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Gasification Sees a New Dawn and How it Will Benefit Us All

If you search for gasification and terms like “wood stove” on video sharing sites these days you will see demonstrations of wood being burnt in little stoves which seem to something almost miraculous and quite different from our idea of wood as a fuel. These little boilers light rapidly, produce no detectable smoke after the initial lighting and firing, and burn very hot.

So what is the technique which is being used, and how might it help us all in weaning society off fossil fuels?

What you have seen is a method of gasification. It differs from combustion in that it uses just 20% to 30% of the air or oxygen necessary for complete fuel combustion. During gasification, the amount of air supplied to the gasifier is carefully controlled with the effect that only a small part of the fuel burns completely. Trials of this process have illustrated that up to 70% of the energy value of the fue used can be recovered as what is known as synthesis gas, or syngas. This producer gas can also be used for various applications similar to natural gas.

This is a part of the magic, and not one really shown in the YouTube type videos, but it makes this method even more useful. This is due to the fact that syngas can be put to useful work, in both drying the feed fuel prior to gasification and after collection and storage it can be used as a fossil fuel replacement, and renewable energy source. When a gasification plant also includes Combined Heat and Power (CHP) and/or electricity export from the site, the gains are even more impressive.

Gasification in addition promises to be the most efficient long-term solution for capturing carbon while utilizing these valuable feedstocks, and storing the CO2 for very long priods, to reduce or halt global warming.

Gasification of wood and wood-type residues and waste in fixed bed or fluidised bed gasifiers with subsequent burning of the gas for heat production is has become state of the art with designers of thes systems working hard to gain the absolute maximum efficiency out of these systems.

These wood gasifiers which are located primarily in the Scandinavian countries are used almost entirely for space heating heat generation. Gasification of biomass is the renewable fuel system preferred by many, and can be defined as the thermal conversion of solid biomass to gaseous fuel.

Gasification has been around for over a hundred years, but the benefits of biochar are only now being discovered. Furthermore, it is still a wide-open field.

Before electric lighting was available in cities there were street lamps fuelled by gasified coal. It is easy to forget that the process has been reliably used on a commercial scale worldwide for more than 50 years in the refining, fertilizer, and chemical industries, and for more than 35 years in the electric power industry. More than 75 companies involved in the development, licensing, and use of these technologies as well as engineering, construction, equipment manufacturing and production of synthesis gas by gasification from coal, petroleum coke, heavy oils and other hydrocarbons.

Gasification has been proven to be a viable technology for CO2 capture and reducing SOx, NOx, particulate matter, and mercury emissions from coal and petcoke-fired power plants, synthetic fuels production, and chemical facilities.

Plants in this category have been capturing carbon dioxide for several decades in chemical plants in China and the United States. It also has potential contributions to make to both transportation and electrical power energy markets. With ongoing concerns about the price and availability of oil, populous countries like the U.S. gasification has proven to be in high demand and quite successful. However, it can also be used in conjunction with gas engines and gas turbines to obtain a higher conversion efficiency than conventional fossil-fuel electric power generation. Gasification can help meet renewable energy targets, address concerns about global warming, and contribute to meeting global environmental targets.

Steve has built a great web site where there is a lot more information about gasification. This is a hot subject indeed for this technology which has become an essential read for all those in alternative energy and interested in taking action to reduce the impact of climate change.

What to Do to Earth Day Celebrate?

There are definitely countless reasons why people should be celebrating Earth Day. One very important reason might be the mere fact that the world has still continued to exist despite the many challenges that it is experiencing nowadays. Perhaps each individual should find that gratitude in their hearts so that they would be able to realize that the world needs all of us. Nonetheless, there must be a lot of individuals around the world who have found that gratitude in their hearts because there a lot of people getting involved in the Earth Day celebration. This celebration has already been observed globally regardless of race, religion, or status. This only shows that individual difference can be set aside to pursue a common goal- and that is environmental preservation.

Various activities and programs have been prepared for the Earth Day celebration. However, it cannot be denied that most people are busy with their own daily activities such that they wouldn’t find time to participate in actual celebrations. In order to address this concern, if people couldn’t make it to the celebration, the celebration is brought to them instead. This can be done through the advances in communication and information. Numerous Earth Day activities are made available through the worldwide web. These activities are made available for anyone to participate in at any time that they would prefer to. One of these activities is the Earth Day games which are specifically designed to incorporate environmental awareness into the games. Another activity is the various Earth Day crafts, which are craft lessons and procedures that make use of environmentally friendly materials. Earth Day coloring pages are another of the different activities which encourage the development of the art skills of an individual through the application of colors into different figures or illustrations. There are also different Earth Day songs and poems that one can download from the web. For individuals who are fund of social networking, there are Earth Day graphics that can be used as personal greetings or frontpages of personal profiles. Finally, there are Earth Day recipes that can be found in the web which are actually healthy yet savvy as well.

Surely, the possibilities of enjoying and celebrating Earth Day are countless. What is important is that the message is taken across every individual even for just this one special day in a year. It provides information and awareness in ways that could easily be grasped by any individual, all for the purpose of preserving mother Earth.

Axel Meierhoefer is a published author, educator, coach, consultant, and the founder of AMC LLC. His motto is” Helping others help themselves achieve success”. You want to learn how to achieve success faster, realize your goals, learn how to reach your dreams, then take actions. Come visit us at http://www.ecoconsciouspioneers.com or send an email to AM@Meierhoefer.net Don’t delay!

