The plant with a production capacity of 60,000 tons per year will be realised by Topell Nederland, a joint venture of RWE Innogy (49.9 %) and Topell Energy (50.1 %). It is due to be commissioned early in 2011. The investment in the plant will total some € 15 million. RWE Innogy had already taken a share in the young, Dutch technology company Topell Energy two years ago as part of its venture capital activities.

Dr. Leonhard Birnbaum, member of the Executive Board of RWE AG: “Our intention was to commercialise a new process for the production of efficient biocoal, which significantly improves and extends the potential applications of biomass. As a leading operator of coal-fired power plants, we consider it to be our responsibility to reduce the CO2 emissions of electricity generation as much as possible. The plant whose foundation stone we are laying today is another major step in this direction.”

The process developed by Topell enables the continuous production of biocoal pellets on an industrial scale. The manufacturing process is highly flexible in terms of raw material input. Biocoal is easily transported. When co-fired with conventional coal, no additional infrastructural measures are required, such as separate storage and pulverisation.

The World Bioenergy Award was awarded for the first time at the inauguration of the World Bioenergy international conference and trade fair on 25 May in Jönköping, Sweden. Competition was stiff, with 90 nominees from around the world. Seven finalists had been selected from among the nominees. The jury chose Laércio Couto as the winner because thanks to his practically focused research he has proven that it is possible to combine consideration for the environment with energy production.

The basis of Couto’s work is the eucalyptus, a species of tree that was introduced to Brazil in 1904. Eucalyptus grows very quickly and soon became a raw material for the forest industry. Laércio Couto became interested in eucalyptus when he was a student, and realised it also has potential for energy production. “Eucalyptus provided the solution to a problem”, says the researcher. Extra land is now being used to cultivate eucalyptus. The result is that power plants can run 12 months a year on biomass without impacting sensitive environments.

Information: World Bioenergy

Torspyd technology innovative process is based on the ‘solid organics distillation principle’. This patented technology, designed and developed by Thermya, enables to fully dehydrate and then depolymerize the biomass in order to produce an absolutely hydrophobic and homogeneous solid fuel. It is characterized by the highest energy yields performance of all technologies known to date. Torrefaction by Torspyd allows converting all kinds of biomass into BioCoal. This BioCoal, which contains less than 1 percent moisture, retains 95 percent of the initial biomass energy and more than 90 percent of its initial dry mass. The BioCoal’s net calorific value is around 20500 kJ/kg; far greater than the one of non-torrefied biomass. BioCoal can be mixed to fossil coal and co-fired in thermal power stations without any modification of the facilities. Co-firing BioCoal, as a substitute for coal, eliminates mix-rate limitations, reduces CO2, SO4 and NOx emissions. On top of that, thanks to lower NOx emissions, co-firing BioCoal allows to achieve equivalent energy efficiency with reduced fuel consumption.

As a result of its hydrophobic properties BioCoal cannot incur any biological degradations and can therefore be stored and shipped safely without any risk linked to climate conditions. The Torspyd torrefaction column is energy self-sufficient: the re-injection of 4 percent of the BioCoal production into the torrefaction system allows complementing the process’s operational energy requirements. “Today, Thermya is the only company in Europe to offer an industrially proven, fully operational biomass torrefaction continuous process”, explains Jean-Sebastian Hery, Technical Vice-President and co-founder of Thermya. Thermya signed a first license agreement in 2009 with the Spanish company Idema, Group Lantec. Through this agreement Idema will build torrefaction units based on the Torspyd process.

“Main benefits of our Torspyd technology are unrivalled performance levels and low operating costs. Torspyd is the relevant response to the environmental and economical issues electricity producers, operating coal-fired power stations, are currently facing. It also opens up opportunities for manufacturers of classical wood pellets or forest operators, whose production could gain considerable value from torrefaction. Classical pellets are indeed commonly produced from sawdust or from co products of the primary wood processing industry. Our technology, however, is designed to produce premium quality biomass fuel (totally dry and hydrophobic) directly from forestry residues – hardly used at present. Besides all that, producing premium quality pellets from torrefied wood is less energy-consuming than producing classical wood pellets”, comments Hervé Chauvin, Managing Director and co-founder of Thermya.

The development and implementation of bio-refinery processes is of crucial importance to build a bio-based economy. The EuroBioRef project will develop a new highly integrated and diversified concept including multiple feedstocks (non-edible), multiple processes (chemical, biochemical, thermochemical), and multiple products (aviation fuels and chemicals). As efficiency is the key to the bio-refinery processes, this implies to take decisive actions to facilitate better networking, coordination and cooperation among a wide variety of actors.

