GLOBE-Net – Wolfgang Bengel, the technical director at German biomass company BMP Biomasse Projekt, saw a business opportunity in solving the breweries’ grain waste headache. He reasoned that the leftover grain could be used to create steam and biogas, which would provide energy for the breweries, cheapening their energy costs as well as their costs of transporting grain to farms.
Bengel has successfully treated the residue from rice and sugar cane in boilers with atmospheric fluidized bed combustion systems, to produce energy in China and Thailand, and Bengel thought a similar process could be developed for the breweries’ spent wet grain. Water would first have to be removed from the wet spent grain, the grain would have to be dried and then burned to produce energy. “Beer making is energy intensive – you boil stuff, use hot water and steam and then use electric energy for cooling – so if you recover more than 50 percent of your own energy costs from the spent grain that’s a big saving,” says Bengel.
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GLOBE-Net - Global offshore wind farm capacity will grow at a compound annual rate of 32 percent in the coming decade, according to a new report by energy consulting firm ODS-Petrodata.
The International Offshore Wind Market to 2020 report predicts that by the end of 2020 global offshore wind farm capacity will have soared to 55 gigawatts, or enough to power almost 37 million European homes. Current installed capacity is under two gigawatts.
Based on an analysis of more than 700 projects and prospects in the company’s database, ODS-Petrodata forecasts USD 61.4 billion of capital expenditure in the sector between now and 2014. For 2016 to 2020, total capital expenditure could be double that.
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GLOBE-Net- Solar thermal heating-which harnesses the sun’s energy for domestic water heating, space heating, and other industrial processes-expanded by 19 gigawatts of thermal equivalent (GWth) to reach 147 GWth of capacity in 2007. Solar thermal energy produced enough energy globally in 2007 to meet the equivalent heating needs of 15 percent of U.S. households.
Water heating for domestic uses accounts for 126 GWth (180 million m2), or 86 percent of all installations, while space heating, swimming pool heating, and industrial processes account for the remaining 21 GWth (30 million m2). Preliminary estimates for global solar thermal heating suggest additions of between 18 and 19 GWth in 2008, mostly in China.
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