Nature gave us oil from algae; perhaps we should try Nature’s way again

Breakthroughs, Inventions, Discoveries & Pioneering Efforts in Energy from Waste

Do have a look at this section and please let me ( narsi at esource dot in) know if you could think of any improvements / refinements to make this section more useful.

For the latest updates in Energy from Waste, please see all our blog posts

Energy from Waste

Waste to Energy - Inventions, Research, Innovations, Breakthroughs 

1. Pioneering solution to deal with the UK's municipal waste, Jan 2006 - Households in the Isle of Wight could become the first community in the UK to benefit from a technology that allows local communities to deal with their own waste in an environmentally responsible way. Rather than incinerate the waste, ENERGOS uses what is known as Advanced Conversion Technology - gasification, a two-stage thermal treatment process. Heat energy is recovered from the process to produce steam that can supply industry, generate electrical power, heating or hot water for nearby consumers. Read more from this Jan 2006 news report from Ener.g, UK
2. Energy from waste: Dundee Energy Recycling paves the way for a cleaner future - a detailed 2005 case study from Metso Automation (PDF)
3. New invention will convert waste to active carbon - Patented process utilizes synthetic crude oil product, greatly reducing mercury emissions - New U of T research will make it possible to convert waste material from oil sands into active carbon, and has the potential to greatly reduce mercury emissions, says this Oct 2005 article from University of Toronto
4. NASCAR fuel expert claims invention of Pigoline gas, that is, fuel from hog waste – a lively forum in which a number of related alternative energy possibilities are discussed. See the complete article about Pigoline gas at Philoneist, Oct 2006
5. Pig Manure Converted to Crude Oil - Stefan Lovgren @ for National Geographic News, July 2004 - One scientist has found an alternative source of energy: pig manure. Yuanhui Zhang, an agricultural engineering professor at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, has succeeded in turning small batches of hog waste into oil, says this NG article
6. Energy from Organic Waste - To accomplish this, three major hurdles would need to be overcome: combustible and non-combustible components need to be separated, metals and glass must be recovered, and the remaining waste needs to be converted to energy in a nonpolluting way.  Wet thermal oxidation is proposed to produce energy from waste without polluting incineration. This type of combustion has been studied extensively in connection with coal, but has not been applied to other fuels. The system would not discharge pollutants, smoke, or odors. Wet thermal oxidation can handle waste in a continuous, enclosed process with much lower pollution and higher efficiency than the “mass burn” incinerators that are commonly used now. Read more from the US Department of Energy article (PDF)
7. Will Chocolate Fuel Your Next Car? - From Larry West @ About.com - Microbiologist Lynne Mackaskie and her team of researchers at the University of Birmingham in the UK found a way to produce hydrogen by feeding waste products from a chocolate factory to Escherichia coli bacteria. The researchers fed the bacteria (better known as E.coli bacteria) diluted caramel and nougat waste left over from the chocolate-making process. Read more from this About.com article
8. Biomass breakthrough is no turkey idea - Missouri facility converts animal waste to profitable, clean fuel - Apr 2004, by CFACT - A firm called Changing World Technologies, Inc. has recently opened an experimental biomass factory which converts bones, feathers, blood and guts into oil and gas.  When the turkey body parts are mixed with leftover restaurant grease and lots of water, subjected to air pressures 50 times greater than the earth's surface, and heated up twice to about 500 and 1000 degrees, a significant amount of quality oil and other important fuels are produced. Read more from this CFAT article
9. Consortium Project @ University of Southampton, UK - Appropriate scales and technologies for energy recovery by thermal processing of waste in the urban environment - Objectives - (a) To identify optimum types, sizes and distribution of urban thermal energy recovery plant using an LCA approach; (b) To investigate the potential for pyrolysis and gasification plants to provide decentralised power which could link to future energy requirements and changes in infrastructure; (c) To bring together a database of information on energy from waste options in the urban environment for future planning of recovery. Description and Methodology - The overall aim of this project is to investigate the relative sustainability of alternative approaches to thermal processing of urban wastes, with a particular focus on recovery of value in the form of energy products from smaller-scale plant integrated into the urban environment. Through application of a general modelling framework, it is intended to link technology development and assessment activities within the Consortium programme through common questions about the contributions that different options may make to meeting various objectives for urban areas. See the full project report here @ the Univ of Southampton web page
10. Trash Turns into Gold; Breakthrough Technology takes Municipal Waste and Converts it into Green Energy and Pre-fab Construction Materials - Jul 2006 - from the web site of Onlypunjab.com - Cob Creations, LLC provides solutions to the growing scarcity building materials such as lumber and concreteand urban refuse management. Their Management Waste System Plant (MWS) Plant-complexes processes municipal solid waste into a high-quality, low-cost construction material as well as into renewable fuel. More from the Cob Creations web site
11. Pig Manure Converted to Crude Oil - Stefan Lovgren - National Geographic News - July, 2004 -  Yuanhui Zhang, an agricultural engineering professor at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, has succeeded in turning small batches of hog waste into oil. Using a process called thermochemical conversionthe process converts each half-gallon (two-liter) batch of manure to about 9 ounces (0.26 liter) of oil. Read more from this National Geographic article
    

