Sustainable investing is here. According to Morgan Stanley’s 2019 biennial survey of financial institutions, insurers, and pension funds in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, 80% said that they actively integrated sustainable investing. The trend towards increased attention to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors has only strengthened over the past two years as the…
As the name implies, integrated energy planning involves the integration of different sectors of energy like petroleum, coal, natural gas, and renewables – normally to produce electricity, heat or transportation fuels. Integrated energy planning includes energy used for homes and the industrial consumer and has the goal of reducing CO₂ emissions. Integrated energy planning involves…
Cellulosic agricultural residue is a broad term used to discuss cellulose based residues left after the harvest of a primary agricultural crop. These include everything that we would traditionally think of, such as corn stover, wheat and rice straws, bean stubbles, and potentially even some cover crops. Additionally, residues can take the form of forestry…
Environmental compliance has become an increasingly significant part of bio facility operations and planning. Frequently, the operation of a facility is dependent on complying with regulatory programs and laws at both the state and federal level. Environmental permits are often a critical path to authorizing construction and operation of new or modified facilities. Once environmental…
Air Permitting in Bio Projects? Renewable energy resources are all around us. You may have passed by a windmill, a solar farm, an oilseed processing/biodiesel facility, or a biofuel facility – all of these are sources of sustainable energy, using resources that are naturally replenished (wind, sun, plants, and agriculture). Industrial facilities that process renewables are…
Agricultural Feedstocks for the renewable energy industry include starch and sugar crops (e.g., corn, sorghum), grass crops (e.g., switch grass, miscanthus), oil crops (e.g., soybean, sunflowers), and crop residues (e.g., corn stover, corn cobs, nut shells). Agricultural feedstocks can create sustainable paths by using marginal croplands to generate energy products, and by adding value or…
CO2 Utilization? Concern over the increased CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and its effect on global climate change has increased the awareness and investigations for reducing CO2 emissions. Nearly half of all CO2 emitted will stay in the atmosphere for centuries. According to Intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC), CO2 emissions must be reduced by…
Methane (CH4) is a chemical compound with one atom of carbon and four atoms of hydrogen. It is the simplest alkane and is the main constituent of natural gas. The abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel, although capturing and storing can pose challenges. Naturally occurring methane is found both below ground and under the…