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£110M plan to turn human and cow waste into electricity
Vincent Moss , The Daily Mirror
Ministers are to announce a £110million plan to turn waste from humans, cows and supermarkets into electricity.
The pioneering scheme will see mountains of rubbish and leftovers converted into electricity through a process called anaerobic digestion…
…The Government plan to pump up to £500million into the project over the next five years. Environment Minister Phil Woolas said last night: “We’re putting together a radical plan for a new source of electricity. This process means we can turn food waste, farm slurry and sewage into gases to make power. I hope it will be a great leap forward and could provide as much as six per cent of the power we use within the next five years.”
(13 July 2008)
Footpaths to generate electricity
Times of India
LONDON: A new technology under development by a British company would allow harnessing of the power of footsteps of pedestrians to generate electricity for lighting up public places.
The technology, developed by London-based The Facility, uses a flooring system that incorporates a matrix of hydraulic compression pads. The pressure of the footsteps on these pads pushes fluid through a micro-turbine and generates electricity.
In 2007, a version of the technology that used the energy of passing trains to power a flood detector underwent successful trial at a bridge in the Midlands, Britain.
(16 July 2008)
BART paying more in bet on solar power
Rachel Gordon, San Francisco Chronicle
BART plans to power two maintenance facilities and a passenger station in the East Bay with solar energy – at almost double the cost of electricity purchased today off the grid.
But BART officials said the higher cost is worth the investment to help combat global warming.
And in the long run, they say, the bigger bill for solar may prove fiscally prudent if – as expected – the price of hydroelectric and fossil fuel-derived power continues to escalate.
BART now pays an average of $95 per megawatt hour to run its trains, maintenance yards and stations, said Frank Schultz, who manages the transit agency’s energy division.
(11 July 2008)
