News

Danish biomass firm Linka Energy has acquired Weiss, a French company specialising in advising and servicing biomass and waste-based boilers. Weiss has previously supplied many customised energy plants using both biomass and other waste products; however, in recent “turbulent” years, it has not taken on new projects. The firm still owns all technical and design rights to the plants that it…
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Just over 1.6% of the UK’s agricultural land was used to grow bioenergy crops for use in transport fuel, electricity and biogas production in 2018. Recent statistics from the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) revealed that a total of 94,000 hectares (ha) of land were used to grow crops for bioenergy. However, the overall land area used to grow bioenergy crops has…
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The US Department of Energy (DOE) will provide up to $75 million (€67.4 million) over five years for research to develop sustainable energy crops that are “tolerant of environmental stress and resilient to changing environmental conditions”. According to the DOE, the research will focus on better understanding the genetic and physiological mechanisms influencing plant productivity and…
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A UK wood recycler has been fined £15,000 (€17,500) after investigators found it was storing nearly four times as much waste as permitted by law. The Environment Agency estimated that the firm, Red Jon, held 1,790 tonnes of wood at its site in Oxfordshire, whereas it was only permitted to store 500 tonnes in one place over a seven-day period. The piles of wood posed a ‘significant…
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The Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD), a national entity for economic development aid, has allocated $105 million (€94.4 million) for eight renewable energy projects, including a biogas project. The funding forms part of the seventh cycle of its partnership with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). The IRENA/ADFD facility announcement marks a record level of funding for any…
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Spanish renewable energy company Energia & Celulosa (Ence) has opened its new 50MW biomass plant in La Mancha, central Spain. The new facility will produce an estimated 325,000 MWh per year, providing power for around 60,000 people, and consume around 238,000 tonnes of biomass formed of pomace, vine shoots, olive leaf, woody biomass and agricultural waste. The biomass used will comply with…
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Residents at a town in Staffordshire, UK are calling for an anaerobic digestion (AD) facility to be fined for causing unpleasant odours. People living outside the Biffa-owned Poplars Landfill and Anaerobic Digestion facility have complained about the smell from the site and even created a Facebook group called ‘Cannock tip – stop the stench’, which has attracted hundreds of members,…
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US-based meat processing company Smithfield Foods is now producing renewable natural gas (RNG) from the wastewater treatment system at one of its processing facilities. Working in partnership with Duke Energy and bioenergy project developer OptimaBio, the company is producing biogas via its pork processing plant to help power more than 2,000 local homes and businesses in North Carolina. The…
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A UK wood recycling trade body is making an urgent appeal to demolition companies to take part in a wood waste sampling programme. The Wood Recyclers’ Association (WRA) is seeking waste wood samples from the demolition of buildings built before 2007 in a bid to avert a ‘potential crisis’ that could cost the demolition sector more than £100 million (€117 million) per year. The WRA…
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A UK renewable energy firm is expecting around 10,000 tonnes of Christmas food waste to be delivered to its facilities in January. Severn Trent Green Power will use the unwanted food waste from approximately 1.5 million homes to create biogas and electricity, using anaerobic digestion (AD). The company has eight waste plants across the Midlands, Oxfordshire, South Wales and London. Once the…
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Foresight Group has acquired a 2.5MW anaerobic digestion (AD) plant in Norfolk, UK. The plant processes around 40,000 tonnes of agricultural feedstock annually to produce power for sale to the grid. The facility also benefits from the associated Feed-in Tariff (FiT) income, as well as Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) revenue from on-site waste heat utilisation. Foresight has achieved a…
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QUBE Renewables, a company that created flat-pack anaerobic digestion (AD) kits, is using its technology to tackle India’s air quality crisis. The company is installing 50 QUBEs (AD kits) in the paddy fields of the Punjab region to help deal with the growing air pollution problem. Crop burning in the region is estimated to make a 40% contribution to Delhi’s pollution levels, and an…
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Canadian biogas firm Greenlane Renewables has won an $8.3 million (€7.4 million) biogas upgrading contract for a landfill gas to renewable natural gas (RNG) project in California, US. The company announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Greenlane Biogas North America, secured the contract with the customer whose name has not yet been revealed. Engineering work will begin immediately on…
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Household waste, farm waste and wood waste will be used as feedstock in four new UK biofuels plants thanks to government funding. A statement released by the Department for Transport said that between 2018 and 2032, low carbon fuels are expected to save nearly 85 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2), equivalent to taking nearly 18 million cars off the road. Two of the projects announced on…
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