A fuel cell power plant in Sierra Nevada, California has been upgraded to take advantage of a new technology which uses beer-brewing waste to produce methane fuel.
The power plant is owned by Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, and was originally designed to run on natural gas.
By implementing the new beer-waste system, the brewery will be able to reduce energy costs by 25-40%.
Yet another indication that beer drinking will indeed save the world! 
Original article found in Fuel Cell Today
Related EcoSherpa Articles: Beer Drinking Good For The Planet?
Technorati Tags: beer, beer power, methane, green energy, alternative energy, fuel cell
Written by Bentley on October 12th, 2006 with no comments.
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Read a very interesting article at Medical News Today. US Department of Energy has devoted $1.6 million to a study of 6 species of Cyanobacteria, exploring the potential of these organisms to produce biofuels such as ethanol and hydrogen.
Here’s a quote from Dr. Himadri Pakrasi (head of the research team):
“Cyanobacteria have a distinct advantage over biomass, such as corn or other grasses, in producing ethanol, because they use carbon dioxide as their primary cellular carbon source and emit no carbons and they naturally do fermentation. In biomass, yeast needs to be added for fermentation, which leads to the production of ethanol. Cyanobacteria can offer a simpler, cleaner approach to ethanol production.”
Sounds pretty cool.
Be sure to check out the original article
Technorati Tags: hydrogen, ethanol, cyanobacteria, cyanothece 54112, biofuel
Written by Bentley on October 12th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Green Energy.
Interesting story in the Northwest Arkansas News, relating to our recent posts about styrofoam recycling (referenced at the end of this post).
Apparently Benton County waste management officials are thinking about using a chemical - ‘invented’ by a Bentonville man, Sean Stephan - for recycling polystyrene.
As soon as I read a description of the process (dissolving styrofoam in a liquid solution) I had a strong hunch it would be something involving limonene. Sure enough, later in the article there is mention of “orange oil” and water as two ingredients.
Here is a small blurb from the article:
Stephan developed the chemical two years ago and donated it to Rogers-based Advanced Environmental Technologies Inc., which has a patent pending on the product that it calls Hydro-Sol.
Now, through a partnership with AET, the Benton County Solid Waste District is studying the feasibility of using the breakthrough invention to offer plastic foam recycling countywide.
I’m pretty sure Sony came up with the idea first, but I’m at least glad to hear that more people are looking into this possibility. I’d really like to learn more about the resulting liquid, so as to to get a better idea for how feasible this would be to do at home.
To read the original article, click here
Related EcoSherpa posts: Styrofoam Recycling?, My Styrofoam + Limonene Experiment
Technorati Tags: styrofoam, polystyrene, styrofoam recycling, hydro-sol, orange oil, limonene
Written by Bentley on October 12th, 2006 with 4 comments.
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