[TEMPLATE]Renewable Energy[/TEMPLATE]
[TEMPLATE]Equipment & Tools[/TEMPLATE]
[TEMPLATE]home improvement store[/TEMPLATE]
Biomass Energy From Macadamia Nuts
Author: Giselle Pethard
Included in its suite of 29 renewable energy assets that it owns or operates, is Suncoast Gold Macadamias in Gympie, Southeast Queensland, which is Australia’s first waste-to-energy (biomass) renewable cogeneration project. ‘Cogeneration’ is generation of both electricity and useful heat that can be used onsite for good use.
What is Biomass?
Biomass is all matter that can be used as fuel for industrial production. It can also include biodegradable wastes that can be burnt as fuel.
How is Biomass energy created?
Biomass can be thought of as storage of solar energy in chemical form. It can be combusted to generate heat and then subsequently converted into other forms of energy.
How do we create energy from Macadamias?
Creating energy from a waste product like the macadamia nut shells involves the following process:
• Nut shells are burnt in a fire boiler, which creates steam
• Some of the steam is used to dry the macadamia nuts
• The majority of the steam is used to drive a turbine to generate clean, renewable electricity
• About 40% of the electricity is sent to the national power grid as GreenPower
• About 60% goes to the customer.
What this means for the environment
The macadamia plant produces enough energy from the macadamia nut shells to power the company’s entire manufacturing and processing activity, as well as about 250 Queensland homes.
This innovative waste-to-energy project cuts Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by around 2,500 tonnes per annum - equivalent to taking about 650 cars off the road each year. It has also solved the problem of what to do with the 5,000 tonnes of macadamia shells, enough to fill three Olympic-sized swimming pools, that Suncoast Gold Macadamias processes each year.
Suncoast Gold, which exports Australia’s largest native agricultural crop to more than 20 countries including Japan, Europe and the US, has had its efficiency significantly boosted by the provision of electricity, heat and steam. It has also enhanced its green credentials in the European and Asian markets where consumers are extremely environmentally aware.
By 2010, more than 150 growers throughout Queensland and northern New South Wales are expected to supply Suncoast Gold with about 10,000 tonnes of macadamia nuts each year, doubling the Gympie facility’s output.
AGL’s Asset Manager Neil Cooke says the innovative plant has achieved several firsts. It’s the first of its kind in the world,” he said. “It also has the largest macadamia shell silo (400 tonne capacity, 18 metres high and 10 metres in diameter) in the world and the boiler is showing that it is possible to achieve consistent performance from a renewable energy plant operated on shells.”
AGL is one of Australia’s leading integrated energy companies and the only Australian energy producer with a full suite of renewable generation, providing natural gas and electricity to over 3.2 million customers more than six million Australians.
Other innovative renewable energy assets AGL owns or operates include the ISIS Central Sugar Mill facility in Childers, Queensland, which is AGL’s first renewable cogeneration project to produce energy from sugar cane by-product (bagasse).
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/biomass-energy-from-macadamia-nuts-694116.html
About the Author
Giselle Pethard writes articles for AGL Energy Limited. Other articles written by the author related to Biomass Energy – Macadamia Nuts, Renewable Energy and renewable energy production could be found on the net.
[TEMPLATE]WpSyndicator[/TEMPLATE][TEMPLATE]amazon search[/TEMPLATE]
i think you’re going to need to do the research yourself. especially if this is for school…
in short, garbage is anything unwanted and landfil is solid waste that gets buried, as opposed to solid waste that is burned or recycled.
check out J-STOR or one of those databases, or google scholar for those articles your looking for.
Okay, I don’t think anyone’s taken this seriously yet, so…
How about, hydro-electric, geothermal steam, wind turbines, augmentative passive solar, such as water heating and daylighting (somwhat different then solar lighting, or skylighting, although skylights count.) Also let’s not forget rain harvesting, and gray-water usage.these save water, and energy from a treatment, billing, delivery standpoint.
Now that I asnwered the name other part: challenges, what happens when there is no sun/wind/water-flowing, if you have all of these, it won’t happen that often, but when it does, are batteries a practical solution? Won’t they eventually wind up in land-fill off-gasing? If you only use one or two of the 3 majors, what about when any of those aren’t available? Availability is still a big concern, hopefully that will be the next stock-market bubble and drive a massive influx of green-products.
The common challenges with non-renewables, rather than starting from an environmental standpoint, how about we start with what they’re called. NON-RENEWABLE, eventually we will run out. It’s theorized that we’ve found all oil on earth, and will start a downward turn on production by somtime in 2008 or 2009. Aside from that, there’s the obvious global warming issues.
O hope this helps some.
Biomass isn’t the best idea – we don’t want land for energy sources replacing the land that was previously used for food production. Biomass needs to be removed from the equation, frankly it’s a terrible idea.
So in short, nuclear and other renewables are much better than biomass (although studies have shown that wind power isn’t particularly effective, even in the windiest of conditions).
It depends.
There is “sustainable biomass” and “non sustainable biomass”. And there are “gross emissions of CO2″ and “net emissions of CO2″.
Non sustainable: you can for example cut down the rainforest to use the wood as a fuel and not grow back the forest.
In this case, you increase the CO2 in the atmosphere since it will NOT be reabsorbed by the same surface of forest growing. In this case, the gross CO2 and the net CO2 emitted are the same as the difference between both (trees re-absorbing the CO2 to grow) is equal to zero.
These emissions are known as LUCF emissions (Land Use Change and Forestry)
————————–
Sustainable:
The same scenario with a forest exploited in a sustainable manner.
The gross CO2 is the same as before (as wood contains carbon).
The net CO2 = (Gross CO2) – (reabsorbed CO2 from trees growing) = 0
biomass renewable energy? I guess you want to gather as much info as possible, if that’s the case then these few articles will be very helpful to you
http://renewableenergyarticles.blogspot.com/2009/11/biofuels.html
Describe all of the renewable energy alternatives: wind power, solar energy, and biomass fermentation?
o What are some challenges with using and managing wind power, solar energy, and biomass fermentation as alternative renewable
energy resources?
o Name at least one other renewable energy resource.
o Include a response to the following: Nonrenewable energy resources include coal,
oil, and natural gas. Describe three common challenges with managing
nonrenewable energy resources.
Does biomass as a renewable energy release greenhouse gases?
this has confused me terribly, and I do not know the answer. One website says it emits gases, another says long term use of biomass will lead to decreased greenhouse gas emissions.
Maybe it emitts, just emitts less?
I really just dont know! Please help
Thank you,
Okay, here’s a tough one, Is garbage and land fill the same? In reference to Biomass renewable energy?
Need info on Biomass renewable energy sources, only peer review articles for reference and as many quantitative as possible
Is biomass better than nuclear and other renewable energies and is biomass energy important?
biomass renewable energy?