Industry News

A research team at the University of Warwick (UoW) has discovered a method of producing hydrogen from wastewater that could be used to power electric vehicles, Engineering & Technology (E&T) reports. The water and waste company Severn Trent asked the scientists at UoW if there was a more energy efficient way to treat wastewater. It […]

FAO Urges Enhanced Investment in Science and Innovation to Support Biodiversity in Agri-Food Systems The agri-food industry needs to do more to support biodiversity and create “effective and long-lasting solutions”. This is the opinion of QU Dongyu, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (NAO), who called for stakeholders in the

Developing a Circular Economy for Battery Recycling Could Create Green Jobs in Scotland   In partnership with Transport Scotland and Scottish Enterprise, Zero Waste Scotland has commissioned a new study that suggests that developing a circular economy by recycling batteries could boost green jobs in the country. Battery waste is predicted to triple within the

A £66 million contract has been signed for the design and construction of an upgrade to an existing sewage works. Thames Water has announced plans for the upgrade of the Mogden sewage works in Twickenham, west London, with construction firm Kier winning the bid for the work. Kier will carry out the improvement project to

A collaboration to ensure all domestic flights to and from the COP 26 climate summit in Glasgow in November are powered by sustainable biofuel is one of the ledges made by British Airways (BA) as part of its new BA Better World environmental programme.

The deal with BP will cover flights between London, Edinburgh and Glasgow during the conference, reducing carbon emissions by 80 per cent compared with the sole use of traditional aviation fuel. The technique is achieved by blending the two fuels together.

BA has described the initiative as its “most important journey yet” and has partnered with Airbus to paint one of its fuel-efficient A320neos in the new sustainability programme’s colours.

A key feature of the new programme is a new carbon offset option. Instead of just planting trees or funding some low-carbon initiative elsewhere, passengers can purchase sustainable aviation fuel to cut their carbon footprints.

The airline noted that it had always been at the forefront of carbon reduction initiatives, being the first to report its carbon footprint in 1992 and the first to use emissions trading in 2002. It is now planning to become a zero carbon airline by 2050 and since last year has offered voluntary offsetting of all emissions on domestic flights.

Speaking at the launch of the programme, British Airways chairman and chief executive Sean Doyle said the firm has a “responsibility” to improve its environmental record and produce a “detailed plan” to meet its 2050 net zero target.

This can be done by “investing in more fuel-efficient aircraft, improving our operational efficiency and investing in the development of sustainable aviation fuel and zero emissions aircraft,” he added.

Mr Doyle acknowledged that; “It is only through working in partnership with government and industry that we’ll be able to reach our targets,” and thanked BP for the collaboration that made possible the use of sustainable fuel for the COP 2 flights.

He confirmed the BP deal was “in addition to the mandatory carbon trading we already operate in the UK and our own further voluntary carbon offsetting of our UK domestic flights.”

Chief executive of BP’s aviation division Martin Thomsen said it was a major aim of the firm to decarbonise the aviation sector, adding: “We will continue to collaborate with industry stakeholders and governments to explore viable options to help scale up sustainable aviation fuel more broadly.”

It is not just BA that is giving biofuels a boost. In the US, United Airlines and conglomerate firm Honeywell have joined forces to invest millions of dollars in Alder Fuels, a cleantech company that is seeking to develop aviation fuel from biomass such as waste crop and wood.

The plan is to combine Honeywell’s ‘Ecofining’ process with Alder’s technologies to achieve the holy grail of a new kind of biofuel that can act as a 100 per cent replacement for traditional aviation fuel.

The agreement includes a commitment by United to buy 1.5 million gallons of the fuel once it has met the required standard.

Like BA, United is committed to becoming a net zero carbon airline by 2050.

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A study looking into the effects of filtering wastewater into willow trees could help to create renewable biofuels, green chemicals and clean water, whilst at the same reducing a growing problem caused by contaminated water.

The project, published in Science of the Total Environment, suggests that over 30 million litres of wastewater per hectare of willow trees could be treated every year using this approach, which the research team described as a “biorefinery”.

1. Why Willow Trees?

Willow has historically been one of the most widely used woods for medicinal and even manufacturing purposes, with a fishing net made from willow dating back over 10,000 years.

It has considerable upside for biofuel production because it grows very quickly and its biomass can be transformed into a range of sustainable products, including bioethanol and green plastics produced without fossil fuels.

Willows are also exceptionally hardy trees that are very naturally tolerant of contamination, and it is this quality in particular that has made this research fascinating.

Willows do not, for example, need to be grown on high-quality land and so do not use land that could be used for food crops, and the powerful roots of willow trees naturally filter out the nitrogen that is commonly found in sewage waste.

This versatility is not unknown, and a previous study has suggested that a fifth of the world’s energy requirements could be provided through willow-produced biofuel without damaging food production whatsoever.

Willow also produces a range of highly useful chemicals, of which the most well-known and well-used is salicin, a precursor to aspirin.

Through filtering sewage, willow has also been found to produce a range of green chemicals with antimicrobial, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

Research has even been undertaken into ways to recover valuable metals using plant technologies that essentially extract them from contaminated soil.

1. Creating Biofuel From Willow Trees

Willow is a particularly effective producer of biomass, the plant material that is either burned or refined into biofuels such as bioethanol.

Once the willow has grown and been replanted, the wood from the trees is taken to a processing plant where through surface grinding it is turned into chippings.

These chippings could be burned on their own as for wood-burning stoves and boilers, but in most cases are taken to a biorefinery, where the clippings and chippings undergo a chemical process to convert them into bioethanol, typically through fermentation of sugars, starches and cellulose.

