object and was poised to accomplish it again in 2015.

3. CropEnergies

CropEnergies has its headquarters in Mannheim, Germany, and is a prominent ethanol and other biofuels producer that is “renewable” since they derive from maize or different vegetable life. They don’t have the same “clear” rating as the wind or solar rating as the ethanol burns in cars but burns considerably cleaner than fossil fuels.

The renewable energy firm produces bioethanol from sustainable raw materials and raw ethanol from wheat, maize, barley, triticale, and syrup10. CropEnergies has manufacturing sites in Belgium, the United Kingdom, and France, with a combined capacity of 1.3 million cubic meters of bioenergy.

4. First Solar Inc

First Solar, Inc. is a solar panel manufacturer in the United States, as well as a provider of PV power plants and related services such as financing, installation, maintenance, and recycling of used panels.

First Solar (FSLR) is a business that produces solar energy. It develops and produces photovoltaic solar power systems and modules. The firm manufactures solar modules that turn sunlight into power using thin-film semiconductor technology. First, Solar services consumers all around the world.

First Solar delivers leading eco-efficient photovoltaic systems in the market that generate less environmental effect at a reasonable cost. First Solar realizes that water scarcity affects millions of people. That is why, since 2009, we have lowered our per-watt production of water by over 30%. Contrary to traditional sources of energy and CSPs, while operating the first solar modules, water is not required to produce electricity.

Also Read: How Can Renewable Energy Companies Increase Their Recognition and Reach

5. Electrobras

Electrobras is the largest electric corporation in Latin America and one of the world’s largest enterprises, with its headquarters in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 12 This creates a large quantity of low carbon power consumption, with 92 percent of its energy produced by low carbon emissions.

Its main power form is hydropower, which provides over 45,000 MW of overall production. 13. The firm runs interconnecting systems across South America in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Brazil’s leading electric transmission business with approximately half of the country’s basic network in high and high-voltage transmission lines.

6. Hanergy Thin Film Power Group

This flexible power company with its headquarters in Beijing is famous for its technology: thin-film power. This technique is in the field of solar energy, with the production of thin-film solar cells putting ultra-thin PV film layers on plastic or metal.

Since 2009, Hanergy has used this technology for solar panels. It was a hydroelectric firm previously. 15. Its extremely elastic thin and lighted panels may be employed in a number of ways, including in automobiles, aircraft, and farming. In fact, Hanergy cooperated with Tesla Motors in various locations in China to build photovoltaic overload stations.

Conclusion

These company titans show remarkable leadership in combating the climate problem. They carry the burden of inexpensive, clean energy for our lives and economies. Too frequently, doubt and pessimism struck the area of renewable energy, and its expansion in certain nations halted as a result of unfavorable government policies.

But such enterprises illustrate how renewable energy may help preserve the world, both profitably and sustainably. They will play a major part in the creation of a new energy economy, together with many other emerging firms.

The post 6 Top Renewable Energy Companies Helping to Tackle Climate Change first appeared on BioEnergy Consult.

In India, the government launched Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) programme in January 2013 for 5% ethanol blended petrol. The policy had significant focus on India’s opportunity to agricultural and industrial sectors with motive of boosting biofuel (bioethanol and biodiesel) usage and reducing the existing dependency on fossil fuel.

The Government of India initiated significant investments in improving storage and blending infrastructure. The National Policy on Biofuels has set a target of 20% blending of biofuel by 2017. However, India has managed to achieve only 5% by September 2016 due to certain technical, market and regulatory hurdles.

In India, sugarcane molasses is the major resource for bioethanol production and inconsistency of raw material supply holds the major liability for sluggish response to blending targets.  Technically speaking, blend wall and transportation-storage are the major challenges towards the biofuel targets. Blending wall is the maximum percent of ethanol that can be blended to fuel without decreasing the fuel efficiency.

Various vehicles are adaptable to various blending ratio based on the flexibility of engines. The technology for the engine modification for flex fuel is not new but making the engines available in India along with the supply chain and calibrating the engine for Indian conditions is the halting phase. The commonly used motor vehicles in the country are not effectual with flex fuel.

Ethanol being a highly flammable liquid marks obligatory safety and risk assessment measures during all phases of production, storage and transportation. The non-uniform distribution of raw material throughout the country, demands a compulsory transportation and storage, especially inter-state movement, encountering diverse climatic and topographic conditions.

