Is Bio-char part of the answer?
Up to 12% of the world’s human-caused greenhouse emissions could be sustainably offset by producing biochar from plants and other organic material, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Communications.
The research team calculated three different biochar scenarios through mathematical modelling, which looked at carbon content in the Earth’s biomass.
"This study demonstrates that biochar can help tackle our climate concerns in a major and sustainable way," says report co-author Professor Stephen Joseph, a biochar expert in the University of NSW School of Materials Science and Engineering.
"The beauty of the technology is that it is a win-win solution; it can be used to produce energy but at the same time reduce carbon dioxide emission in the atmosphere.
The study notes that “biochar can improve soil health and fertility by increasing microbial activity, increasing porosity of the soil, reducing acidity, reducing leaching of nutrients, increasing plant nutrient uptake and by boosting their ability to hold water. It can also reduce nitrous oxide and methane emissions from the soil into which it is tilled”.
Biochar is made by thermally decomposing agricultural and urban residues such as green waste, chicken manure, rice husks, corn cobs and peanut shells at relatively low temperature through pyrolysis. The pyrolysis process also produces some bio-based gas and oil that can produce energy offsetting emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.
For more on this story go to: http://www.environmentalmanagementnews.net/StoryView.asp?StoryID=1140382
How to get promoted?
Have you ever wondered why your co-worker was promoted and not you? Why are you passed over?
Learn how to be your own public relations agent, and prepare for promotions by networking with the people who may help you.
Listen to Karen Moloney discuss How to get Promoted on MyPath.com. Go to:
http://www.mypath.com/docs/en_US/skillsoft/full/tcm_66-50164.html
Sourced via www.asq.org
Hydrogen from Wood Chips
Shin-idemitsu Co., a major Japanese oil distributor with marketing name IDEX, announced recently that it had officially signed an agreement with Omuta City, Fukuoka Prefecture, in western Japan to construct a plant in Omuta Eco-Town that will produce hydrogen from biomass.
In the project, IDEX Eco-Energy Co., a completely IDEX-owned company, will construct the plant to produce hydrogen using Blue Tower Technology, a technology that produces hydrogen by gasification of biomass. After designing and constructing the plant, the company plans to conduct trial operations in fiscal 2011, and later start commercial operation.
For the full story go to: http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/030145.html
Sourced via Resource Recovery Forum: www.resurcesnotwaste.org
Co-generation in a building a better option?
Co-generation in commercial buildings far outweighs the benefits of using renewable energy or Greenpower, stated Ian Osborne of Floth Sustainable Building Consultants. To back it up he pointed to ISPT’s Green Square North Tower in Brisbane, which has become the first commercial building with a co-generation plant to be awarded a 5 Star National Australian Built Environment Reporting System (NABERS) Energy whole building rating.
Thanks to gas-fired co-generation, ISPT and Floth achieved a building emission rating of 129 CO2/m2 per year, which is the lowest emission figure for a building of its size in Australia.
The Green Square North Tower generates 770kW of electricity as a result of the co-generation plant.
Osborne, who was project manager on the building, told Environmental Management News “we also looked at solar panels and wind power on the roof of the building, but solar and wind were dismissed fairly quickly because we did not have the rooftop area required to install the solar panels, which was 6000 square metres. We only had an area of 2000 square metres”. Osborne said co-generation is more efficient simply because it has the advantage of being continually reliable. Plus “solar does not work at night, whereas a co-generation plant can provide power all year round”.
For more on this story go to:
http://www.environmentalmanagementnews.net/StoryView.asp?StoryID=1110041
Turning waste into fuel in Adelaide
Adelaide’s household waste will be converted to resource-derived fuel (RDF) under a plan for a $50 million joint venture recycling plant. The waste-to-energy plant will divert more than a million tonnes of waste going to landfill each year. It is being built by Adelaide-based ResourceCo. The recycling park will be built on a 16 hectare site at Dry Creek in northern
Adelaide, with construction due to start in January 2011 and launch in 2013, creating about 150 jobs in the process. The recycling facility will target five different waste streams; concrete, asphalt, mixed solid waste, compost and waste soil.
ResourceCo has a contract to supply RDF to construction material Adelaide Brighton, sourced from its recycling plants at Wingfield and Lonsdale.
It will also build an advanced resource recovery technology plant on the Dry Creek site to process wet waste streams, which is household waste collected from households.
For more on this story go to Inside Waste:
http://www.insidewaste.com.au/StoryView.asp?StoryID=1542859
The Matrix – not a film but presenting information
The matrix diagram shows the relationship between two, three or four groups of information. It also can give information about the relationship, such as its strength, the roles played by various individuals or measurements. Six differently shaped matrices are possible: L, T, Y, X,C and roof-shaped, depending on how many groups must be compared.
For more on the different matrices go to:
http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/new-management-planning-tools/overview/matrix-diagram.html?W
T.dcsvid=MTgxMDQ5NzU0S0&WT.mc_id=EM5675M#L
US pours millions into carbon dioxide projects
The US government is funnelling more than US$106 million to six projects that will turn CO2 into fuel, plastics, cement and more.
The projects on the receiving end of the $106 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act had received a previous round of funding from the US Department of Energy in 2009 as part of an initiative to advance technologies and processes that can capture CO2 for storage or conversion to products.
Some of the businesses involved are Novomer who is working with Albemarle Corp and Eastman Kodak to collect CO2 from four sites and turn it into plastics that can be used to make packaging like bottles, films, can coatings and surface applications. Calera, Alcoa and Skyonic are all working with systems that turn CO2 into carbonates and Touchstone Research Laboratory and Phycal are both using algae with captured CO2 to produce biofuels or algal biocrude.
Story sourced from: http://www.environmentalmanagementnews.net/StoryView.asp?StoryID=1109981
Your Ideas, Innovations or Events?
If you want publicity for an idea, innovation or technically related event, contact the I&I editor, Colin Seaborn on 4254 0200 or 0419 841829 or click here->
We welcome stories and photos. With the YOC electronic magazine going out monthly you will need to send your story by the end of a month to get publicity for an event in the following month in this column or in the Clipboard.
If you want to promote your product or service via video please contact YOC office on (02) 4254 0200 or click here->
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