But Kristianstad already crossed a critical threshold: the city and the surrounding County, with a population of 80,000 mainly use no oil, gas or coal to heat homes and businesses, even during long frigid winters. This is a complete reversal from 20 years ago when all their heat comes from fossil fuels.
But this area in the South of the Sweden, better known as the home of Absolut vodka, has not generally substituted solar panels or wind to traditional fuels, he renounced. Rather, as a region is the epicentre of agriculture and food processing of manure, it generates energy a motley assortment of ingredients such as cooking oil used potato peelings, obsolete cookies and pork intestines.
10 Years on the outskirts of Kristianstad Giants plant uses a biological process to turn trash into biogas, a form of methane. This gas is burned to create heat and electricity or refined as fuel for cars.
Once the city fathers is accustomed to operate locally, they saw fuel worldwide: Kristianstad also increases the gases emanating from an old landfill and wastewater, as well as wood flooring and tree topping plants waste ponds.
For the past five years, many European countries have increased their reliance on renewable energy, wind farms, hydroelectric dams that fossil fuels are expensive on the continent and their overconsumption is, indeed, taxed by Exchange system in the European Union emissions.
But many agricultural areas, an essential component of the combination of renewable energy became gas extracted from the agricultural and food waste biomass. By Germany, approximately 5,000 biogas systems generate electricity, in many cases individual farms.
Kristianstad has to go further, to take advantage of biogas to a general regional metamorphosis energy which has halved its reduced fossil fuel emissions of carbon dioxide from the city by a quarter of the last decade.
"This is a much more secure energy supply – we didn't want to buy oil over the Middle East or Norway," said Lennart Erfors, the engineer who oversees the transition in this city colourful houses of the 18th century. "And he has created jobs in the sector of energy.
The United States biogas systems are rare. There are now 151 digesters of biomass in the country, most of them small and using only the manure, according to the environmental protection agency. The E.P.A. believes that the installation of these plants would be possible for approximately 8,000 farms.
So far in the United States, these projects were limited by high initial cost, scarce government funding and the absence of a business model. There is no supply network to move manure to a centralized plant and no output generated biogas to sell.
However, a number of States and businesses considering new investment.
Last month, two California utilities, gas, California and San Diego Gas & Electric, filed for approval by the Commission at the construction of power plants in California utilities enable organic waste from farms and the gas from water biogas feed pipeline natural gas condition after purification treatment plants.
Using biogas will help utilities needs in California and many other States to generate a portion of their power from renewable energy sources in the next decade.
Natural gas and biogas create shows when, but much less than coal and oil making. And unlike natural gas pumped from deep beneath the Earth, biogas is counted as a source of renewable energy: it is made from organic waste which, in many cases, otherwise decompose in fields or landfill sites and gave no advantage, releasing heat-trapping methane into the atmosphere and contributing to global warming.
This fall, emissaries of bioenergy tours Wisconsin German biogas programs to help develop a plan to develop the initiative. "Biogas is fuel opportunity of Wisconsin, said Gary Radloff, Director of the Midwest political initiative."
As Kristianstad, California and Wisconsin produce a premium dairy farms and food processing waste, but a supply of fossil fuels to meet their needs. Another more is the biogas plants can consume huge amounts of manure that would otherwise be polluting the air and could have an impact on water supply.
Kristianstad, ancient fossil fuels technology coexist awkwardly alongside their replacements of biomass. The type used for now deliver heating oil tanker offers wood pellets fuel major heating in most remote city. Facing a bustling Statoil petrol station is a modest commercial biogas new station owned energy company's renewable energy Nos pumping.
Start-up costs covered by city and by grants from the Swedish Government were considerable: biomass centralized, heating cost 144 million, including building a new plant incineration, laying pipes to replace the furnace systems, and installing generators.
But officials say recovery has already been significant: Kristianstad is now approximately 3.2 million annually for municipal heating, instead of $ 7 million it would spend if it is still supported on oil and electricity. It feeds its municipal cars, buses and trucks at the biogas fuel, avoiding the need to purchase more than half a million litres of diesel fuel and gas each year.
No comments:
Post a Comment