Major bioethanol consumers in India are potable liquor sector (45%), alcohol based chemical industry (40%), the rest for blending and other purposes. The yearly profit elevation in major sectors is a dare to an economical ethanol supply for Ethanol Blending Programme. Drastic fluctuation in pricing of sugar cane farming and sugar milling resulted to huge debt to farmers by mill owners. Gradually the farmers shifted from sugarcane cultivation other crops.

Regulatory and policy approaches on excise duty on storage and transportation of ethanol and pricing strategy of ethanol compared to crude oil are to be revised and implemented effectively. Diversifying the feedstocks (especially use of lignocellulosic biomass) and advanced technology for domestic ethanol production in blending sectors are to be fetched out from research laboratories to commercial scale. Above all the knowledge of economic and environmental benefits of biofuel like reduction in pollutants and import bills and more R&D into drop-in biofuels, need to be amplified for the common man.

The post Bioethanol Sector in India: Major Challenges To Overcome first appeared on BioEnergy Consult.

Pretreated biomass can directly be converted to ethanol by using the process called simultaneous saccharification and cofermentation (SSCF). Pretreatment is a critical step which enhances the enzymatic hydrolysis of biomass.

Basically, it alters the physical and chemical properties of biomass and improves the enzyme access and effectiveness which may also lead to a change in crystallinity and degree of polymerization of cellulose. The internal surface area and pore volume of pretreated biomass are increased which facilitates substantial improvement in accessibility of enzymes. The process also helps in enhancing the rate and yield of monomeric sugars during enzymatic hydrolysis steps.

Pretreatment methods can be broadly classified into four groups – physical, chemical, physio-chemical and biological. Physical pretreatment processes employ the mechanical comminution or irradiation processes to change only the physical characteristics of biomass. The physio-chemical process utilizes steam or steam and gases, like SO2 and CO2. The chemical processes employs acids (H2SO4, HCl, organic acids etc) or alkalis (NaOH, Na2CO3, Ca(OH)2, NH3 etc).

The acid treatment typically shows the selectivity towards hydrolyzing the hemicelluloses components, whereas alkalis have better selectivity for the lignin. The fractionation of biomass components after such processes help in improving the enzymes accessibility which is also important to the efficient utilization of enzymes.

The pretreated biomass is subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis using cellulase enzymes to convert the cellulose to fermentable sugars. Cellulase refers to a class of enzymes produced chiefly by fungi and bacteria which catalyzes the hydrolysis of cellulose by attacking the glycosidic linkages. Cellulase is mixture of mainly three different functional protein groups: exo-glucanase (Exo-G), endo-glucanase(Endo-G) and ?-glucosidase (?-G).

The functional proteins work synergistically in hydrolyzing the cellulose into the glucose. These sugars are further fermented using microorganism and are converted to ethanol. The microorganisms are selected based on their efficiency for ethanol productivity and higher product and inhibitors tolerance. Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is used commercially to produce the ethanol from starch and sucrose.

Escherichia coli strain has also been developed recently for ethanol production by the first successful application of metabolic engineering. E. coli can consume variety of sugars and does not require the complex growth media but has very narrow operable range of pH. E. coli has higher optimal temperature than other known strains of bacteria.

The major cost components in bioethanol production from lignocellulosic biomass are the pretreatment and the enzymatic hydrolysis steps. In fact, these two process are someway interrelated too where an efficient pretreatment strategy can save substantial enzyme consumption.

Pretreatment step can also affect the cost of other operations such as size reduction prior to pretreatment. Therefore, optimization of these two important steps, which collectively contributes about 70% of the total processing cost, are the major challenges in the commercialization of bioethanol from 2nd generation feedstock.

Enzyme cost is the prime concern in full scale commercialization. The trend in enzyme cost is encouraging because of enormous research focus in this area and the cost is expected to go downward in future, which will make bioethanol an attractive option considering the benefits derived its lower greenhouse gas emissions and the empowerment of rural economy.

The post Biochemical Method for Ethanol Production first appeared on BioEnergy Consult.

If you’re in the bioenergy sector, you’re going to find that having robust IT systems set up for you by professionals is going to do most of the heavy lifting for you. To browse what this set up may entail, you can head over to https://tenecom.com/ where they go in much more detail.

