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Studies Show High Potential and Continued Growth for Renewable Energy
Here’s an overview of key biogas news.
GOVERNMENT POLICIES & LAW
Organic waste legislative update
Approximately 40 percent of food in the United States goes uneaten. Most of this wasted food ends up in landfills, and food is the largest single component of municipal solid waste in landfills, according to the 2019 report, “Bans and Beyond: Designing and Implementing Organic Waste Bans and Mandatory Organics Recycling Laws.” As more businesses, states and municipalities roll out sustainability initiatives, such as San Diego’s Zero Waste Plan that includes a 75 percent waste diversion goal by 2020, organic waste bans to reduce or divert food scrap from landfills are gaining momentum across the country.
COMPANIES & ORGANIZATIONS
Gasum to supply Preem tankers with liquefied biogas fuel blend
Gasum is to supply Sweden’s largest fuel company, Preem, with a new fuel blend consisting of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and 10% renewable liquefied biogas (LBG). This is the first agreement that involves Gasum delivering a blend containing renewable fuel to a maritime sector customer on a regular basis. Preem’s vessels to be supplied with the renewable maritime fuel blend are the time-chartered tankers Tern Ocean and Thun Evolve. Karin Klinthäll, manager of trading operations at Preem, said: “Maritime transport is an important part of Preem’s operations.”
Read more on Bioenergy Insight
UK industry leaders express concerns over biomass fuel supplies
Bioenergy industry leaders are urging the UK Government to keep wood fuel supply chains fully open to ensure heat can be provided to key frontline organisations and businesses. The Biomass Heat Works! campaign expressed concerns over key organisations being under immense pressure due to the Covid-19 (coronavirus) outbreak. Biomass is a key utility resource, particularly for rural areas, and the wood fuel supply chain (including wood pellets and wood chips) requires UK production and imported pellets “in equal measure”, according to Biomass Heat Works!
Read more on Bioenergy Insight
Groundbreaking held for Sweden’s first biofuels pyrolysis plant
Pyrocell AB, the joint venture between wood products major Setra Group and oil refiner and renewable fuel producer Preem AB, has held a groundbreaking ceremony at Setra Kastet sawmill in Gävle marking construction start of Sweden’s first pyrolysis plant to convert sawmill residues into a biocrude for advanced biofuels production. “The company thus becomes an important link in the value chain from Swedish forest to the consumer’s tank,” said Pontus Friberg, Chairman of the Board of Pyrocell. First announced by Setra Group and Preem in 2018, the Pyrocell pyrolysis plant is being built adjacent to Setra’s Kastet sawmill and will produce pyrolysis oil using sawdust, a residual product in Setra’s industrial process.
Read more on Bioenergy International
CNG Fuels opens biomethane station
CNG Fuels yesterday opened a biomethane refuelling station in Warrington, UK, which the company said is Europe’s largest. Demand for renewable biomethane has soared 800% since 2017 and as well as the new station in Warrington, CNG Fuels has also recently opened a renewable biomethane compressed natural gas (Bio-CNG) station in Northampton, UK. The two stations are capable of refuelling more than 1,000 heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) a day, more than doubling the 600-a-day capacity of existing stations in Leyland, Lancashire and Crew, Chesire.
RESEARCHES & STUDIES
COP 26: will it be necessary to implement stricter measures? Biogas among the technologies to take into consideration
Last February we met Niclas Svenningsen, head of the Strategy and Relationship Management Unit at the UNFCCC Secretariat. Niclas told us about the results of the COP 25, held in Madrid in November 2019 and of the objectives of the future COP 26, scheduled for November 2020 in Glasgow. The roles that existing technologies can play in the fight against climate change and how to make these available in all countries of the world will be evaluated during this 26th Conference of the Parties. These also include biogas, which could contribute enormously to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as Charlotte Morton, Chief Executive of the World Biogas Association, also explained to us.
European renewable power demand 2019 still outpaced supply
The growth in renewable power demand in Europe continues to outpace renewable power supply in 2019, according to new statistics from the Association of Issuing Bodies (AIB). “The European demand for renewable energy tracked and documented with Guarantees of Origin (GOs) grew at a brisk rate of 11.7 percent in 2019. This is up an estimated 61 TWh from 2018,” says Tom Lindberg, Managing Director in ECOHZ, a provider of renewable energy solutions. Commenting on the figures published by AIB, Tom Lindberg highlighted that the annual growth (CAGR) in the last 10 years is an impressive 15 percent.
Read more on Bioenergy International
Organic waste-derived biogas could meet 20% of global gas demand, says IEA
Biogas and biomethane derived from organic waste have “huge untapped potential” to provide clean energy globally, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). A new report by the IEA, released on 19 March, claims the world’s biogas and biomethane resources could cover 20% of global gas demand while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The organisation claims that vast amounts of organic waste such as agricultural residues, food waste and animal manure could be used to produce biogas and biomethane, providing clean energy sources for the world.
Read more on Bioenergy Insight
Zero-Waste Shopping Finally Catching On In U.S.
Many mainstream American grocery stores and chains now have bulk sections for dried foods like nuts and spices, though most everything else still comes sealed in plastic, cardboard, aluminum or glass, which customers then recycle or discard once they devour the contents. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that containers and packaging make up almost a quarter of all landfill waste, with the average American generating four pounds of trash a day, most of it food-related.
Read more on The Good Men Project
Using heat to store renewable energy
The use of fossil fuel is massively gaining attention due to the serious climatic changes it is bringing all over the world with high carbon emissions. Wind and solar are the best solutions for renewable energy. However, these two are not reliable as there are times when they are too low to match the supply with the demand created. The fluctuating power grid will need some storage to ensure that it has tackled this fluctuation. The technologies to store such capacities of energy are limited as the most commonly used ones are batteries, which cannot store massive amounts.
Read more on Daily Veteran