A new study led by Professor Peter Majewski at The University of South Australia indicates tens of thousands of wind turbine blades will end up in landfill by the end of the decade unless end-of-life programs are established soon.

The study highlights the challenges of recycling wind turbine blades, which are made of either carbon fibre or glass fibre composite material, both of which are expensive to break down, with the recovered materials having minimal market value.

“The same features that make these blades cost-effective and reliable for use in commercial wind turbines make them very difficult to recycle in a cost-effective fashion,” Majewski said.

“As it is so expensive to recycle them, and the recovered materials are worth so little, it is not realistic to expect a market-based recycling solution to emerge, so policymakers need to step in now and plan what we’re going to do with all these blades that will come offline in the next few years.”

In many parts of the world, wind turbine blades are currently dumped in landfill, but this practice has been banned in some European countries, and with estimates suggesting there will be more than 40 million tons of blade waste worldwide by 2050, alternative solutions are urgently being sought.

Majewski said that while there is some very limited potential for reuse of blades in niche construction settings and a small market for some of the reclaimed materials, it is likely the costs of disposing of the blades in a sustainable fashion will need to be factored into their production and running costs.

“Our research indicates the most likely viable option is a product stewardship or extended producer responsibility approach, where the cost of recycling the blades is factored into either the cost of their manufacture or the cost of their operation.

“So, drawing on the experience of similar programs for other products, either the manufacturer must take responsibility for what needs to be done with the blades at the end of their useful life, or the wind farm operators must provide end-of-life solutions as part of the planning approval process for their business operations.”

While self-regulation may offer one solution, Majewski believes the long lifespan and high cost of blades means official frameworks are required to ensure transition of responsibility where necessary.

“If manufacturers disappear, or wind farms go broke, we need to ensure processes are still in place for the turbine blades to be disposed of properly,” he said.

Majewski said it is likely consumers will ultimately bear some of the end-of-life cost through energy tariffs, but he believes market competition between energy producers should help to minimise the impact of that on the public.

“There will be some cost to this for everyone involved, but we have to accept that as part of the cost of producing energy in this way,” Majewski said. “Without such solutions, energy options like wind and solar may prove to be no more sustainable than the old technologies they are aiming to replace.”

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/PomInPerth

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/waste/article/out-of-puff-end-of-life-plan-needed-for-wind-turbine-blades-1237096320

The CSIRO has published research showing that coastal plastic pollution has decreased by 29% in the last six years, with local government strategies having played an important part in this reduction. The ability for community members to sort their waste effectively, clean-up initiatives like Clean up Australia Day and surveillance programs that involved stewardship of the local environment and beaches were considered some of the important aspects behind the reduced plastics pollution.

CSIRO Chief Executive Dr Larry Marshall said the results of the research demonstrated the value of a concerted team effort in cutting plastic pollution.

“While we still have a long way to go, and the technical challenges are enormous, these results show that when we each play to our individual strengths, from community groups, industry, government and research organisations, and we take the field as Team Australia — then we can win,” Marshall said.

“Through our recently launched Ending Plastics Waste Mission, we’re each keeping a laser sharp focus on bringing together the best of ourselves across science, innovation and technology, to clean up our oceans and beaches for all Australians.”

The study builds directly on previous research. It features 563 coastal surveys and interviews with waste managers from 32 local governments. Lead researcher Dr Kathryn Willis said that local governments are an important component of waste control and that the research focused on identifying the governmental approaches that would have the most profound effect on reducing beach plastic pollution.

“Our research set out to identify the local government approaches that have been most effective in reducing coastal plastics and identify the underlying behaviours that can lead to the greatest reduction in plastic pollution,” Willis said.

“We were really surprised and excited to also find that there was on average 29% less plastic on our beaches than in 2013 when similar surveys were conducted.

“Whilst plastic pollution is still a global crisis and we still have a long way to go, this research shows that decisions made on the ground, at local management levels, are crucial for the successful reduction of coastal plastic pollution.”

The study put local government waste management actions into three categories of behaviour for preventing poor waste disposal. The first category, planned behaviour, refers to strategies such as recycling guides, information and educational programs, and voluntary clean-up initiatives. The second was crime prevention initiatives like illegal dumping surveillance and beach cleaning. Finally it identified economic rationality behaviours like kerbside, recycling and hard waste collections as well as shopping bag bans.

The researchers found that economic-based strategies had the biggest effect on reducing litter and cleaning coastlines. Municipalities that did not update their waste management strategies or reduced their budget for coastal waste management had beaches that had higher levels of pollution whereas the opposite was true for places with strategies that were kept up to date and had higher budgets for coastal waste management.