In this article, the focus will be on the specific role that IT plays in the bioenergy sector:

1. Gives Access To Real-Time Data

In an industry as dynamic and rapidly changing as bioenergy, it’s important to have access to real-time data. Real time data allows stakeholders to always have their eyes on their plants and monitor close growths, threats and changes as they come.

A farmer may want a system that allows them to monitor their crop growth rate over time by using satellite imagery of their land; this type is called ‘remote sensing.’ This would help them determine when they need more fertilizer or irrigation water, so they don’t waste money on things that aren’t necessary at certain times (or too much of either). They could also use remote sensing technology on their crops during specific seasons when pests tend to attack certain plants and then use this information along with other sources like weather forecasts.

2. Improved Decision-Making Capabilities

In the bioenergy sector, information technology can be used to make better decisions. It can help you to make them faster and with more accuracy.

For example, a company that has its own fleet of trucks may want to use an application on a tablet-style device to monitor the location of its drivers at any given moment. With this technology in place, they could see when one of their drivers is running late or if they arrive at work before they’re supposed to (or not). This would allow them to make adjustments as necessary because they’ll have access to accurate information about what’s happening on the road at the moment.

3. Improved Processes

Bioenergy is becoming a more important part of the energy industry, but it’s still in its early stages. As the bioenergy sector grows, so will the need for IT professionals who can help manage and improve processes.

The creation of bioenergy requires a lot of complicated processes that must be monitored and managed to ensure efficiency. For example, if a company wants to build an ethanol plant from scratch, it must make sure that each step in its manufacturing process works as intended—from growing plants to distilling alcohol out of them on an industrial scale—and that nothing goes wrong along the way. If anything goes wrong (and it often does), then there will be delays or even complete stoppage until repairs are made or new equipment is installed.

With modern technology at their disposal via IT solutions such as data analytics software or sensor networks, companies can make sure that everything runs smoothly before something bad happens, and they lose valuable time trying to fix problems after-the-fact rather than preventing them beforehand. This can be done through better planning beforehand with proper data collection methods such as sensors placed all over production facilities throughout entire supply chains.

4. Increased Operational Efficiencies

As more and more businesses turn to IT, it’s becoming clear that technology is critical for improving efficiencies across the board. In the bioenergy sector, there are many ways that IT has improved operations:

• Reduced Cost of Operations: Improved communication means less time between management and employees, which means reduced labor costs. Additionally, better data management allows you to make smarter decisions about your business plan moving forward. This might involve reducing inventory or cutting back on energy consumption in order to save money on capital expenditure (CAPEX).
• Reduced Time To Market: By implementing automation tools like artificial intelligence (AI), big data analytics can now accelerate product development cycles by providing insights into what customers want before they even know they want them. AI also improves operational efficiency by helping you reduce waste by predicting when certain products will go bad so they can be replaced before expiration dates arrive—all while increasing overall operational efficiency at every step along this process through automation tools like AI, which provide insights into what customers want before even knowing themselves.

5. Improved Control Of Biogas Processes And Automation

Automation provides better control of the biogas process and helps to avoid human error. This results in more reliable and consistent production, as well as reduced costs, increased safety, and improved efficiency and productivity.

An automated control system may also include an alarm system that alerts operators of any issues or problems with the process taking place. The information provided by this system can help operators troubleshoot issues quickly and efficiently so that they do not have to wait too long before remedying them. In addition to saving time, this can also prevent delays that might cause customers who rely on your service to go elsewhere for their needs (especially if you’re providing bioenergy).

Conclusion

We’ve covered a lot of ground in this article, but there is still more to explore. IT in the bioenergy sector has the potential to make a significant impact on our environment and our lives. The integration of new data, automation, and communication systems will be key to success. But as we’ve seen with solar panels, wind turbines, and other renewable energy endeavors—the benefits are worth it!

The post The Role of IT in the Bioenergy Sector first appeared on BioEnergy Consult.

A biorefinery could, for example, produce one or several low-volume, but high-value, chemical products and a low-value, but high-volume liquid transportation fuel such as biodiesel or bioethanol. At the same time, it can generate electricity and process heat, through CHP technology, for its own use and perhaps enough for sale of electricity to the local utility.

The high value products increase profitability, the high-volume fuel helps meet energy needs, and the power production helps to lower energy costs and reduce GHG emissions from traditional power plant facilities.

