ALBANY, New York, September 30, 2008 (ENS) – Searching for efficient renewable fuels, New York State is investing $1.6 million in the evaluation and improvement of wood-fired heating equipment such as residential and commercial wood boilers, pellet stoves, wood stoves, and emerging grass-pellet technologies.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority today announced the funding of nine projects that will compare energy and emissions performance for equipment that burns wood, the oldest renewable fuel.

Robert Callender, NYSERDA vice president for programs said, “With the increasing use of alternative fuels, we must strive for high energy efficiency and environmental performance. There are opportunities to improve the energy efficiency of wood-fired heating equipment and substantially reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, particulate matter, and other pollutants.”

The program will clear a path for New York-grown fuels, create new manufacturing jobs, and improve environmental performance of biomass technologies, he said.

The studies will be conducted in cooperation with New York manufacturing companies, research organizations, universities, and government agencies. NYSERDA is investing $1.6 million in this effort, and research partners will contribute an additional $900,000.

Many different types of biomass pellet fuel
are being developed from particle board
to switchgrass to the distillers grains
left from ethanol production. (Photo
by Icep Lee)

Conventional outdoor wood boilers waste more than half the energy of wood fuel and emit significant amounts of pollutants, NYSERDA says.

The state research agency points to advanced wood-boiler units developed in Europe that can achieve efficiencies greater than 80 percent and produce less than five percent of the particulate emissions of the inefficient wood boilers typically used in the United States.

The advanced systems are known as staged-combustion or gasification boilers, and NYSERDA is working with two New York companies to manufacture these products in the state.

Alternative Fuel Boilers of Dunkirk manufactures the Econoburn wood boiler for the residential market. Econoburn wood boilers burn cleanly, emitting little exhaust gas.

William Raines, president and chief executive of Alternative Fuel Boilers, said, “The Econoburn wood boiler utilizes gasification technology that captures and re-combusts chimney flue gases to dramatically increase energy efficiency and significantly reduce air emissions. We look forward to working with NYSERDA to document the high-quality energy and environmental performance of our completely ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ boilers.”

Advanced Climate Technologies of Schenectady serves the commercial market.

ACT’s project at the Cayuga Nature Center in Ithaca will demonstrate a fully automated, 90 percent efficient wood-gasification boiler technology that is proven in Europe and adapted for the U.S. market.

These systems have emissions that are better than conventional wood boilers and comparable to typical oil or gas boilers. Mid-sized buildings of between 10,000 and 100,000 square feet represent 90 percent of the boiler market in the United States and are prime targets for these wood systems which can achieve rapid paybacks when replacing fossil-fuel boilers.

NYSERDA is funding three studies that will compare conventional commercial biomass systems and high-efficiency European-style gasification biomass boilers to oil-fired systems.

The studies will evaluate energy efficiency and emissions for woody biomass in several forms – wood chips with bark, wood chips without bark, and wood pellets.

These studies of small-scale wood boilers will be conducted by Clarkson University, the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, and Advanced Climate Technologies. The demonstration at Clarkson will be the first project for an innovative Energy Park being developed to study alternative energy sources on the campus.

There also is recent increased interest in pelletized grass for heating.

NYSERDA is working with Cornell University and the State University of New York at Canton in manufacturing grass pellets, identifying the operational requirements for grass pellet stoves and boilers, determining stove and boiler compatibility with grass pellets, and evaluating the emissions from these systems.

Finally, NYSERDA is supporting a study to evaluate the effects of emissions from wood combustion on local air quality. Wood combustion may be more common in rural areas where there are fewer homes, but due to the high particle emissions rate of conventional wood burning technologies, wood smoke concentrations in local air can become elevated, depending on weather conditions and local topography.

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SACRAMENTO, California, July 24, 2008 (ENS) – The roughly 2,000 ocean-going vessels that visit California ports each year will have to operate on low-sulfur fuel in the future after the California Air Resources Board today adopted a regulation that requires the cleaner fuel.

The board says that when the phase-in is complete in 2012, the change will eliminate 15 tons of diesel exhaust daily from vessels that call at California ports – an 83 percent reduction compared to uncontrolled emissions.

“This regulation will save lives,” said Air Resources Board Chairman Mary Nichols. “At ports and all along the California coast we will see cleaner air and better health.”

Nichols says the cleaner air will reduce the cancer rates and premature deaths associated with living near seaports and trade corridors along California’s coast.

A container ship visits San Diego
Harbor, pumping black diesel
smoke into the air. (Photo
by Mary)

Diesel exhaust contains a variety of harmful gases and over 40 known cancer-causing compounds, the board pointed out in a statement today.

“Currently in California, diesel particulate emissions from ocean-going vessels expose more than 27 million people or 80 percent of California’s total population, to cancer risk levels at or above 10 chances in a million,” said the board.