Pictures

How do Incinerators Work to Convert Waste to Energy

Waste to Energy Baghouse Conversion Plant & Factory

Check out the latest inventions and breakthroughs in energy & alternative energy, on the following topics @ NewNergy Blog

Energy Sources - Main Sections 

• Alternative Energy 

• Alternative Renewable Energy
• Geothermal
• Hydro-power
• Ocean Energy
• Hydrogen Energy
• Solar Energy
• Wind Energy
• Radiant Energy
• Waste to Energy
• Bio-based Energy
• Biodiesel
• Alcohol Fuels
• Ethanol Fuel
• Biomass
• Fuel from Animals 

• Alternative Energy, Non-renewable
• Alternative Fossil Fuels
• Synfuel
• Syngas
• Nuclear Energy 

• Fossil Fuels
• Coal – Coal to Oil, Diesel
• Natural Gas – Gas Hydrates
• Oil – Oil from Oil Shale, Oil from Tar Sands
  

Notes:

• We’d like to regularly add more useful content and web resources to Oilgae.com. Should you know of any good web resource for Biodiesel production from algae, do let us know by sending a note to [narsi]@[esource].[in] (remove [ ] for the email address). Many thanks for your patience.
• All content at Oilgae are available for reproduction and usage under the GNU Free Documentation License. Please see explanation at the end of this page for more details.
  

Add Links/Submit Links: Do you have a web resource that belongs to here? If you have a web site that you wish to include in this page, do let us know the details by sending a note about your URL to [narsi]@[esource].[in] to add URL (pl remove the [ ] to get my email address!). We’ll quickly review the web site, and if found relevant, add it to the database. Thanks!

Oilgae.com content is available under GNU Free Documentation License: All content at Oilgae.com is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation (GFDL). Put simply, under this license, anyone is free to copy & use any amount of content @ Oilgae.com, make changes to it and use it in any way they wish, as long as they also allow the same rights to anyone else for this content and give credits to Oilgae by giving a link to the specific page/s from where the content was taken (a mention of Oilgae.com and a brief description about the site is enough for offline usage). To those who wish to use content from Oilgae.com, our only request is that they acknowledge the source and provide a link back to Oilgae.com. Put not so simply, see the Oilgae.com GNU Free Documentation License .

About Oilgae - Oilgae - Oil & Biodiesel from Algae has a focus on biodiesel production from algae while also discussing alternative energy in general. Algae present an exciting possibility as a feedstock for biodiesel, and when you realise that oil was originally formed from algae - among others - you think "Hey! Why not oil again from algae!"

To facilitate exploration of oil production from algae as well as exploration of other alternative energy avenues, Oilgae provides web links, directory, and related resources for algae-based biofuels / biodiesel along with inputs on new inventions, discoveries & breakthroughs in other alternative energy domains such as Solar Wind nuclear, hydro, Geothermal hydrogen & fuel cells, gravitational, geothemal, human-powered, ocean & Wave / Tidal energy.