Biorefinery Platforms

There are several biorefinery platforms which can be employed in a biorefinery with the major ones being the sugar platform and the thermochemical platform (also known as syngas platform).

Sugar platform biorefineries breaks down biomass into different types of component sugars for fermentation or other biological processing into various fuels and chemicals. On the other hand, thermochemical biorefineries transform biomass into synthesis gas (hydrogen and carbon monoxide) or pyrolysis oil.

The thermochemical biomass conversion process is complex, and uses components, configurations, and operating conditions that are more typical of petroleum refining. Biomass is converted into syngas, and syngas is converted into an ethanol-rich mixture.

However, syngas created from biomass contains contaminants such as tar and sulphur that interfere with the conversion of the syngas into products. These contaminants can be removed by tar-reforming catalysts and catalytic reforming processes. This not only cleans the syngas, it also creates more of it, improving process economics and ultimately cutting the cost of the resulting ethanol.

Plus Points

Biorefineries can help in utilizing the optimum energy potential of organic wastes and may also resolve the problems of waste management and GHGs emissions. Biomass wastes can be converted, through appropriate enzymatic/chemical treatment, into either gaseous or liquid fuels.

The pre-treatment processes involved in biorefining generate products like paper-pulp, HFCS, solvents, acetate, resins, laminates, adhesives, flavour chemicals, activated carbon, fuel enhancers, undigested sugars etc. which generally remain untapped in the traditional processes. The suitability of this process is further enhanced from the fact that it can utilize a variety of biomass resources, whether plant-derived or animal-derived.

Future Perspectives

The concept of biomass-based refinery is still in early stages at most places in the world. Problems like raw material availability, feasibility in product supply chain, scalability of the model are hampering its development at commercial-scales. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) of USA is leading the front in biorefinery research with path-breaking discoveries and inventions. 

Although the technology is still in nascent stages, but it holds the key to the optimum utilization of wastes and natural resources that humans have always tried to achieve. The onus now lies on governments and corporate sector to incentivize or finance the research and development in this highly promising field.

The post The Concept of Biorefinery first appeared on BioEnergy Consult.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), only about 5% of the total primary energy usage in the U.S. comes from biomass fuels. So there really is a way to go.

The Concept of Biomass Energy

Generally regarded as any carbon-based material including plants, food waste, industrial waste, reclaimed woody materials, algae, and even human and animal waste, biomass is processed to produce effective organic fuels.

The main sources of biomass include wood mills and furniture factories, landfill sites, horticultural centers, wastewater treatment plants, and areas where invasive and alien tree and grass species grow.

Whether converted into biogas or liquid biofuels, or burned as is, the biomass releases its chemical energy in the form of heat. Of course, it depends on what kind of material the biomass is. For instance, solid types including wood and suitable garbage can be burned without any need for processing. This makes up more than half the biomass fuels used in the U.S. Other types can be converted into biodiesel and ethanol.

Generally:

• Biogas forms naturally in landfills when yard waste, food scraps, paper and so on decompose. It is composed mainly of carbon dioxide
• Biogas can also be produced by processing animal manure and human sewage in digesters.
• Biodiesel is produced from animal fats and vegetable oils including soybeans and palm oil.
• Ethanol is made from various crops including sugar cane and corn that are fermented.

How Biomass Fuels Are Used

Ethanol has been used in vehicles for decades and ethanol-gasoline blends are now quite common. In fact, some racing drivers opt for high ethanol blends because they lower costs and improve quality. While the percentage of ethanol is substantially lower, it is now found in most gasoline sold in the U.S. Biodiesel can also be used in vehicles and it is also used as heating oil.

But in terms of their role in net-zero buildings:

• Biomass waste is burned to heat buildings and to generate electricity.
• In addition to being converted to liquid biofuels, various waste materials including some crops like sugar cane and corn can also be burned as fuel.
• Garbage, in the form of yard, food, and wood waste, can be converted to biogas in landfills and anaerobic digesters. It can also be burned to generate electricity.
• Human sewage and animal manure can be converted to biogas and burned as heating fuel.

Biomass as a Viable Clean Energy Source for Net-Zero Energy Buildings

Don’t rely on what I say, let’s look at some research, specifically, a study published just last year (2018) that deals with the development of net-zero energy buildings in Florida. It looked at the capacity of biomass, geothermal, hydrokinetic, hydropower, marine, solar, and wind power (in alphabetical order) to deliver renewable energy resources. More specifically, the study evaluated Florida’s potential to utilize various renewable energy resources.