The new measure requires ocean-going vessels within 24 nautical miles of California’s coastline to use lower-sulfur marine distillates in their main and auxiliary engines and auxiliary boilers, rather than the dirtier heavy-fuel oil called bunker fuel.

Both U.S.-flagged and foreign-flagged vessels are subject to the regulation, which the board says is the most stringent and comprehensive requirement for marine fuel-use in the world.

The regulation will be implemented in two steps, each requiring lower sulfur content in the fuel – first in 2009 and final in 2012.

In 2009, eliminating about 75 percent of the sooty diesel particulates, as well as 80 percent of the sulfur oxides and six percent of the nitrogen oxides is the target.

In 2012, when the very low sulfur fuel requirement takes effect, reductions of diesel particulate matter will be 15 tons daily, the board said.

As a result of the new regulation, the board estimates that sulfur oxides will be reduced by 140 tons daily, a 95 percent reduction, and nitrogen oxides will be reduced by 11 tons per day, a six percent reduction.

Between 2009 and 2015, an estimated 3,600 premature deaths will be avoided, said the board, and the cancer risk associated with the emissions from these vessels will be reduced by over 80 percent.

In addition, the measure will help the South Coast Air Quality Management District meet its federal clean air requirements for fine particulate matter by 2014 and move California closer to its goal of reducing diesel particulate matter 85 percent by 2020.

Reducing emissions from heavy-duty diesel trucks is on the board’s agenda for fall.

Over the past 10 years the board has adopted regulations affecting cargo-handling equipment, transport refrigeration units, truck idling, off-road equipment, harbor craft, port drayage trucks, onboard incineration, and ships at-berth.

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Like many of the great ones, Welsh designer Ross Lovegrove is something of an enigma. He has a very wide variety of tastes, and an equally wide range of skills when it comes to creating interesting, functional, thought-provoking designs that continue to inspire praise, criticism and even a little head-scratching. He once told Wired [www.wired.com], “How can I go from designing airline interiors to soap to bicycles? I fly three times a week, I use soap every night, and I need a bike, goddammit!” Still, though “sustainable design” — at least using our stock definition of a combination of materials, manufacturing, and the function and lifespan of the design itself — isn’t part of Lovegrove’s everyday milieu, he has still wowed us with some remarkable, sustainable designs.

Check out the Orbit Chair, pictured above, a stackable dining chair made of bent plywood (recall its sustainable attributes here [www.sundancechannel.com]) that’s about as mod as they come. The classic modern design isn’t all about looks, though: the wide top “hugs” your back, and the bend in the spine makes it flexible and comfy. The chair has been certified by Greenguard [www.greenguard.org], which tests and certifies products that have low levels of chemical and particulate emissions.

And now for something completely different: Although it unfortunately has never made it to market, this Ross Lovegrove-designed prototype razor (above) is an eminently sound idea. It uses a ceramic blade, which at the time (the mid-1990’s), was claimed to last 40 times longer carbon steel (remember, longevity [www.sundancechannel.com] is high on TreeHugger’s list). It’s no pipe dream though — today you can buy ceramic razors for industrial use, that last 100 times longer. The problem here, unfortunately, is that razor companies are scared to produce a non-disposable version, since they’re in the business of selling as many as possible…sigh Perhaps someday the world will catch up to Ross on this one.

Lovegrove has also done a bevy of interesting work with solar; most recent was “Solar Tree,” (above) which takes a page from its cellulose brethren, “growing” skyward to maximize solar exposure. The project, for the Museum for Angewandte Kunst (MAK) in Vienna, debuted on October 8; in a designers’ statement, Lovegrove said, “The SOLAR TREES communicate more than light… they communicate the trust of placing beautifully made, complex natural forms outside for the benefit of all of society becoming a museum that if folded inside out, the museum as an incubator of change in society… and with this the promotion of environmental science and the joy of the new aesthetics made possible by the digital process.”

On a smaller, more individually-applicable scale, there’s Solar Bud [www.surrounding.com] (below), a handy garden lamp that needs no wires. Stuck in the ground in a place that gets some sun, the lamp uses sensors to detect when darkness falls, and automatically switches on three high power red LEDs. Entirely solar powered, the Solar Bud saves both on energy and installation: no need for electricity, no need for wiring. Smart.

Not everything that Lovegrove touches turns to gold — witness this concept car [www.treehugger.com] that he designed to run exclusively on solar power, as an example — but it’s his attitude about this that is really noteworthy. He says, “This is a world where nature and technology fuse with man’s ambition to achieve ultimate performance levels,” adding that he has an “innate ability” to anticipate the future and lives by the motto “it is only the future if it can’t be made.” With Lovegrove’s and his ideas around, the good news is that the future might never really get here.