The study was published in One Earth.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Drobot Dean

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/waste/news/australian-beach-plastic-pollution-has-reduced-by-a-third-1539746734

A major water pipeline in South Australia is now being powered by more than 34,000 solar panels as part of SA Water’s initiative to reduce its costs while simultaneously cutting carbon emissions.

The Murray Bridge to Onkaparinga Pipeline’s second pump station in Rocky Gully has been stocked with thousands of solar panels that will provide it with power. Around 25,600 MWh of green electricity will be generated by the photovoltaic panels.

SA Water’s Senior Manager of Zero Cost Energy Future, Nicola Murphy, said the use of solar panels for the 50 km-long pipeline, which supplies metropolitan Adelaide, will reduce carbon emissions by about 11,000 tonnes a year.

“Now connected to our assets, these solar panels will significantly help to sustainably reduce our operating electricity costs and reliance on the national electricity grid, without compromising on the performance this vital pipeline plays in delivering trusted water for our customers,” Murphy said.

“The annual solar generation capacity is significant, with the 34,272 panels able to generate the equivalent energy capacity to power more than 4000 average South Australian households.

“When you consider our annual electricity expenses reached more than $80 million in recent years, being able to harness large-scale renewable energy assets such as this will help to make a difference in reducing these significant costs over the coming years.

“This initiative was designed by our people and shows South Australians leading the way with the smarts and skills to integrate renewable energy across existing plants, pump stations and other land holdings.”

SA Water’s Zero Cost Energy Future initiative has seen hundreds of thousands of solar panels installed across 33 SA Water treatment plants, water tanks, pump stations and depots across the state. The sustainable energy endeavour is currently one of the largest renewable energy projects for the water industry worldwide and was given the Project Innovation Award at the 2022 Australian Water Awards.

Image credit: SA Water

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/energy/case-study/sa-water-goes-solar-for-pipeline-1388483308

Your morning cuppa may prove to be a sustainable source for an industrial chemical, according to new research.

Coffee and tea are some of the most popular beverages around the world, but the grounds and leaves are often discarded as waste despite being rich in a group of compounds called polyphenols. These compounds can be used to produce industrially useful hydrogen peroxide, and now researchers from the Tokyo University of Science and Nara Women’s University have worked out how to make it using waste from the popular morning brews.

Hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) is used industrially thanks to its requirement in the oxidation process. However, it is currently produced through the anthraquinone process, which is both energy-intensive and produces waste.

The method developed by the Japanese scientists involves adding coffee grounds and tea leaves to a sodium phosphate buffer, and shaking and incubating this solution. The result is hydrogen peroxide without the high energy requirements of the traditional method, making it an attractive and sustainable alternative.

The researchers also found that the H₂O₂ produced with this method could be used in the production of Russig’s blue dye, and in the presence of peroxygenase and styrene could be used to make styrene oxide and phenylacetaldehyde. The method is a fairly simple, cost-effective and environmentally friendly way of producing multiple industrial chemicals.

“Our method can be used to produce hydrogen peroxide from materials that would otherwise have been discarded. This could further result in new ways to synthesise industrial chemicals like styrene oxide, opening up new applications for these unused biomass resources,” said Associate Professor Toshiki Furuya from the Tokyo University of Science, one of the researchers working on the project. The team suggests that further research can be done to optimise the process so that it can produce more H₂O₂, with more efficiency, in the future.

The full study, published in ACS Omega, is available online.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/victoria

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/waste/case-study/brewing-up-a-renewable-source-of-hydrogen-peroxide-919978601

Kaeser has launched its GBS series rotary screw blowers for the 75 to 160 kW power range. The blowers feature a flow rate from 22 to 104 m³/min and differential pressures up to 1100 mbar as well as quiet operation, an optimised footprint and low maintenance requirements.

The range is designed to be up to 35% more efficient than conventional rotary lobe blowers and to have energy advantages compared to many other rotary screw blowers and turbo compressors available on the market. Its efficiency has been designed to remain consistent across the control range, rather than just at certain points, which makes the products a viable alternative to turbo compressors.

Power transmission from the motor to the compressor is via loss-free, maintenance-free gearing, which means that the products offer efficient operation and have low maintenance requirements. The products are designed for space-saving installation and quiet operation.

For fixed speed operation, Start Control (STC) versions are available. They feature an integrated star-delta starter equipped with a premium contactor, overcurrent relay and phase monitoring. The STC versions additionally feature an energy-saving IE4 Super Premium Efficiency motor.

Sigma Frequency Control versions are also available and feature an integrated frequency converter for dynamic adjustment of the flow rate to actual demand with the frequency converter and motor matched to deliver consistently optimised overall efficiency. For power outputs up to 110 kW, particularly efficient synchronous reluctance motors are used.