Generating electricity from wind isn’t feasible in Florida because the average wind speeds are slow. The topography and hydrology requirements are inadequate and both hydrokinetic and marine energy resources are limited. But both solar and biomass offer “abundant resources” in Florida. Unlike most other renewable resources, the infrastructure and equipment required are minimal and suitable for use within building areas, and they are both compatible with the needs of net-zero energy.

The concept of net-zero buildings has, of course, been established by the World Green Building Council (GBC), which has set timelines of 2030 and 2050 respectively for new and all buildings to achieve net-zero carbon goals. Simplistically, what this means is that buildings, including our homes, will need to become carbon neutral, using only as much renewable energy as they can produce on site.

But nothing is simplistic when it comes to net-zero energy buildings (ZEB) ). Rather, different categories offer different boundaries in terms of how renewable energy strategies are utilized. These show that net-zero energy buildings are not all the same:

• ZEB A buildings utilize strategies within the building footprint
• ZEB B within the site of the property
• ZEB C within the site but from off-site resources
• ZEB D generate renewable energy off-site

While solar works for ZEB A and both solar and wind work for ZEB B buildings, biomass and biofuels are suitable for ZEB C and D buildings, particularly in Florida.

Even though this particular study is Florida-specific, it indicates the probability that the role of biomass energy will ultimately be limited, but that it can certainly help buildings reach a net-zero status.

There will be different requirements and benefits in different areas, but certainly professionals offering engineering solutions in Chicago, New York, London (Canada and the UK), and all the other large cities in the world will be in a position to advise whether it is feasible to use biomass rather than other forms of eco-friendly energy for specific buildings.

Biomass might offer a more powerful solution than many people imagine.

The post The Role of Biomass Energy in Net-Zero Buildings first appeared on BioEnergy Consult.

First-generation biofuels are things like methanol, ethanol, biodiesel and vegetable oil, while second-generation biofuels are produced by transforming crops into liquid fuels using highly advanced chemical processes, such as mixed alcohols and biohydrogen. Third-generation, or “advanced” biofuels, are created using oil that is made from algae or closed reactors and then refined to produce conventional fuels such as ethanol, methane, biodiesel, etc.

Cleaner Air and Less Impact on Climate Change

As biofuels come from renewable materials, they have less of an impact on climate change as compared to gasoline, according to multiple studies. Ethanol in gasoline has been helping to decrease smog in major cities, keeping the air cleaner and safer to breathe.

Starch-based biofuels can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by around 30- to 60-percent, as compared to gasoline, while cellulosic ethanol can lessen emissions even further, as much as 90 percent.

Reduced Danger of Environmental Disaster

Can you imagine buying one of the oceanfront Jacksonville condos in Florida, looking forward to enjoying peaceful beach strolls every morning only to find injured or killed animals and globs of oil all over the sand? Not exactly the vision of paradise you dreamed of.

A major benefit of using biofuels is the risk of environmental disaster is dramatically reduced. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon Spill that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico released millions of gallons of oil. It not only cost BP nearly $62 billion but caused extensive damage to wildlife and the environment. Biofuels are much safer. For example, a corn field won’t poison the ocean.

More Jobs and an Economic Boom

Numerous studies, including one conducted by the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), have found that biofuels lead to more jobs for Americans. In 2014, the ethanol industry was responsible for nearly 84,000 direct jobs and over 295,000 indirect and induced jobs – all jobs that pay well and are non-exportable. The biofuels industry in the USA also added nearly $53 billion to the national GDP, $27 billion to the national GDP and over $10 billion in taxes, stimulating local, state and national economies.

Many experts predict that these figures will increase with significant job creation potential in biorefinery construction, operation and biomass collection. If the potential for producing cellulosic ethanol from household waste and forestry residues were utilized at commercial scale, even more jobs are likely to be added.

Energy Independence

When a nation has the land resources to grow biofuel feedstock, it is able to produce its own energy, eliminating dependence on fossil fuel resources. Considering the significant amount of conflict that tends to happen over fuel prices and supplies, this brings a net positive effect.

The post Why Biofuels Should Be a Key Part in America’s Future first appeared on BioEnergy Consult.

