September 2008 issue of Biomass Magazine
The September 2008 issue of Biomass Magazine is now available. Highlights include:
August 28, 2008
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Smokestack heat: Fuel of the future?
Read the full story at News.com.
How’s this for a tantalizing possibility: rather than install solar panels on your roof, the lost heat from your furnace could power your home.
That’s not yet a product, but a growing number of scientists and clean-tech companies are trying to coax usable energy from smokestacks and other waste-heat sources.
A global push toward energy efficiency is prodding more industrial outfits to reuse heat from their operations that would otherwise be lost to the skies.
Meanwhile, improving thermoelectric technology that converts heat into electricity is being fitted onto everything from car exhaust pipes to furnace flues.
It’s a sign that energy efficiency, which often takes a backseat to renewable energy or alternative fuels, is getting more attention from technology innovators.
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Carnegie Mellon Researchers Urge Industry to Broaden Carbon Footprint Calculations
Carnegie Mellon University researchers are urging companies to embrace new methods for following the trail of dangerous carbon emissions that are responsible for much of the world’s global warming threats.
Because there is no universally accepted way of calculating someone’s carbon footprint, dozens of carbon calculators have sprung up on the Internet in the past few years creating confusion and inaccurate information. In addition, accepted frameworks for tracking industry carbon emissions rely on “tiers” of increasingly broad scope. Tier one generally includes emissions by the company’s own activities, such as burning gasoline in fleet vehicles or natural gas in its facilities. The second tier boundary expands to include emissions from electricity and steam purchased by the company. Tier three includes all other emissions, including the entire supply chain of goods and services.
In practice, most companies reporting their greenhouse gas emissions opt to use only tier one or the tier two boundary. To put the implications of this boundary decision into context, Carnegie Mellon researchers H. Scott Matthews, Chris T. Hendrickson and Christopher L. Weber, have developed a new method that estimates the amount of greenhouse gas emissions across all tiers of the entire supply chain for all industries.
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