In the international year of biodiverstiy the EU is encouraging industry, governments and NGOs to set up certifications schemes to ensure biofuels help cut emissions and do not threaten biodiversity.
Under the EU Renewable Energy Directive, established in 2009, the 27 members set the target of ensuring that 20% of its energy consumption will come from renewable sources by 2020. The directive also required nations to ensure that renewables accounted for 10% of the energy used in the transport sector. According to the EU, renewables include solid biomass, wind, solar energy and hydro power as well as biofuels.
In a statement realeased last June 10th, the European Commission declared that only biofuels that meet the EU’s sustainability requirements can count towards the targets in the Directive, to be fulfilled in 2020.
Waste is trash, garbage, a problem, a nuisance. But it can also be an energy source. By using trash as an energy source we are being smart, we are imitating nature with its cyclical processes. Waste comes from somewhere; waste is a left-over which required energy to be produced. So instead of just dumping it, we should be profiting from it, instead of throwing it away and contaminating our world.
Now, there are scientists and people around the world who are already studying and exploring waste as an energy source. Among them is the University of Zaragoza, in Spain, where researchers have analyzed “the energy and economic potential of urban solid waste, sludge from water treatment plants and livestock slurry for generating electricity in Spain”. It turns out waste could generate up to 7% of electricity in Spain. Huh…
Some time ago here on Sustentator we talked about a way to treat waste water with micro-algae, and how these micro-algae then could be used for different things, such as biodiesel, for example. This is a project from the Universidad de Valladolid in Spain. Now from another Spanish university – the one in Granada – a similar goal is being attempted, although it is directly tied to biodiesel.
The Spanish researchers’ idea is to make a diesel that’s more efficient and ecological than traditional diesel, if possible. This fuel will not be created from petroleum, but from the mud from waste water treatment plants, with the help of bacteria.
María Victoria Martínez and Maximino Manzanera from the Environmental Microbiology Group want to develop a type of diesel called micro-diesel since it is produced by microorganisms. To do this, they evaluated previous studies that already showed the viability of using bacteria as an alternative source in the production of biodiesel.
The most interesting thing is the novel raw material they use: sludge produced from waste water treatment. As we saw in the other article mentioned above, this sludge is rich in organic materials such as fats and oils. These serve to nourish certain bacteria so they produce the biodiesel.
Last week, here in Sustentator, we summarized what the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act is doing to improve energy efficiency on a national scale. Today, we’ll look at the funds being destined to renewable energy research, development and deployment programs.
1) Community Renewable Energy Deployment
This project will on the whole receive $20.5 million. It includes five projects that will work to deploy renewable energy in different communities. To allow this, clean energy infrastructures will be developed, which will in turn create jobs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save consumers money. Among them is the project of the city of Montpelier, Vermont, where a cogeneration plant will be installed, and the University of California at Davis, that will develop a system to convert waste to energy.
2) Biomass
Through two main projects; Advanced biofuels research and fueling infrastructure and advanced biorefinery, the aim is to enhance the development of a clean and sustainable transportation sector. Among other things, selected projects will research algae-based and advanced biofuels. In so doing, dependence on foreign oil will decrease, while job creation will increase. Another important task which will be addressed is the development of compatible infrastructure. Further, biorefinery projects are expected to help foster a national biomass industry. The are of biomass energy will receive $644 million.
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Being Walmart “the largest private employer and the largest grocery retailer in the US”, its impact on the environment is huge. It operates in several countries besides the US, such as Mexico, the UK, Japan, and India. It was founded in 1962, and it started to work on its environmental impact a few years ago.
Walmart has three main, very demanding goals. These are to be supplied 100% by renewable energy, to eliminate waste and to sell more sustainable products.
Regarding its first goal; using solely renewable energy, Walmart has been investing in both wind and solar power. The company has made a four-year purchase agreement with Duke Energy, a wind farm in Notrees, Texas. Since April 2009, Duke Energy is providing approximately 15% of Walmart’s total energy load in around 350 Texas stores and some other facilities.
Walmart is also looking to solar power to green its ways. Between 2009 and 2010 solar panels will be installed on 10 to 20 of its stores. 18 solar arrays are already in place. When all of the new panels are installed, solar power will provide between 20 and 30% of each location’s total energy needs.
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US president Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed a number of agreements to work together on climate change and energy security. This is great news, being the US the second largest carbon-emitter, and India the fourth. The US has already advanced on negotiations with China. The fact that such powerful leaders are starting to jointly address environmental issues is a great sign, and might be of great help to create a stronger and more effective climate deal in Copenhagen.
Some of the initiatives they have agreed on are the following:
The US and India will foster development and deployment of clean energy technologies. An Indo-US Clean Energy Research and Deployment Initiative has been launched. This includes a Joint Research Center. Some of the priorities of this initiative include energy efficiency, smart grid, second-generation biofuels, and clean coal technologies such as carbon capture and storage. Also solar energy, sustainable transportation, and wind energy development.
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Biofuels have gone from being called the “great green hope” to being considered an ecological problem. Why? The reason is that industrialized countries are only interested in biofuels because they are cheaper, and to them it doesn’t matter where these come from. The problem is that if they are assured of buyers, and the buyers buy a lot, developing countries will use fields that were previously used to grow food to grow crops for biofuels instead.
Basically, there are less and less crops devoted to food, and as if that weren’t bad enough, in countries like Brazil, hundreds and hundreds of acres of the Amazon rainforest are being cut down in order to have more farmland reserved for growing crops of biofuels.
And even worse, since biofuel crops are so lucrative, crops are not rotated, so the land becomes less fertile, and since there are no areas used for pasture in order to not “waste” space, there are less cattle.
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