The choice of which process to use is influenced by the fact that lignin cannot easily be converted into a gas through biochemical conversion. Lignin can, however, be gasified through a heat process. The lignin components of plants can range from near 0% to 35%. For those plants at the lower end of this range, the chemical conversion approach is better suited. For plants that have more lignin, the heat-dominated approach is more effective.

Once the gasification of biomass is complete, the resulting syngas or synthetic gas can be used in a variety of ways to produce liquid fuels as mentioned below

The Fischer-Tropsch process converts “syngas” (mainly carbon monoxide and hydrogen) into diesel fuel and naphtha (basic gasoline) by building polymer chains out of these basic building blocks. Typically a variety of co-products (various chemicals) are also produced.

The Fisher-Tropsch process is an established technology and has been proven on a large scale but adoption has been limited by high capital and O&M costs. According to Choren Industries, a German based developer of the technology, it takes 5 tons of biomass to produce 1 ton of biodiesel, and 1 hectare generates 4 tons of biodiesel.

Syngas can also be converted into methanol through dehydration or other techniques, and in fact methanol is an intermediate product of the F-T process (and is therefore cheaper to produce than F-T gasoline and diesel).

Methanol is somewhat out of favour as a transportation fuel due to its relatively low energy content and high toxicity, but might be a preferred fuel if fuel cell vehicles are developed with on-board reforming of hydrogen.

DME also can be produced from syngas, in a manner similar to methanol. It is a promising fuel for diesel engines, due to its good combustion and emissions properties. However, like LPG, it requires special fuel handling and storage equipment and some modifications of diesel engines, and is still at an experimental phase.

If diesel vehicles were designed and produced to run on DME, they would become inherently very low pollutant emitting vehicles; with DME produced from biomass, they would also become very low GHG vehicles.

The post Biofuels from Syngas first appeared on BioEnergy Consult.

Energy is the driving force for development in all countries of the world. The increasing clamor for energy and satisfying it with a combination of conventional and renewable resources is a big challenge. Accompanying energy problems in different parts of the world, another problem that is assuming critical proportions is that of urban waste accumulation.

The quantity of waste produced all over the world amounted to more than 12 billion tonnes in 2006, with estimates of up to 13 billion tonnes in 2011. The rapid increase in population coupled with changing lifestyle and consumption patterns is expected to result in an exponential increase in waste generation of upto 18 billion tonnes by year 2020.

Waste generation rates are affected by socio-economic development, degree of industrialization, and climate. Generally, the greater the economic prosperity and the higher percentage of urban population, the greater the amount of solid waste produced. Reduction in the volume and mass of solid waste is a crucial issue especially in the light of limited availability of final disposal sites in many parts of the world. Millions of tonnes of household wastes are generated each year with the vast majority disposed of in open fields or burnt wantonly.

The main categories of waste-to-energy technologies are physical technologies, which process waste to make it more useful as fuel; thermal technologies, which can yield heat, fuel oil, or syngas from both organic and inorganic wastes; and biological technologies, in which bacterial fermentation is used to digest organic wastes to yield fuel.

The three principal methods of thermochemical conversion are combustion in excess air, gasification in reduced air, and pyrolysis in the absence of air. The most common technique for producing both heat and electrical energy from wastes is direct combustion. Combined heat and power (CHP) or cogeneration systems, ranging from small-scale technology to large grid-connected facilities, provide significantly higher efficiencies than systems that only generate electricity.

Biochemical processes, like anaerobic digestion, can also produce clean energy in the form of biogas which can be converted to power and heat using a gas engine. In addition, wastes can also yield liquid fuels, such as cellulosic ethanol, which can be used to replace petroleum-based fuels. Cellulosic ethanol can be produced from grasses, wood chips and agricultural residues by biochemical route using heat, pressure, chemicals and enzymes to unlock the sugars in biomass wastes.

Waste-to-energy plants offer two important benefits of environmentally safe waste management and disposal, as well as the generation of clean electric power.  The growing use of waste-to-energy as a method to dispose of solid and liquid wastes and generate power has greatly reduced environmental impacts of municipal solid waste management, including emissions of greenhouse gases.

The post A Primer on Waste-to-Energy first appeared on BioEnergy Consult.

