By Dave Harcourt •
November 7, 2009
SAB Miller, South African grown, second largest brewer in the world has introduced anaerobic digestion to treat the waste leaving its Alrode Brewery in Gauteng, South Africa. Anaerobic fermentation of organic material produces methane, which is used to reduce the consumption of fossil fuel based energy.
Copper brewhouse in a Trappist brewery
Brewery Waste & Biogas
In the brewery the waste is a collection of unavoidable losses of carbohydrate and protein rich materials, which would otherwise be sold as beer or byproduct and the large quantities of water used to maintain a hygienic operation.
By Andrew Williams •
April 20, 2009
A French bus driver working in Germany has been suspended from work after she stopped her double-decker bus to save a frog from being flattened under the wheels.
Passengers, already hopping mad because of a 20-minute delay, were incensed when Christina Pommerel, 46, jumped from her seat, rescued the frog, put it in a box and set it free on the side of the road.
Ms Pommerel, who has been driving buses for 13 years in the southern German city of Regensburg, told German daily Die Welt, “I couldn’t just squash it. I did my job and saved a life.”
By Andrew Williams •
March 7, 2009
German car giant BMW has announced plans to attach radioactive heat-collectors to the tailpipes of future models, in a move predicted to slash fuel use and reduce carbon emissions by around 5 per cent.
The massive fuel saving is bigger than the three per cent achieved by the two current key Efficient Dynamics technologies - stop-start and brake energy regeneration.
The revolutionary technology, originally designed to power space satellites, captures waste heat transferred down the tailpipe and converts it to electricity via a radioactive ‘thermolelectric generator.’
By Andrew Williams •
November 18, 2008
PC energy saving specialists Verdiem have today released free downloadable software designed to help users slash their energy use up to a massive 80 percent.
According to Allison Cornia, vice president of product management at Verdiem, “If we could get just 10 per cent of the world’s one billion PCs using [the product] properly we could save 32 billion kilograms of CO2 a year. That’s equivalent to taking half a million cars off the road.”
By Joshua S Hill •
July 17, 2008
Though I’ve never experienced the college dorm setting in my lifetime, I have spent far too much of my time watching TV shows focusing on the college dorm (Gilmore Girls anyone?). So this story has a little bit of a soft spot with me, on top of the fact that it is just really cool environmental awareness and friendliness.
Students at Sarah Lawrence’s Warren Green Hall will this fall be composting together, monitoring their electricity usage and drying their dirty laundry on a clothesline. They’ll be sharing appliances, cooking and shopping together too, to reduce waste and energy, and using the electric light as little as possible.
