Waste incineration, but no energy in Japan!

Japan is now on the top of the news because of its Fukushima nuclear power plant and its problems after the earthquake. We have started our discussion and collaboration with Japan about waste recovery long before this disaster. Japan is a developed country. But, it is amazing that they do not use their waste as resource, as we do in Sweden. Biogas is not on their agenda, while they just burn the waste without any usage. Let's hope our collaboration now with Japan can result in changing this view and they start extracting energy from their waste!

Swedish king and queen for waste recovery

Sweden has a king (Carl XVI Gustaf), who left the power to the parlament in 1973. But, he remains as an important symbol of the country and is a respected man in the world. His wife, the queen Silvia is also a very respected woman with a huge contribution to the humanity. Their majesties showed interest in our international environmental work (waste recovery) and will visit us in Borås in Sep. 2011. As I heard, it is the first time this pair visit Borås together. Let's hope this great news give us more energy for further international work!

Use snow to chill the summer!

In a major part of the world, we have four seasons, which means we need heating in the winter and cooling in the summer. In the old time, people used to save deep snow and ice in shadow and use it for the summer time. However, this old tradition is gone. We have chill and perhaps piles of snow in the winter and hot climate in the summer. If we can manage save this huge amount of energy for 6 months, it can be the source of our heating and cooling throughout the year!


(Remaining of snow in Borås in the middle of March. In this place snow is piled to a height up to about 10 meter during the winter, and smells down during the spring without any use)

Swedish contribution to the global reduction of CO2 emissions

Carbon emission credit is a means to regulate the global emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. At the moment, there are two programs named CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) and JI (Joint Implementation), in which the developed countries help more developing countries in reducing their emissions. There are today a total of about 2500 CDM projects, in which China and India absorbed about 2/3 of all the projects. A latest report by the Swedish Energy Agency, show that Sweden is financing 40 projects (3 in Brazil, 5 in India, 19 in China, one in Malaysia, one in Thailand, 2 in Vietnam, one in Benin, and 2 in Mauritius, 2 in Rwanda, 2 in Tanzania, one in Estonia and one in Romania), which cost about 300 million SEK per year. It is equal about 85 SEK/ton CO2. However, this price is much less than the tax of CO2 in Sweden (1050 SEK/ton CO2). Sweden has a goal to reduce the total CO2 in 2020 to a level of 60% of the total reduction in 1990, i.e. 31 million tons CO2 per year. You can read the report for more information (although it is in Swedish).


The geographical distribution of CDM projects in the world. Ref: www.unfccc.int

Waste refinery in poor countries

Dumping the wastes is a global facts, and we can see that all around the world. However, there are some businesses around these dumping stations. There are scanvengers whose business is to find some valuable materials and collect and sell them. In addition, there are animals such as cows that find their daily meals among the wastes. It means Cows are our current "wastes refineries" in the world, that eat our wastes and then we eat their beef!!


(A wondering tiny cow that looked at me when I got her photo)

Inauguration of fruit wastes to electricity plant

On the last Thursday (10 Feb. 2011), we had a great day in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. In this day, a biogas plant located in a fruit market had kick-off. In this plant, the wastes of the fruit, which is about 4 tons/day is fed the the two digesters (each one 100 m3) and the produced biogas is convetered to electricity (about 500 KWh/day). The electricity is used for the market and also the residents aroud it. It is the first concrete result of our international work "waste recovery" in which our university, polititions, Borås Energy and Environment and SP are working together with the Indonesian partners, Gadjah Mada University, Sleman Municipality and Bionat company. It is a concrete example of "waste biorefinery". Read more about it at wasterecovery.se (in English) and hb.se (in Swedish)!


(The fruit wastes and the final preparations by the Swedish and Indonesian companies before starting of the micro-generators)

Biogas: A threat or rescuer of the global environment?

Biogas is in principle a mixgure of methane and carbon dioxide. Nature is producing biogas since billions years ago. but today:

Scenario 1:
Biogas is a threat to the global environment. It is produced by landfills, rice fields, ponds, cattles etc., and has a great contribution to the global warming. One ton of methane has similar effect as 21 tons of CO2 on the global warming. So, biogas is obviously a threat!

Scenario 2:
Biogas can be produced in a very small reactors, e.g. 0.1 liters, until very large reactors such as 10,000 m3. It can be produced by the kitchen waste of a household or a big plant from e.g. organic wastes of a city. The methane is just the "natural gas" and can be easily separated from other gases by a simple water scrubbing. The methane can be used for heating, cooking, lightning, electricity production, or as car fuel, as it is already used in many countries in the world. We have today a network for tranportation of methane, knowledge to produce it and the technology to use it to run our cars or produce electricity. It can be produced all around the world in any sizes, and meet our demand of energy. So, the biogas is the rescuer of our environment!

The human society should decide about scenarion 1 or 2?

Food crisis and our duty

For a couple of years ago, the price of corn was increased from its average price of about 100 USD to around 300 USD. It was in a parity of the oil price that made a record of more than 130 USD at the same time. These two prices are representative of an imbalance in food and energy supply and demands, which was partly dumped because of the global economical crisis. However, the problem is still out there. We see now the demonstration in e.g. Tunisia which was partly because of high price of food. We should accept that our resources is not enough to support food and energy of the current required global welfare. It is the duty of the polititions, scientists and the decision-makers in industry and agriculture to search for new sources of food as is done for energy!


(Price development of crude oil vs. corn since 2000)

Syria toward 10% renewables?

Syria is relatively small, but one of the oldest countries in the world. The places in the old damascus show a history of several thousands years. The city has now about 5 million inhabitants, which is about 1/4 of the entire country. The country has not so much renewable energy at the moment, but they are planning to reach 10% by solar, wind, bioenergy and hydraulic energies. One of the resources that they own, without noticing, is their wastes. Just the city of Damascus produces 2,500 tons/day municipal wastes, by which 250 tons are composted and the left are landfilled. In our recent trip to Damascus, we tried to make the initial connections toward waste recovery and its conversion to energies. Let's hope for their success with our help!


(The landfill of Damascus with 35,000 ha in size and 20 m height of the wastes)

You, me, facebook and environment

We have recently heard that facebook passed google as the most visited website. There are now many people, particularly younger generation on facebook or similar social media. These media, therefore, become particularly important in spreading information on our environment and resource recovery. I have recently visited a Swedish facebook on waste management and resource recovery. My colleage, Hans Björk is also active on Twitter on this subject. Let's hope to see more active bloggers and websites regarded our environment!


(My photo at the headquarters of facebook in Palo Alto nearby San Francisco)