An anaerobic digester and biogas treatment plant at an Australian abattoir has commenced commercial production. According to a statement from ReNu Energy, the independent power producer who’ll operate the facility, revenue flow from the Goulburn Bioenergy Project has commenced and will ‘ramp up’ as biogas production increases. Located at the Southern... [Read More]

German company EnviTec has commenced work on a new biogas facility in Shanxi, 500km southwest of Beijing. The recent ground-breaking ceremony marked the beginning of EnviTec’s fifth biogas project in China. Shanxi Shenmu New Energy will be responsible for operating the 1,570Nm3 biogas plant following its completion at the end of 2018, and will also handle all construction... [Read More]

John Laing Environmental Assets Group (JLEN) has invested in the Icknield Farm anaerobic digestion plant in the UK. According to JLEN, a listed environmental infrastructure fund, the investment consists of the provision of a debt facility to repay existing loans, as well as acquisition of a minority equity stake from private individuals who were the project’s developers... [Read More]

A $115 million bionenergy research centre has opened at the University of Illinois in the US. The new Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation had its opening ceremony on the 1 February 2018. A collaboration between the University’s Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and the Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment, the facility... [Read More]

Scottish energy users will receive advice on low-carbon, environmentally friendly energy alternatives from biomass specialists re:heat. The Scottish Government and Forestry Commission Scotland have appointed the Northumberland based company to provide “impartial technical and specialist commercial” information to consumers through the Wood Fuel Support Service... [Read More]

A report by climate change policy think tanks Sandbag and Agora Energiewende shows that renewables generated more energy than coal in 2017. According to their calculations, renewables as a whole were up from 29.8% to 30% of the EU’s energy mix in 2017. Hydroelectricity was the only green source that was down, at 9.1% from 10.9% in 2016. The numbers come from EUROSTAT... [Read More]

Construction is underway on a new waste to biogas facility in Yabu City, Japan. The new facility will use anaerobic digestion to convert both farm and food waste into renewable energy. Toyo Energy Solution, which has invested in the facility, will also build it, and operate it once completed. It will utilise ‘advanced solid waste processing wastewater treatment equipment’... [Read More]

The UK’s Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy has released its response to a consultation on The Non-domestic Renewable Heat Incentive: further proposed amendments. Addressing the types of fuel drying that are supported under the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), the UK’s government backed heat decarbonisation scheme, the outcome could have... [Read More]

At the annual get-together, the biogas industry looked for ways to strengthen in the political and public consciousness how it can help in the transition to clean energy. Held in Antwerp, the yearly conference for the European Biogas Association had added consequence on a backdrop of the EU’s impending Renewable Energy Directive for 2020-2030 (RED II) and Brexit. The... [Read More]

On 10 – 11 October the International Biomass and Biogas Congress & Expo will take place in Berlin, Germany. Organised by the publishers of Bioenergy Insight, the event in the German capital will unite key figures from the international biomass, biogas and pellet industries to address the most pressing issues facing the bioenergy sector – from the continued... [Read More]

The UK’s Environment Agency has closed the consultation on its proposed Strategic Review of Charges, a series of revisions which could have significant consequences for the country’s anaerobic digestion industry according to the Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources Association (ADBA). “We are significantly simplifying the way customers work out their... [Read More]

Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, has figures on Renewable Energy use in 2016. The newly published data reveal that the share of renewables reached 17% in 2016, with the biggest contributor to that being from wood biomass. The statistics show that renewable use has grown significantly, more than doubling from the 8.5% share of the energy mix of 2004.... [Read More]

Anaerobic digestion could be used to provide food for astronauts, according to new research from Pennsylvania State University. The Penn State team has shown that it is possible to rapidly break down solid and liquid waste to grow food in microbial reactors, while simultaneously minimising pathogen growth. "We envisioned and tested the concept of simultaneously treating... [Read More]

Enviva, the 'world’s largest' producer of industrial wood pellets, has released its latest Track & Trace data. According to Enviva, Track & Trace is a proprietary data system that enables the pellet producer to monitor every truckload of wood it procures from the forest throughout the entire supply chain process.   Controversy Last year, the Natural... [Read More]

The new direct carbon fuel cell (DCFC) design allows it to exploit three times as much energy in the fuel as previous cells. Materials like biomass and coal can be used in the cell, which will improve the potential for carbon capture as the new process only emits CO2, rather than the mix of pollutants that come out of current coal-fired plants, researchers said. The fuel... [Read More]

A Northern Irish waste-to-energy anaerobic digestion plant has been certified under the Anaerobic Digestion Certification Scheme (ADCS) just six weeks after its launch. Granville Ecopark, an enhanced AD facility in Northern Ireland, treats organic waste to produce renewable energy. The ACDS was launched at the Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources Association’s (ADBA)... [Read More]