Energy from Waste & Biomass
11th March 2009, London
Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, London
09.00
Registration
09.30
Introduction: John Oakey, Cranfield University
09.45
Session 1
Overview: Energy from Waste
Elizabeth Mullis, Environmental KTN
Energy from Waste Plant in the UK
Keith Riley, Managing Director of Veolia
Environmental Services (UK) Plc
Really Zero Waste
Peter Jones, Independent Sector Commentator
11.25
11.45
The importance of Energy from Waste to the UK in supporting the diversion
of waste from landfill, contributing to our renewable energy obligation and
playing a role in energy security cannot be underestimated. The market
potential will be discussed and the drivers and barriers to the uptake of the
technology will be explored via a systems map. The opportunity for the UK
and the technology and R&D requirements to meet the challenge will be
presented with the aid of a roadmap developed with input from the Energy
from Waste supply chain.
The presentation will review the different definitions of energy efficiency for
Energy from Waste incinerators, and the implications of the new Waste
Framework Directive’s formula to determine Recovery or Disposal status.
The benefits and practicality of CHP and District Heating allied to Energy
from Waste plants will also be discussed, as will the energy efficiency of
some other thermal treatment technologies.
Peter Jones will offer an overview of his work with a variety of Regional
Bodies covering his recommendations for achieving a "Zero Carbon"
materials economy. This will emphasise the overall process needed to
approach this challenge and will touch upon the interplay between the
technological, economic and socio-political decisions required for
implementation. It is posited that this methodology might achieve savings to
the Public purse of as much as £2Bn whilst retaining a successful market
driven waste infrastructure economy.
Refreshments
Session 2
Meeting Material Challenges in Combustion of
Waste and Biomass Renewable Fuels
Dr Bryan Allcock, MD, Monitor Coatings
Gasification and Pyrolysis Technologies
Tony Grimshaw, Technical Manager, Energos
Energy from Algae
Stephen Skill, Plymouth Marine Laboratory
Biomass and Waste Combustion Systems are fed with biomass or
combustible waste, a form of energy derived from plant or animal material
such as wood, straw, grass and manure. The technical challenges in
biomass firing, such as slagging and corrosion are related to biomass ash
properties. Biomass has high moisture content and produces large
volumes of gas in combustion. The corrosive nature of this gas has a
severely detrimental effect on the equipment and hardware that makes up
the combustion unit. On-going technological improvements in materials
science and surface engineering has extended the life of this equipment
while allowing plants to push the operating environments to even more
aggressive levels in terms of steam temperature and pressure.
The presentation will provide an overview of gasification and pyrolysis
processes covering the main characteristics and advantages of each. They
will also be compared to traditional combustion/incineration. An explanation
of the various equipment configurations will also be included.
The applicability of the technologies to MSW/RDF/SRF will be presented
together with the requirements for feed pre-treatment in terms of the
physical characteristics and the removal of contaminates.
A brief overview will be given of the current available technologies with an
appraisal of their development status and also examples of current projects
either under construction or in operation.
The current status of these technologies with respects to ROCs will also be
given covering the requirements to sample and determine the energy
content from the renewable portion of the waste fuel.
Microalgae cultivation can produce biomass feedstock suitable for
conversion to renewable biofuels (methane, ethanol, biodiesel and
hydrogen) and nitrogen fertilizers. Like plants, microalgae use sunlight to
produce oils but they do so more efficiently than crop plants and the oil
productivity of many microalgae greatly exceeds the oil productivity of the
best producing oil crops.
Microalgae cultivation requires CO2, for example from power plant flue
gases, biogas, landfill gas or ethanol plants and comparable sources. They
can abate greenhouse gases by producing renewable biofuels that
substitute for fossil fuels and also by being integrated into environmental
processes that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as wastewater
treatment and nutrient recycling. The presentation will highlight
environmental processes employing microalgae cultivation.
