A total of 83,000 farmers and herdsmen in the suburbs of Lhasa, capital of Tibet, have had access to biogas since Lhasa launched the pilot project to supply them with the clean energy in 2006.

"Biogas is not only clean and convenient, but also helps save resources, thus improving our livelihood," said a rural resident of Dechen Town, Dagze County, Lhasa.

So far, the Lhasa City Government has spent 63.07 million yuan (8.79 million U.S. dollars) on biogas projects and 16,599 households have used the energy.

Meanwhile, the government has also formulated a series of regulations to standardize the construction of biogas pits and use of biogas.

Rural residents also make use of the energy in greenhouses to grow vegetables and make 1,800 yuan to 2,000 yuan more per family each year by doing so.

http://chinatibet.people.com.cn/6818131.ht...

Electricity operator National Grid believes that with the right Government incentives, renewable gas could be produced from our waste and fed straight into the mains.

Less than a year after announcing that up to half the UK's homes could be heated with renewably generated 'biogas' derived from food waste, National Grid has unveiled a bold plan for how the gas could be produced on a local level.

In a new report released today, the grid operator sets out how a series of 'Urban Energy Centres' could take delivery of separated food and household waste.

The food waste would be fed straight into an anaerobic digester, which breaks down the sludge to produce a methane-rich gas and a nutrient-rich liquid slurry, that can be used as an agricultural fertiliser....

National Grid calculates that 10 plants could deal with all of London's waste, reducing CO2 emissions by some 146,365 tonnes a year by displacing fossil natural gas.

However, although the report calculates that the Energy Centres would make better economic sense than incinerators (costing £62.50 per megawatt hour of energy produced, as opposed £110.25 per megawatt hour of energy from an incinerator), the Grid's executives believe that the project will not succeed unless the Government introduces promised financial incentives.

http://www.theecologist.co.uk/News/news_ro...

At the desk sat Robert W. Lobenstein ? Loby to his friends ? with a radio in his hand and a look of excitement on his face that only someone with an engineering degree can have.

"Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one," he called into his radio. "Full acceleration southbound!"

Despite the distant roar, Mr. Lobenstein, the general superintendent of power operations for the subway, was not launching a shuttle. He was launching a train ? one of the brand-new models starting to appear now on the L line ? along a 10,000-foot test track just outside the barn.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/30/nyregion...

Pentadyne Power Corporation (www.pentadyne.com ), a world leader in flywheel
energy storage systems, announced that the Metropolitan Transit Authority of New
York (www.mta.nyc.ny.us ) will use Pentadyne as the supplier of a 2.4 megawatt
energy recycling system that will be used to capture, store and reuse braking
energy of trains on a station of the Long Island Railroad.

The MTA oversees all of New York City`s world-renowned subways, commuter trains
and buses. It is North America`s largest transit authority, providing 2.6
billion passenger trips each year - the equivalent of about one in every three
users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation's rail
riders.

The pilot project has major financial support from the New York Power Authority
(www.nypa.gov ), which selected Pentadyne as the supplier.

The project will involve an array of sustainable, environmentally responsible
carbon-fiber flywheel systems that capture and store braking energy from slowing
trains, then reuse that energy for acceleration.

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressReleas...

STONELEIGH, England (Reuters) - Gas made from agricultural crops and by-products such as cow slurry will play a key role in meeting Britain's energy needs over the next few years, the head of a new trade body said on Wednesday.

Lord Redesdale, chief executive of the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association, which was launched on Wednesday, said he expects 1,000 plants to be built over the next five to 10 years at a cost of about 5 billion pounds ($8.23 billion).

He told reporters at the launch that the digesters, once they had all been built, would provide about 20 percent of Britain's domestic gas needs with a value of about 1.7 billion pounds a year based on current prices.

"If you are looking at the one renewable that can actually meet the real needs the country has for energy and the needs we have under climate change, this is the big one," Redesdale said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Busines...

Construction has started, lab equipment has been ordered and a team of Kettering University faculty researchers have jetted to Sweden to learn more about biogas and biomethane powered vehicles.

It's been nearly a year since Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf visited Flint for the ceremonial ground breaking of the city's biogas plant, an $8-million- to $10-million private-public partnership that will bring a new alternative energy plant here and save the city millions of dollars over several years.

