The CBC has put online a short news report on a German town. Germany has been a pioneer in seeking to break the
addiction to fossil fuels. This clip is about one experiment using methane gas to produce power.
germany
A New Way to Produce Coal From Biomass
Good news from Germany!
Markus Antonietti from Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces has devised a chemical process that converts biomass like leaves, pine cones and other plant residue into wet coal (coal + water). Biomass goes into the autoclave, a kind of pressure cooker, water goes in, too, along with a citric acid catalyst. A chemical reaction takes place and coal is produced.
The single major by-product of the reaction is water, which can be filtered off. In contrast to other biomass techniques this reaction does not generate carbon dioxide. It also gives a higher energy product, which even smells acceptable.
We underestimated this when we started. We could calculate how much energy was stored in the sugar – in the leaf material. But the first time – as you see – we had a runaway reaction, which is obviously dangerous, so we need to carry it out under safe conditions.
-Markus Antonietti
Wind Powered Boats
It looks like the more things change the more they stay the same. A German company, SkySails, is going to start selling a new style of sail to help large freighters move through the ocean faster.
“SkySails’ system consists of an enormous towing kite and navigation software that can map the best route between two points for maximum wind efficiency. In development for more than four years, the system costs from roughly $380,000 to $3.2 million, depending on the size of the ship it’s pulling. SkySails claims it will save one third of fuel costs.”
World Cup Scores!
The World Cup has scored a green goal! Sorry, I couldn’t resist such cheesy writing. Seriously though, the World Cup organizers in Germany have surpassed their own goal of making the event have a small ecological footprint as possible. One thing they wanted to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that normally would have been released for such a large event by encouraging bike riding and riding public transit. They did more too!
“There are water-free urinals, overflow limiters on the wash-basins and electricity-saving measures, which are all things that save resources but go virtually unnoticed. The fans also don’t get to see the solar panels on the stadiums, which is a shame.”