Thermal Technologies

The three principal methods of thermo-chemical conversion corresponding to each of these energy carriers are combustion in excess air, gasification in reduced air, and pyrolysis in the absence of air. Direct combustion is the best established and most commonly used technology for converting wastes to heat.

During combustion, biomass is burnt in excess air to produce heat. The first stage of combustion involves the evolution of combustible vapours from wastes, which burn as flames. Steam is expanded through a conventional turbo-alternator to produce electricity. The residual material, in the form of charcoal, is burnt in a forced air supply to give more heat.

Co-firing or co-combustion of biomass wastes with coal and other fossil fuels can provide a short-term, low-risk, low-cost option for producing renewable energy while simultaneously reducing the use of fossil fuels. Co-firing involves utilizing existing power generating plants that are fired with fossil fuel (generally coal), and displacing a small proportion of the fossil fuel with renewable biomass fuels.

Co-firing has the major advantage of avoiding the construction of new, dedicated, waste-to-energy power plant. An existing power station is modified to accept the waste resource and utilize it to produce a minor proportion of its electricity.

Gasification systems operate by heating biomass wastes in an environment where the solid waste breaks down to form a flammable gas. The gasification of biomass takes place in a restricted supply of air or oxygen at temperatures up to 1200–1300°C. The gas produced—synthesis gas, or syngas—can be cleaned, filtered, and then burned in a gas turbine in simple or combined-cycle mode, comparable to LFG or biogas produced from an anaerobic digester.

The final fuel gas consists principally of carbon monoxide, hydrogen and methane with small amounts of higher hydrocarbons. This fuel gas may be burnt to generate heat; alternatively it may be processed and then used as fuel for gas-fired engines or gas turbines to drive generators. In smaller systems, the syngas can be fired in reciprocating engines, micro-turbines, Stirling engines, or fuel cells.

Pyrolysis is thermal decomposition occurring in the absence of oxygen. During the pyrolysis process, biomass waste is heated either in the absence of air (i.e. indirectly), or by the partial combustion of some of the waste in a restricted air or oxygen supply. This results in the thermal decomposition of the waste to form a combination of a solid char, gas, and liquid bio-oil, which can be used as a liquid fuel or upgraded and further processed to value-added products.

Biochemical Technologies

Biochemical processes, like anaerobic digestion, can also produce clean energy in the form of biogas which can be converted to power and heat using a gas engine. Anaerobic digestion is a series of chemical reactions during which organic material is decomposed through the metabolic pathways of naturally occurring microorganisms in an oxygen depleted environment. In addition, wastes can also yield liquid fuels, such as cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel, which can be used to replace petroleum-based fuels.

Anaerobic digestion is the natural biological process which stabilizes organic waste in the absence of air and transforms it into biogas and biofertilizer. Almost any organic material can be processed with anaerobic digestion. This includes biodegradable waste materials such as municipal solid waste, animal manure, poultry litter, food wastes, sewage and industrial wastes.

An anaerobic digestion plant produces two outputs, biogas and digestate, both can be further processed or utilized to produce secondary outputs. Biogas can be used for producing electricity and heat, as a natural gas substitute and also a transportation fuel. Digestate can be further processed to produce liquor and a fibrous material. The fiber, which can be processed into compost, is a bulky material with low levels of nutrients and can be used as a soil conditioner or a low level fertilizer.

A variety of fuels can be produced from biomass wastes including liquid fuels, such as ethanol, methanol, biodiesel, Fischer-Tropsch diesel, and gaseous fuels, such as hydrogen and methane. The resource base for biofuel production is composed of a wide variety of forestry and agricultural resources, industrial processing residues, and municipal solid and urban wood residues.

The largest potential feedstock for ethanol is lignocellulosic biomass wastes, which includes materials such as agricultural residues (corn stover, crop straws and bagasse), herbaceous crops (alfalfa, switchgrass), short rotation woody crops, forestry residues, waste paper and other wastes (municipal and industrial).

The three major steps involved in cellulosic ethanol production are pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, and fermentation. Biomass is pretreated to improve the accessibility of enzymes. After pretreatment, biomass undergoes enzymatic hydrolysis for conversion of polysaccharides into monomer sugars, such as glucose and xylose. Subsequently, sugars are fermented to ethanol by the use of different microorganisms. Bioethanol production from these feedstocks could be an attractive alternative for disposal of these residues. Importantly, lignocellulosic feedstocks do not interfere with food security.

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