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Environmental Statements

Under the relevant European Directives, an Environmental Statement is the formal product of an Environmental Impact Assessment. Environmental Statements are often organised in a way that describes the environmental baseline, mitigation and effects for each type of environmental receptors: ecology, water resources, archaeological resources, human beings etcetera. Contaminated land is often managed in the same ways as the various environmental receptor groups, although it is principally a cause of impacts rather than a receptor. It also often refers to a pre-existing condition and its damaging effect is on a variety of different receptors such as human health, structures and buildings, surface water features, groundwater features and ecology. This often means that land contamination specialists struggle with integrating the issue in a logical manner in an Environmental Statement. Sticking to the structured approach of an environmental statement is essential to ensure a clear description of the existing environmental condition, the potential impacts and the actions taken to avoid, minimise, offset or manage the impacts. This article is based on UK practice and legislation, although fundamentally the issues should be similar within other contexts.

Contaminated land is in many countries considered on a source-pathway-receptor basis. This is important to understand the impact land development can have on the issue of contaminated land. Development can interfere with any of these three elements. It can introduce sensitive receptors by changing the use of land, for instance by building new residential units on a site that was previously used for heavy industry. New pathways linking pre-existing contamination with an existing receptor can be formed, for instance when piling through a non-permeable layer connecting a layer of contaminated soils with a deep aquifer. Finally by introducing pollutants on the site a development project can introduce a potential source of contamination.

The second element to consider is the structured approach of an environmental statement. Apart from the introductory and procedural elements described in the environmental statement, a good environmental statement comprised the following sections:

• environmental baseline conditions
• potential environmental impacts
• mitigating measures
• residual environmental impacts

There should be a logical relation between the different sections. Any receptor that is affected and described in the section about the potential impacts and effects should have been introduced in the section describing the baseline. Any material impact should be assigned a mitigation or management action etc. Implementing this structure allows a clear description and understanding of the environmental impacts and the way it will be managed.

Applying these principles to contaminated land will result in a baseline condition section that describes the current sensitive receptors that are present within the potential sphere of influence of the development, the sensitivity and importance of these receptors, the presence of any pre-existing contamination and the presence of actual and potential pathways. The next section, potential environmental impacts or effects, first considers the impacts that the development will have in terms of the introduction (or removal) of sensitive receptors and the creation of new pathways between existing and potential pollution sources and receptors. In addition this section will describe the potential environmental impacts that are associated with the introduction of new sources of contamination. In the third section, mitigating measures, a description of the actions to mitigate each of the impacts that may occur should be provided. Finally a statement of the residual impact of the development is provided in the last section: residual environmental impacts.

Paul Giesberg is an environmental consultant with a special interest in environmental impact assessment and sustainability in land use development.

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Benefits For Municipal Waste Management with Plasma Gasification

Plasma Gasification Plant (PGP) projects are being developed by at least five gas plasma technology companies, and there are real benefits to be obtained from this technology for the destruction of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW).

There is some debate still whether the process has been demonstrated to be a vaible technology which can be reliably operated by our waste management companies at reasonable cost and in compliance with all emissions regulations. However, the consensus seems to be largely in acceptance now that the technology is largely proven and inherently cleaner than incineration.

Although, gasification is used as a power generating technology, and gas plasma plants do provide a power feed-in to the local power grid, it should be realised by all that the purpose of selecting plasma gasification is currently that of achieving maximum waste mass destruction. The intent of the PGP is primarily to provide an efficent and clean method of dispoing of large quantities of residual MSW. Plasma gasification, although it does produce energy from waste is not primarliy an Energy from Waste (EfW) or Waste to Energy technology. There are other better proven, more efficient, and potentially always also cheaper ways to produce Energy from Waste, such as incineration.

PGPs suffer a high sacrificial load from the use of power at the electrodes to generate the plasma, and energy is also expended before the MSW reaches the plasma zone in the gasifier in chopping up and ensuring that the particle size of the waste is quite small. For this reason they do expend a large proportion of the power generated just in maintaining their own internal power demand.

However, as a waste destruction method producing an inert residue without creating at the same time high levels of toxic gaseous emissions the gas plasma process excels according to reports made to date. It has every reason to be cleaner as well because the reactions which take place in the plasma state take place so quickly and completely that the toxic organic chemicals produced in other combustion processes simply don’t get a change to be produced.

For a waste management process PGP therefore holds a very good prospect of adoption, as it is a process which is very efficient at diverting waste away from landfill, and thus scores highly among local authority waste disposal engineers who are constantly seeking to comply with regulations to reduce the amount of organic waste sent to landfill.

The PGP process however, also holds another merit and that is that it is being viewed more favourably by the public than incineration, and one main reason for that would be its clean emissions record when compared with incinerators historically.

Throughout Europe the requirement for BMW to be reduced by ever larger percentages necessitates the use of new technology to achieve this high rate of waste diversion, even after high recycling has also been achieved.

Look out for a plasma gasification plant appearing in a district near you soon, and look favourably upon it!

Steve has built a great web site where there are a lot more facts about gasification. This is a hot subject indeed for this technology which has become an essential read for all those who appreciate renewable energy issues and are interested in taking action to reduce the impact of climate change.Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_D_Evans

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