In August work started inside the city's wastewater treatment plant in Flint Township, as city workers have been removing pumps and pipes and are repairing a sludge storage tank, said Tom Guise, Swedish Biogas International's chief executive officer in Flint.

The project, which should be producing biogas by next fall, is a partnership between Linkoping, Sweden-based SBI, the city of Flint, state of Michigan and Kettering University.

http://www.mlive.com/business/mid-michigan...

What will fuel-economy numbers look like on the window stickers of electric vehicles coming to the US market next year?” asks Paul Weissler, in his recent article for the Society of Automotive Engineers. Trying to find the answer could short-circuit your brain.

The big numbers on the window sticker for BMW’s Mini E—currently in the hands of hundreds of consumers in a test program—are 33 in the city and 36 on the highway. But those are posted in kilowatt hours per 100 miles. The smaller text explains that the equivalent is 102 mpg city and 94 mpg on the highway.

When plug-in cars hit the US market in the next year or two, consumers will need a lot of help deciphering the efficiency figures of vehicles that carry electric fuel by the kilowatt hour rather than liquid fuel by the gallon. Nissan’s upcoming yet-to-be-named electric car, according to some tests, will get 367 miles per gallon. The Tesla Roadster is reported to get 135 miles per gallon. And the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid…that depends.

If the EPA uses tests designed for electric cars to evaluate the Chevy Volt, the ratings could exceed 100 mpg. But if the government agency classifies the Volt as a hybrid and tests it as such, the EPA rating would drop to about 50 mpg. The difference could mean success or failure in the marketplace. Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency and sticker numbers for plug-in hybrids, which use gasoline and electricity in various degrees and ways depending on the specific vehicles design, have not yet been determined.

http://www.hybridcars.com/fuel-economy-num...

ROSEBURG, Ore. -- Three mobile pyrolysis demonstrations have been scheduled for southern Oregon and one presentation is planned for northeastern Oregon.

Fast pyrolysis is a thermal process that rapidly heats woody biomass to a controlled temperature of 500 degrees Celsius, and then quickly cools the volatile products. The process yields about 60 percent bio-oil, 25 percent bio-char and 15 percent syngas.

The syngas is recycled into the combustion chamber of mobile plants to increase efficiency and reduce the need for an outside energy source for operations. The bio-oil and bio-char are also collected for later use. Bio-oil can be refined into No. 2 diesel fuel or used for industrial heating. Bio-char can be used as a soil amendment.

Umpqua National Forest and Oregon's Douglas County are sponsoring three demonstrations of a portable fast-pyrolysis unit: Aug. 19 at the Lemolo Sand Shed on Highway 138 at milepost 72; Aug. 22 at the Swanson mill site in Glide, Ore.; and Aug. 26 at 1749 Merlin Rd., Merlin, Ore. Mixed conifers will be processed at Lemolo, cedar and oak from private land will be processed at Glide, and madrone from state lands will be processed at Merlin.

http://www.capitalpress.info/content/cr-de...

DUNLAP, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mantria Industries, LLC proudly announces the opening of the Mantria Place EternaGreen Center – the world’s largest BioChar plant. The Center, located in Dunlap, Tennessee, can potentially sequester 96,000 tons of CO2, reduce 43,000 tons of waste, produce 32,000 tons of EternaGreen™ BioChar annually, and bring an estimated $10 million in revenue.

“The opening of the Center has exceeded even our highest expectations,” exclaimed Troy Wragg, Mantria Industries Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO. “This state-of-the-art facility is truly a milestone. From work that began in the 1970’s, we are thrilled to be a part of this epic time for the BioChar scientific community.”

The Center is also the world’s first commercial-scale BioChar facility, and will transform waste into valuable products, assist in the reduction of pollution, increase agricultural production, create sustainable businesses, and employ local laborers and engineers.

“We are proud to be a part of the world’s first industrial-scale plant for BioChar and look forward to raising the bar on clean energy technologies,” Amanda Knorr, Mantria Industries Co-Founder, Vice Chairman, President and COO.

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/go...

General Motors said Tuesday that its Chevrolet Volt with its rechargeable battery is expected to get at least 230 miles a gallon in city driving. The car is scheduled to be released in 2011.

G.M. said the number was based on developmental tests using a draft federal fuel economy methodology for plug-in electric vehicles.

The Volt uses a battery pack and is powered by an electric motor with a 40-mile range, and the calculation essentially assumes that most drivers using the car to commute will stay within that range and will not need the car’s gasoline-powered generator to produce electricity. The majority of time, drivers in the city will be in an electric mode, the company said during its presentation.

