IdeaStorm
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Trash To Cash: Norway Leads The Way In Turning Waste Into Energy
Jun 19, 2013
1 Vote
Status: New
For a country blessed with bountiful oil supplies, it may appear incongruous. But Norway is importing as much rubbish as it can get its hands on, in an effort to generate more energy by burning waste in vast incinerators. The Eurotrash business may sound like an unpromising enterprise, but it's one that is increasingly profitable. The UK paid to send 45,000 tonnes of household waste from Bristol and Leeds to Norway between October 2012 and April this year. "Waste has become a commodity," says Pål Spillum, head of waste recovery at the Climate and Pollution Agency in Norway. "There is a big European market for this, so much so that the Norwegians are accepting rubbish from other countries to feed the incinerator." He refuses to divulge the sums involved, saying only that the market is growing. Spillum is "considering requests" to burn waste from other UK towns. "As a rule we generate about 50% of our income from the fee we receive to take the waste and about 50% from the sale of the energy we create," he says. Norway is not alone. Waste to energy has become a preferred method of rubbish disposal in the EU, and there are now 420 plants in Europe equipped to provide heat and electricity to more than 20 million people. Germany ranks top in terms of importing rubbish, ahead of Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands. But it's Norway that boasts the largest share of waste to energy in district heat production, according to Danish government-funded State of Green. Oslo's waste incinerator was built with extra capacity to cater for future growth. "With more and more countries in Europe moving away from using landfill, we assume that there will be growth in waste to energy," says Christoffer Back Vestli, communications adviser for the Oslo municipality. "At the moment, the city of Oslo can take 410,000 tonnes of waste a year and we import 45,000 tonnes from the UK. Europe as a whole currently dumps 150m tonnes of waste in landfills every year, so there is clearly great potential in using waste for energy." Spillum adds: "It is cheaper [for some UK towns] to pay for us to take their waste than to pay landfill fees." The incinerator only takes "clean trash" and the municipality is careful to filter out anything that could be hazardous. Norwegians are meticulous about their waste and divide household rubbish into three bags – blue for plastic to be recycled, green for food waste to make biogas and white for everything else that goes to the waste plant. But many are concerned that the rubbish being imported from the UK and Ireland may not be so carefully sorted. "We have no way of knowing whether the rubbish coming in from Bristol or Leeds or Ireland has been properly sorted or is 'clean'," says Henning Reinton, head of Greenpeace in Norway. There are worries that burning rubbish may discourage recycling. Julian Kirby, of Friends of the Earth, says: "Waste for energy isn't as green as it's made out to be. We estimate that 80% of what's in the average waste stream is easily recyclable." Kirby argues that the incineration system creates confusion: "If you think your waste being burned is a good thing then you are more inclined to just chuck things away rather than recycling them." Some Norwegians also view the waste-to-energy plant as a blot on the landscape. "People in the city find it quite ugly," says Reinton, who is campaigning against the use of incinerators to generate energy from waste. "The modern facilities are far less polluting and damaging to the environment than the older incinerators, but burning waste is just a shortcut. We need to think about longer-term strategies for minimising it." But most residents seem comfortable with the idea of burning waste to create fuel, with 71% of the population supporting the renewable energy source. Ove Merg, an electrical engineer in Oslo, says: "We certainly think it's positive that we use an environmentally friendly energy source. It's great that waste can be useful, and that it actually heats our house." Øistein Thomassen, a photographer from the city, adds: "We produce insane amounts of waste every day, so why not use waste as fuel for heat? As long as the benefits outweigh the risks, I think that using waste as an energy source is brilliant." Related News: http://www.etsy.com/teams/14598/asia-global-energy-ltd http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0drCNOZPHcI
Categories: Environment,
Asia Global Energy Solutions: Research and Markets: Global Waste to Energy Technologies Market 2012-2016
Jun 19, 2013
1 Vote
Status: New
According to the report, the increasing demand for energy is one of the major drivers in the Global Waste to Energy Technologies market. Since traditional power generation techniques lead to increased carbon emissions, various governments across the globe are shifting their focus to recycled energy generation methods such as waste to energy technologies. This is in turn increasing demand for WTE technologies because they emit less harmful gases when compared to fossil fuel-based power generation plants.
