Waste fat will power UK’s biggest sewage works | Energy Live News

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See on Scoop.it – Green & Sustainable News

Waste fat and oil from restaurants and clogged up drains underground (pictured) will soon power the UK’s largest sewage works. A new power station at Beckton in East London opening …

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

Thames Water says it has agreed to buy 75 GWh of this output to run its Beckton sewage works, which serves roughly 3.5 million people, as well as a nearby desalination plant […]

The water firm has committed to provide the power station with 30 tonnes a day of fat, oil and grease (FOG) enough to fill a six metre-long shipping container. That’s at least half of the fuel the generator needs to run.

Developed and run by ‘green’ utility 2OC, it’s set to produce 130 Gigawatt hours (GWh) a year of renewable electricity – enough to run 39,000 average-sized homes.

See on www.energylivenews.com

Report: Global waste industry could double to $2tn by 2020

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Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysis predicts boom in global waste industry as resource crunch bites

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

“We are seeing a shift away from waste as a mandatory public service to waste management as a sustainable business opportunity,” the report states. “We see the fastest growth in the next decade coming from diversion, recycling, recovery of valuable secondary raw materials, waste-to-energy, e-waste and sustainable packaging – as well as from emerging markets. We see considerable low hanging fruit potential given that 70 per cent plus of global waste is currently landfilled. ‘Greening’ waste management will require increasing MSW recycling by a factor of 3.5 times and doubling industrial waste recycling.”

See on www.businessgreen.com

Sol Voltaics uses nanotechnology to make solar energy 25 percent more efficient

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Swedish company with Silicon Valley talent has raised $11 million to make solar power more efficient.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

Two advances make it possible. The team, led by founder Lars Samuelson (a Lund University professor), created a technology known as Aerotaxy, which makes it cheaper to make nanomaterials. With that, they are creating gallium arsenide nanowires that can serve as solar collectors and that they can integrate directly into solar wafers, known as solar cells. The smarts happens at the atomic level.

[…] manufacturers don’t have many options for bringing down the costs of solar. […] The cells themselves must become more efficient to lower costs.

See on venturebeat.com

Financial Advisors Are Adopting Social Media, Fitfully – Forbes

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Active social media strategies are proving profitable for financial advisors.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

Alex Pigliucci, global managing director of Accenture wealth management services, said  social media creates a huge opportunity for firms that get it right and a real risk for firms that regard it mostly as a threat. Firms will have to recruit and train advisors on the basis of their ability with social media if they are going to survive the generational change when millennials will become increasingly important as both advisors and investors.

See on www.forbes.com

TD Bank Announces Energy-Saving Monitoring Data For Net-Zero Store

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TD reports that the first net-zero bank built in the United States is exceeding expectations according to first-year monitoring data.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

TD Bank’s net-zero energy store opened on May 13, 2011. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory defines a net-zero energy building (NZEB) as a residential or commercial building that produces and exports in a year at least as much renewable power as the total energy it uses.

[…] A NZEB has two key energy features: The building is constructed with energy-efficient technologies that significantly reduce its energy demand, and renewable energy sources supply at least as much energy as the building uses over the course of a year.

See on www.stockhouse.com

Energy Storage Series: Why We Need It, And Why We Don’t

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It’s almost a cliché that there’s a “friendly debate” pitting utilities against renewable energy. But concerns on the utility side of the table are real: intermittency, potential destabilization at the feeder level, non-baseload, and peaks in generation that don’t necessarily match demand peaks. Today’s power infrastructure involves unpredictability in both supply and demand that is extremely difficult to manage.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

The big question in energy storage, Wheaton says, boils down simply: what does it cost to build more generation (to oversupply), vs. how to store and manage energy? Today it’s more “economically rational” to build more generation, whether it’s solar or wind or even coal, he noted. As energy storage technology costs come down — and as there is better understanding and calculation of externalized costs, such as societal impacts — “we will see those lines cross, and more utilities will go to energy storage as a more economical means to serve the grid.”

Fundamentally, economics determines the decision of over-generation vs. energy storage; right now “either energy storage is not cheaper, or the payback is not enough to shift over,” noted Luebbe. As the cost (dollars per kilowatt-hour) come down and energy storage costs intersect with those in over-generation, “then everyone will do it because it’s economically the logical thing to do.”

See on www.renewableenergyworld.com

Sun Shade Help Efficient Energy Usage

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The use of sun control and shading devices is an important aspect of much energy-efficient building design.

Shading devices can have a dramatic impact on building appearance.

The energy a building requires can be divided into two basic categories.

First, the energy needed so that a building can be used, to create a comfortable climate.

This means the production and control of heat, cold, light and air.

Second, the additional energy required, dependant on the use of the building such as to power computers and secondary equipment in office and administrative buildings, or for production machines on the factory floor.

Appropriate sun shading systems can significantly reduce the energy required to provide heating, cooling and light.

Control intense direct sunlight will ensure a comfortable workspace.

This is critical for occupant visual and thermal comfort and for minimizing mechanical cooling loads.

In sunny weather, solar heat gains through glazing can represent…

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CHP: A new generation of renewable power technology

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Today, a new breed of CHP gen set ranging from micro- to large-scale multi-megawatt power sources is emerging. Most are transportable or built into shippingcontainers. Unlike solar and wind generators, their systems can make a lot more power with less real estate and run 24 hours a day, seven days a week every day of the year

 

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

There are some new generating systems running on biomass wood chips or pellets although they are not as popular as the defacto standard — natural gas powered sets. The fuels from biogas components can be reclaimed from farm products and landfills, proving economical by using the methane gas created from food product waste. 

 

See on www.fierceenergy.com

SEC Allows Companies To Announce News To Investors Through Facebook – AllFacebook

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Soon, investors will be able to learn more about companies in the same space where they play Candy Crush Saga. The Securities and Exchange Commission declared Tuesday that companies can notify their investors of news through Facebook and Twitter.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

George Canellos, acting director of the SEC’s division of enforcement, commented on this new development in a press release:

One set of shareholders should not be able to get a jump on other shareholders just because the company is selectively disclosing important information. Most social media are perfectly suitable methods for communicating with investors, but not if the access is restricted or if investors don’t know that’s where they need to turn to get the latest news.

What brought about this decision was a post on the …

See on allfacebook.com

Power Analytics: The model based approach to availability, energy and resource management

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As the reliance on the data center infrastructure continues to grow, organizations will need to use model-based analytics to help make better IT decisions.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

Download this white paper to see how the use of model-based metrics is directly analogous to business analytics. With the complexity of today’s modern systems – without these metrics – management and financial decisions would be nearly impossible. As the reliance on the data center infrastructure continues to grow, organizations will need to use model-based analytics to help make better IT decisions. By utilizing model-based management, organizations will be able to see the powerful link to the overall value chain of designing, building and operating a data center.

See on www.datacenterknowledge.com