“Most Volt drivers will operate on a daily basis without having to use a drop of gas,” G.M.’s chief executive, Fritz Henderson, said. He said he was also confident that highway mileage would be “triple-digit.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/business...

Georgia-based Biomass Gas & Electric plans to grow 50 percent of the feedstock that will be required to power its soon-to-be-constructed biomass facility, Northwest Florida Renewable Energy Center in Port St. Joe, Fla., at its subsidiary AgTech Renewable Fuels LLC.

The company will begin work on the 45-megawatt power plant in the first quarter of 2010, and is currently working to raise capital to build a laboratory and nursery to grow arundo and miscanthus seed plantlets. AgTech Renewable was formed almost a year ago, upon licensing the technology rights from the University of South Carolina.

BG&E plans to use a micropropagation technology that is applicable for up to 50 species of perennial grasses. Although arundo and miscanthus can yield between 20 and 30 tons per acre, the major limitation in the widespread adoption of the two biomass crops has been the labor-intensive hand propagation and transplanting required for the sterile grasses. BG&E’s micropropagation technology involves growing thousands of plantlets in vitro that are then matured in bioreactors for mass row planting, drastically reducing labor requirements.

“We’re in the process of looking for growers, although it’s still a ways away,” said BG&E spokesman Keith McDermott. The laboratory and nursery will be in close proximity to where the farming operations will be, he added.

Besides energy grasses, NFREC will also utilize wood waste from the local forest industry. “What we’re trying to do is have a good mixture of open and closed-loop sources,” McDermott said. “We’re building the facility in the heart of the nation’s wood basket, so there are a tremendous amount of biomass opportunities. There are companies down there that have been in the timber business for many, many years, and because a lot of the paper industry has gone overseas, a big void has been left—not to mention the downturn in the economy with construction and building, so we’re definitely stepping into a place where we’re going to be able to affect the economy very positively.”

McDermott said BG&E doesn’t foresee using the farming operations for 100 percent of the required feedstock of NFREC. “Especially at the outset; we don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket,” he said. “We want to help support the local economy from the timber aspect, and also give the farmers something to plant, harvest and transport.”

http://www.biomassmagazine.com/article.jsp...

As the recession deepens, energy projects in Europe are becoming increasingly dominated by renewable fuels, especially biogas (methane).

The European Union now counts about 8,000 biogas plants, and—encouraged by increasing subsidies—thousands more should come on line during the next decade. Farmers are building plants to make a profit, not to protect the environment. Farm emissions account for 9-10% of the EU’s total greenhouse gases, more than all industrial processes, such as steelmaking and chemical manufacturing, combined, according to the European Environment Agency.

Much of the emissions come from two gases produced from livestock manure—methane and nitrous oxide. Farmers usually spread manure on their fields, where the methane escapes into the atmosphere, and the nitrogen forms nitrous oxide. Biogas plants offer a partial solution to this problem: Farmers can make money by capturing the methane from their manure, while governments get a renewable energy source that achieves substantial greenhouse-gas reductions and helps to reduce the EU’s dependence on imported natural gas, mostly from Russia.

A new plant that produces gas from wood opened in Güssing, Austria, (pop. 3,800) opening new possibilities in renewable energy. According to company officials, they can use the gas produced at the plant in urban heating systems, for gas-powered cars or by power stations. The facility, located in a town already renowned for being entirely energy self-reliant, can produce some 100 cubic meters of biogas per hour, enough to heat 150 homes on a cold winter’s day. Richard Zweiler, from the European Centre for Renewable Energy, which is behind the project, said the gas produced has the same quality as natural gas. Funded by the European Union, Switzerland, and Austria, the plant took three years to move from the pilot phase to the industrial phase. The project cost $11 million (€8 million).

http://www.isa.org/InTechTemplate.cfm?temp...

As Lightning Hybrids began to garner interest, inquiries about the technology got company officials thinking. A new division, Hydraulic Hybrid Systems Inc., will take on the challenge of developing retrofit kits for vehicles already on the road.

"As we started working on the hydraulic hybrid system for the cars, we had a lot of people come out of the woodwork needing it for fleet vehicles," said Bonnie Trowbridge, vice president for business development at Lightning Hybrids.