13.00
Lunch
13.45
Session 3
The present and future of Anaerobic
Digestion and CHP in Severn Trent Water
Ken Shapland, Environmental Regulation
Manager, Severn Trent Water Limited
The European Bioenergy Research Group
(EBRI) and the Demonstration CHP Plant
Professor Andreas Hornung, Head of European
Bioenergy Research Institute, Aston University,
UK
Options for Cellulosic Biofuels
Dr Geraint Evans, NNFCC
15.00
Refreshments
15.20
Session 4
Biological and Microbial Fuel Cells
Professor Keith Scott, Newcastle University
Case Study: Grott Boxes – Managing Food
Waste Georgina Bingham, Angelheart Inc
Energy Harvesting
Dr Paul Mitcheson, Imperial College London
The presentation will cover a brief history of the development of anaerobic
digestion and combined heat and power in Severn Trent Water. The
current provision and renewable power capability will be reviewed together
with Severn Trent's plans and aspirations to use new technologies and
feedstocks. Issues surrounding the complexity of environmental regulations
on the processes and the constraints they impose on plans for the future
will also be fully covered.
Aston University recently founded the European Bioenergy Research
Institute - EBRI. Together with the long history of the Bioenergy Research
Group at Aston University a major European centre for research,
development and application in bioenergy has been established. EBRI is
especially looking for routes not in competition with food crops or lands to
generate electricity, fuel or chemicals from biomass and waste biomass. A
newly developed process, the so called Biothermal valorisation of Biomass
– BtVB, will enable to generate power and heat with a carbon negative
impact, by sequestering carbon to soil, as fertiliser and soil quality
improvement.
To show the feasibility of those biomass based conversion processes EBRI
is intending to realise a MWel Pyrolyser/Gasifier together with the new
EBRI building. This unit will be used to show the transfer of results from lab
and pilot scale into commercial scale and helps to attract companies for
campaigns based on their feedstocks.
The UK uses about 37 million tonnes of transport fuels each year, mostly
supplied by the nine UK refineries. Driven by issues surrounding climate
change, security of supply and finite fossil fuel reserves, interest continues
to grow in the development of advanced biofuels, particularly lignocellulosic
biofuels which present the opportunity to use a variety of non food crops
and wastes.
This presentation will summarise the variety of potential near and medium
term options for converting lignocellulosic biomass to fuels including:
Upgrading of pyrolysis oils in oil refineries, Biochemical production of
alcohols, Thermochemical production of advanced fuels including synthetic
diesel and alcohols.
It will also highlight the potential for co-producing fuels, chemicals and
materials.
Generation of electricity from wastewater by microbial fuel cell (MFC)
technology is potentially an alternative and economic approach in the
direction of renewable energy production. The novelty and uniqueness of
the MFC could significantly reduce the cost associated with current
wastewater treatment. To make MFCs into realistic technology requires
component optimization and process understanding and several challenges
remain before the opportunities can be realized. Research at Newcastle
has pioneered different materials for the fabrication of fuel cells and
electrodes; based on expertise in various fuel cell technologies and
molecular ecology. This presentation will explain the background to MFCs
and describe recent experimental and theoretical work at Newcastle
targeted at both a greater understanding of MFCs and developing a low
cost technology.
Georgina Bingham will introduce the “Grott Box” – an innovative new
receptacle, tailored to the needs of the energy recovery industry as a
means of collecting the uncollected. This British product is already
capturing hearts, minds and food waste and is effectively a “packed lunch”
for companies involved in processing Category 3 food wastes, such as
Anaerobic Digestion units or Composting facilities. The “Grott Box” has
already struck a chord with schools, hotels and industrial canteens, and has
been welcomed by major catering organisations and facility management
organisations as an ingenious approach where wheeled bins and plastic
caddies are not appropriate.
Energy harvesting – the collection of otherwise unexploited energy in the
local environment – is attracting increasing attention for the powering of
electronic devices. While the power levels that can be reached are typically
modest (microwatts to milliwatts), the key motivation is to avoid the need for
battery replacement or recharging in portable or inaccessible devices.
Wireless sensor networks are a particularly important application: the
availability of essentially maintenance free sensor nodes, as enabled by
energy harvesting, will greatly increase the feasibility of large scale
networks, in the paradigm often known as pervasive sensing. Such
pervasive sensing networks, used to monitor buildings, structures, outdoor
environments or the human body, offer significant benefits for large scale
energy efficiency, health and safety, and many other areas. Ambient motion
is a key source of energy for harvesting, and a wide range of motionpowered energy harvesters have been proposed or demonstrated,
particularly at the micro-scale. This talk will review the principles and stateof-art in motion-driven miniature energy harvesters, and discuss trends,
suitable applications, and possible future developments.
17.00
Finish
For all other conference details, please see the event website.
www.iom3.org/events/waste