Categories: Environment,
The Green Dell
May 3, 2013
1 Vote
Status: Acknowledged
A website where home gardners and small farmers can put up their crops that they are planning, planting, growing, harvesting - and see, by "locality," what others are planting in their neighbourhood. The idea is that they can then perhaps change their minds and plant something no-one else is growing, leading to greater diversity of foods available in their region. People can then either opt to buy these direct from the grower, or trade them for something that they grow themselves, and the idea is to make every region able to grow good local food. The "locality" should be an area that makes sense for local food, i.e. not much more than 20 - 50 miles, to encourage people to use less fuel transporting food around.People should be able to "pledge" either a certain percentage of a planted or harvested crop, or pledge some labour on the grower's property (sort of like community gardening) or tools and materials (wire netting, compost scraps, etc) in exchange for some of the crop. Additionally, users should be encouraged to share their experiences of what grows well locally, what needs special techniques, and so forth. Within a few years, a site such as this should be able to even out local food production, provide detailed, locality-based advice on what can be grown and how to grow it, and (if advertisers are chosen carefully and with relevance, i.e. home handyman, gardening, nursery, and so forth) be able to produce an income by presenting locally-targeted advertising to users, who can use these ads to find the best local services and materials.It would be a crowdsourced agricultural and GIS dataBASE, as well. This can be stripped of identifying data, and sold/donated to research foundations and government departments to provide detailed knowledge of soil and weather and local plants etc on an ongoing basis. The information provided would give valuable knowledge to such organisations about the health of the ecosphere and the weather systems.On the purely humane side, it would allow a much wider audience to have access to local food, thus strengthening local economies and reducing food miles and handling costs. I think an idea such as this is one of theose things where a large company has nothing to lose by devoting a few resources to it and advertising / publicising it, and then if the site doesn't take off, it's a relatively small loss. If it does take of though, it would establish the green credentials of the company and give them some very good publicity!
Categories: Education, Environment, IdeaStorm,
environmental solution to used electronic equipment
May 1, 2013
2 Votes
Status: Acknowledged
I always have a big question mark that Dell has been collecting tons of used electronic equipment but how these equipment are being treated or they go straight to secured landfills??
Categories: Accessories (Keyboards, etc.), Environment,
Cave Mall
Apr 25, 2013
1 Vote
Status: Acknowledged
I just thought of a mall in a cave. tunnels, fish tanks cable cars etc. that will be a best tourist attraction.
Categories: Environment, Retail,
un exhaustable power source
Apr 19, 2013
1 Vote
Status: Acknowledged
we can run electriccity powerd auto mobile continuely with out a power scarcitywe can extract solar power by itroducing solar pannels at every side of a tele phone towerand we can generate that energy trough wireless electric signals so automoblie runs contenuesly as the {tower} coverage is possible we are not using even 10% of solar energy so ithink this is the best idea for eco friendly transportation and a good news for power and commercial companies
Categories: Environment, IdeaStorm,
Expense Reduction and Going Green
Mar 23, 2013
2 Votes
Status: Acknowledged
I have always paid my DFS account by pre-authorized cheque, and I presume that this is standard payment method at Dell. That being the case, why do you send me/us an empty envelope with every monthly statement of the DFS account? The envelopes are not only a waste of paper, but also an unecessary expense. How many envelopes do you send out each month that go unused? Why do you send a monthly statement? Surely Dell can do all of this online. The cost of paper, postage, etc., etc must be considerable. Dell has got to cut costs! You can stop the waste of money, paper, postage, etc., by simply stoping sending envelopes that are not used, and by DFS putting all accounts on line.Frank
Categories: Environment, Service and Support,
Space bound garbage
Mar 6, 2013
1 Vote
Status: Acknowledged
I once saw on a documentary the idea of a low-orbit space station that is tethered to the ground. Orbiting in sync with the planet, this tether would eliminate the need for rocket fuel propelled vessels to carry objects into orbit. I purpose that if this space station is possible, than why couldn't we send all of our waste into space. This could have a signifigant impact on the enviroment here on Earth.
Categories: Environment, Service and Support,
DLP Phlatlight led light engine in mainstream projectors
Feb 22, 2013
1 Vote
Status: Acknowledged
The color gromet as well as the energysmart rating is much superior than traditional configurations. I have a xxx brand dlp tv with phlatlght tech and there is no compairison of color saturation compaired with my dell 1510x projector. I think the tv uses 118 watts for a 56' tv. The smaller pico projectors use a dlp white led engine and a colorwheel not a red, green, blue led.
Categories: Environment, IdeaStorm,
Deep ocean gas creation to move up ballons with power generating turbines behind?
Feb 14, 2013
1 Vote
Status: Acknowledged
Excuse me, this is just a pre-sketch. However, I'm not a specialist and I dont have time for gaining necessary knowledge.Maybe you can tell me if it makes sense somehow.It's very simple general idea:- use some chemical process to create gas (o2?, h2?) under ocean, so that it could accumulate despite the pressure- make it filing some form of ballon- attach appropriate turbines and energy transmision/storage systems (eg. the ballon on cable?)- release the ballon when it is ready to be pushed with pressure- (turbines could have rotation comaprable/better then average wind-turbines?)- improve every detail to make it cheap and safe and large-scaleEnjoy energy :)
Categories: Environment,