Trowbridge pointed to Environmental Protection Agency data on similar technology that shows energy efficiency gains of 40 percent to 60 percent. Lightning Hybrids is hoping to replicate or surpass those savings. Trowbridge said the average cost for a retrofit kit will be around $12,900, with a return on investment slated for year two.

http://www.ncbr.com/article.asp?id=101414

H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has provisions for a 30% tax credit for 75% + efficient EPA approved bio-mass heating appliances purchased in 2009 or 2010. The maximum allowable credit is $1500, and applies to all materials and labor needed for the installation.. In order to claim the credit, homeowners should keep the recept from their installer, and the certificate from the manufacturer....

Only newer, EPA approved appliances are elibible for the tax credit. Keep in mind that most jurisdictions only allow EPA aproved stoves to be installed in homes, and many cities require that a licensed mechanical contractor and/or NFI Certified Woodburning Specialist do the installation. The older (15 years plus) stoves are generally not efficient, very dirty burning, and not EPA compliant, so should be removed from homes and replaced with a newer approved model.



http://www.examiner.com/x-17092-Kansas-Cit...

On June 5, 2009, Alders and King, with the support of an investment group, broke ground in Leona, Texas, to build the first cellulose biogas plant in the United States. This history-in-the-making, green business venture is quickly launching Alders and King into megawatt stardom in the farming industry....

In the 2002 Ag Census, over 21 million acres in Texas were listed as cropland, but were not being harvested. For economic reasons, many farmers had let their fields go fallow and then grazed livestock on them....

“These plants are often called a ‘concrete cow,’” Smith explains. “The process mimics a cow’s digestive system. They take in the food source, the bacteria breaks down the cellulose and produces biomethane.”....

On average, each acre of sorghum will produce 12 tons. The extra acres in production will provide for crop rotation and two years of feedstock stored at all times. The silage will be stored in silos at the plant site where they will steadily feed the “concrete cow” in the non-stop production process....

“This is a landmark project for the United States and the ag industry,” states NRCS Texas State Conservationist Don Gohmert. “This has the potential to revitalize agriculture as millions of acres that could no longer produce profitable commodity crops, now have a new opportunity for income.”

“And the entire process is based on very sound soil, water and crop production practices,” he adds.

Smith says that because the organic matter is there, strip tillage methods work well for farmers to plant the sorghum in the fallowed land. It maintains organic matter, saves them time and money, and helps conserve soil moisture.

The greenhouse gasses emitted in the process will be offset by their capture and all of the byproducts produced in the process will go back into the cycle or utilized offsite. The CO2 that results in burning the biomethane will be captured, and, along with the introduced nutrients, including poultry litter, will be used to grow algae, which will produce biodiesel. The biodiesel will then go back to the farmers raising the crops.

The digestion production process uses no water, but because on average, silage is 67 percent moisture, water is a byproduct. This water, with valuable minerals and nutrients left in the digestate, is applied back to the land. Storm runoff water is also captured and utilized for plant sanitation and fire prevention. There are opportunities to capture other byproducts, such as heat, and use it to heat water for hospitals, prisons and other facilities.

The original plan was to establish one plant, then expand the operation to include five plants in the area. However, when investors saw the impact and potential for the operation, that number grew quickly to 50 plants in central Texas. Based on the expected revenue from this first plant, an economic analysis using the Regional Industry Multiplier System, predicts an additional 137 jobs and 14 businesses will be created in the economic region from this project.

http://southwestfarmpress.com/energy/bioga... /

Kigali — Five international companies from India, South Africa, Sweden and China are bidding to provide technical support to Rwanda to assist in the production of compressed biogas.

This follows an announcement by Construction and Renewable Energy Technologies (CRET S.A.R.L) that it is venturing into production of compressed biogas in Rwanda.

The compressed natural gas will be used mainly for vehicle fuel and cooking energy.

According to Ndayisaba by end of September this year, the project for production of biogas will have kicked off.

The firm estimates to produce 1400 kgs of compressed electricity daily after the construction of bio-digesters.

Biogas has 60 percent of methane content and 40 percent of carbon-dioxide. This biogas can be purified to match compressed natural gas standards by use of advanced technologies.

Biogas recovery has the triple advantage of producing clean heat and electricity, reducing the impact of organic waste on the environment.

CRET also intends to produce other products from compressed biogas including recycled water and fertilisers.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200907020405....