New synergies, cost efficiencies and improved methods will be achieved by involving the stakeholders at all levels: large and small (bio) chemical industries, academics and researchers from the whole biomass value chain, as well as European organisations. The overall efficiency of this approach will be a vast improvement of the existing situation. It will ensure the production of aviation fuels and multiple chemical products in a flexible and optimized way. The target is also to improve cost efficiency by as much as 30 per cent through improved reaction and separation effectiveness, reduced capital investments. Also through improved plant and feedstock flexibility, and reduction of production time and logistics; reduce by 30 per cent the energy used and produce zero waste.

The EuroBioRef concept achieves integration across the whole system from feedstock to product diversification and adapts to regional conditions, integrating into existing infrastructures, minimizing risks to investors. The flexible approach means widening bio-refinery implementation to the full geographical range of Europe, and offers opportunities to export bio-refinery technology packages to more local markets and feedstock hotspots. The impact of the project in terms of environment, social and economic benefits is important and could give a serious advantage for European bio-industry. Techno-economic evaluation of the whole integrated biorefinery and environmental life cycle assessment and studies will be carried out.

The first commercial Opcon Powerbox was installed last year at two pulp mills in Sweden, StoraEnso’s mill at Skutskär and Munksjö’s Aspa mill. In operation, the technology more than delivers what its developer promises. “The mills generate electricity from wastewater and the process also helps to meet cooling needs,” explains Niklas Johansson, vice president Opcon.

With the Opcon Powerbox, StoraEnso will produce more than 4 GWh of carbon dioxide-free electricity annually. Aspa Mill should be able to produce even more. “We’re talking about as much electricity as from a wind power plant, but at a far lower investment cost,” Johansson says.
This is just the beginning of electricity generation with far greater potential. A pilot study has been done at a gas-fuelled, 105 MW power plant in Australia. With 12 Opcon Powerboxes installed, another 9 MW could be produced from the waste heat under current operating conditions.
The Opcon Powerbox is based on technology from Opcon’s subsidiary Svenska Rotor Maskiner (developers of the screw compressor) and the Swedish firm of Ljungströms (air preheaters, etc.). The technology is fuel neutral and works with hot water or steam. The technology is highly interesting in combination with biofuel, because electricity generation that requires little investment makes green energy even more efficient and competitive.

Scientists have conducted several biotechnology research and plant breeding in bamboo. This led to the development of a hybrid bamboo that will be the solution for energy, paper pulp and bamboo charcoal production. The hybrid bamboo plant is not a genetically modified organism. It is a product of conventional breeding. Hybrid bamboo can grow in all types of soil. The preferred soil is light soil, loamy soil, red soil and sandy loam soil.

Just after a three year gestation period, a one acre yield will be an amazing 40 m tons, with 8-10 percent moisture and less than 1 percent ash content. A well-grown hybrid bamboo plantation is able to sequester close to 60 tons of carbon-dioxide in every acre annually which is 80 CER of carbon trading. Lacking thorns, it’s easy to cultivate and harvest.

Bamboo Sur specializes in alternative fuel methods. They are experts in developing and managing bamboo plantations, consulting on mass propagation of bamboos and advising state governments and farmers for development of bamboo on a mega scale.

The congress discussed the following topics: Phototropic aquaculture, micro algae, cyanic bacteria and micro crops. Experts talked about the applications of algae and micro crops. The possibilities are promising: for example, algae bind greenhouse gas with the help of sunlight. They can also clear sewage and decrease CO2-emission of power plants.

LiveFuels, Inc.,

“Our new Brownsville facility allows us to explore a system-level solution for producing algal biofuels,” said LiveFuels CEO Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones. “By harnessing the power of natural systems, we hope to achieve what has eluded the biofuels community for decades – cost effectiveness, scalability, and sustainability.” At the Brownsville facility, LiveFuels will conduct research on optimizing the productivity of natural aquatic ecosystems through biological and environmental conditions. The results will be used for an expansion to full-scale commercial operations along the coast of Louisiana. The commercial facilities will be designed to harness flows of agricultural pollution from the Mississippi River that can be used as nutrients for generating algal blooms. By removing these nutrients from river flows, LiveFuels’ systems also mitigate the impacts of agricultural pollution in the open ocean.

The torrefraction installation will produce TorreCoal, a renewable energy from biomass which is an alternative for fossil brown coal. TorrCoal is developed especially for energy producers electricity units to help reduce emissions. Co fuelling with TorrCoal has a direct effect on the CO2 and green gass emissions, without the necessity of extra investments. TorrCoal has the same energycontent as brown coal, but is CO2 negative and green gass neutral.