At this point, the bioethanol enters the fuel refinery process where additives are mixed in or the bioethanol is added to conventional fuel to serve as a replacement for petroleum.

Recently, the government changed the standard formulation of petrol in the UK to add twice the amount of bioethanol to it. This new E10 petrol is claimed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 750,000 tonnes a year, with little impact on modern cars.

Indeed, it is believed that most current cards manufactured since 2011 could use fuel mixed with up to 15 per cent bioethanol without the risk of mechanical problems, although the current E5 mix is still available for classic car owners.

The UK Government announced on Tuesday 17 August the launch of a strategy to meet its goals of 5 gigawatts (GW) of low-carbon hydrogen production by 2030 to replace the natural gas that powers three million Uk homes, as well as industry and transport.

Bioenergy News reports that industry and policy-makers are looking more and more to hydrogen to lower the environmental impact of sectors that have been the hardest to decarbonise and reduce reliance on natural gas, but the technical challenges and the investment needed are high.

Nearly all of the hydrogen produced in Britain so far is based on fossil fuel energy.

The government’s strategy is to replace up to one-fifth of natural gas supplies with ‘green’ hydrogen, which is made through electrolysis powered by renewable energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

‘Blue’ hydrogen would also be used, but unlike green hydrogen, it is not emissions-free, although the carbon emissions are captured and stored and then used in other applications.

The government said around £900 million of funding will be available to support hydrogen projects in the UK, which it said could create more than 9,000 jobs by 2030.

The government has alas launched a consultation, as part of the strategy, on the types of support for hydrogen projects that would lower costs, along the lines of its contracts-for-difference (CfD) scheme that incentivises investment in renewable energy, by guaranteeing a minimum price for those who produce it.

The government will also work with industry on the feasibility of mixing 20 per cent hydrogen into the existing gas supply and will consult on the design of a £240 million net-zero hydrogen fund to support the development of low carbon hydrogen plants.

British multinational chemicals company INEOS, Europe’s largest producer of hydrogen, said it saw a hydrogen economy as the country’s best chance of meeting carbon reduction targets.

INEOS Corporate Affairs Director Tom Crotty said: “The government must start to commit to investment in the development of the UK’s hydrogen infrastructure.

“At the moment, we are massively lagging behind Europe and words are not enough.”

The UK produces approximately 27 terawatt-hours (TWh) of hydrogen a year, and mostly from fossil fuels.

According to the UK government’s climate change adviser to the Committee on Climate Change, to meet the government’s net-zero emissions goal by 2050 would require 270 TWh of hydrogen, mostly blue.

Over a year, 1 GW equates to 8.76 TWh of energy.

However, some environmental groups claim the inclusion of blue hydrogen in the UK strategy could keep the country locked into fossil fuels.

They also criticise the carbon capture and storage technology, which has yet to be rolled out at a commercial scale and is needed to contain the emissions from blue hydrogen.

Research last week by US universities Cornell and Stanford said that blue hydrogen could be 20 per cent worse for the environment than using gas in homes and industry because of the carbon dioxide and methane emissions that can escape during production.

 

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Pennycress, often referred to as stinkweed, is a common weed in the northern hemisphere, across North America, Europe, and Asia, and there has been interest over the past 20 years in converting it into a renewable fuel crop as the high erucic acid content in its seeds could make it suitable for use as jet fuel.

“Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from air travel will mean not just incremental changes, but a fundamental change in how we have been producing fuel and where that fuel comes from,” said Professor Ajay Shah, senior author of the Ohio State University study.

“And what we found is that pennycress might make a very good alternative fuel, especially when you consider the environmental costs of producing it.”

Growing pennycress as a crop means less fertiliser and fewer pesticides that other candidate plants used to make jet fuel, and also requires fewer farm operations such as soil tilling than other potential biofuel crops, which helps reduce associated environmental costs such as CO2 emissions.

The environmental impact could be further mitigated by adapting farm management to maintain fertiliser on fields, instead of allowing it to run off into adjacent water bodies.

The researchers estimated the impact of growing, transporting, and converting pennycress to reach their conclusions, including accounting for the environmental costs of burning leftover by-products of the refinement process, which account for fertiliser and pesticide use, water consumption, and the energy needed to harvest and transport the pennycress seeds.

The team used computer modelling to determine the amount of energy needed to produce jet fuel from the seeds and compared the estimates with the energy needed to produce biofuels from other crops using data from existing studies.

The computer models demonstrated that it took around half as much energy to produce biofuel from pennycress as it did from canola or sunflowers, and approximately one-third as much as from soybeans.

What makes pennycress an attractive crop for production, according to the researchers, is that it is a winter crop that can be grown in between the corn and soybean seasons, providing an extra production cycle for the same plot of farmland.

“The bottom line is it can be used as a cover crop, it doesn’t divert any agricultural production land, and it has suitable properties for renewable jet fuel production,” said Shah.

He explained that renewable jet fuels are not financially competitive with fossil fuel-based fuels at present, but being able to quantify the environmental impacts of biofuels will help inform farmers and policymakers as they play their part in limiting carbon emissions in line with Paris Agreement commitments.

Shah added that with pennycress, the main contributors to the environmental impact and costs are production and logistics, making them a challenging area to focus on, as they need to be streamlined and solved to increase efficiency.

“If we could improve those areas, we could make production more energy-efficient and substantially lower the costs and environmental impacts,” he concluded.

 

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