The range features power consumption per unit of flow rate (specific power consumption in kW per m³/h) set according to the narrow tolerances of ISO 1217.

The integrated Sigma Control 2 controller provides operational reliability and smart communication via integration into process control systems, including those with Industry 4.0 requirements. The Sigma Air Manager 4.0 master controller is recommended for blower stations with multiple blowers, as it features control and regulation algorithms specially developed for the needs of low-pressure applications. This enables even greater energy savings and simplification of automation.

The blowers are suitable for applications with especially high energy requirements — such as the production of air for aeration in wastewater treatment facilities and bioreactors, as well as for flotation and fluidisation.

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/wastewater/product/kaeser-gbs-series-rotary-screw-blowers-1416487870

Vast Solar has announced that it will now be co-developing the Aurora Energy Project at Port Augusta in South Australia. Through an agreement, the solar energy company has acquired 50% of the shares in Silicon Aurora Pty Ltd from 1414 Degrees (14D) for $2.5 million and will thus be assisting with the development of the 140 MW battery energy storage system (BESS) with 14D.

The Aurora Energy Project will produce renewable electricity through the use of concentrated solar power (CSP). This means that energy can be accessed during the night through the use of liquid sodium technology that effectively stores solar power and releases it when used in a generator.

The acquisition announcement follows a round of concessional financing by the Australian Government of up to $110 million for Vast Solar to support the development of its own 20 MW CSP project in the Port Augusta area. The co-development will see Vast Solar using the Aurora site to progress its 20 MW CSP project, which will help create hundreds of direct and indirect jobs.

Craig Wood, Chief Executive Officer of Vast Solar, said, “Partnering with Australian storage technology company 14D to deliver the 140 MW BESS project and our world-leading modular tower CSP technology in Port Augusta is a terrific development for Vast Solar. As per recent comments from the federal energy minister and AEMO, dispatchable renewable energy capacity is what is required to curb the high prices currently being experienced in Australian energy markets. We are excited to be working with the federal government and ARENA to finalise funding for the project, and with state and local governments and other partners to expedite the Aurora project.”

Matt Squire, Chief Executive Officer of 14D said, “We are delighted to have executed these agreements today that will bring Vast Solar into the Aurora Project. The transaction brings together two highly innovative Australian companies that share a vision for Aurora’s development as a long-term renewable energy project in Port Augusta. In addition to accelerating the development of our Stage 1 BESS, the Aurora site may also act as a showcase for the establishment of exciting renewable technologies being developed by Vast Solar and 1414 Degrees. All of this is excellent news for Port Augusta and the Upper Spencer Gulf as it continues to seek to revitalise Australian manufacturing through the utilisation of its world class renewable energy resources.”

More details of the acquisition are available from the 14D website.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/barmalini

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/energy/news/vast-solar-to-co-develop-aurora-energy-project-1607356310

What makes a sustainable city? And I don’t mean sustainable as in green — I mean sustainable in the longevity, futureproofed sense. The kind of city people want to live in and would move states or countries to make their home. The kind of city where people can prosper and indulge in everything that life has to offer.

Set your scepticism to the side for one moment. There are cities that are well on their way to achieving this — and those that aren’t have something to aspire to. We should all be able to live in a sustainable city.

To this end, since 2015 Arcadis has looked at 100 cities around the world through the lens of people, planet and profit to inform our Sustainable Cities Index.

Cities are absolutely vital. More than half of the global population lives in cities and this is projected to grow to two-thirds by 2050. By ensuring the sustainability of our cities, we can focus effort to benefit the greatest number of people.

In Australia, around half of the population lives in the east coast cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. It’s no coincidence that these are the three cities that feature in our index. It’s also no surprise — at least to urban planners and urbanists — that the Australian cities largely sit in the middle of the pack of the 100 assessed.

Overall, Sydney came in at number 33, followed by Melbourne at 60 and Brisbane at 64. I can hear you ask, how can this possibly be? Australian cities are amongst the most beautiful and clean in the world. Other indexes proclaim Adelaide and Melbourne as amongst the most livable. However, the Sustainable Cities Index looks at a more complex matrix of 28 indices to reveal a more holistic measure of what makes a city sustainable.

Amongst the many, we look at air pollution, green spaces, energy consumption and renewable energy share, and access to sustainable transport. There is the cost of broadband and Wi-Fi, rates of education, access to health care, income inequality. We factor in ease of doing business, economic development, employment rates, green finance and job quality.

International cities in competition with each other for the best talent in the world continually improve on these metrics.

The fact of the matter is, we’ve been trading on our natural assets for such a long time, that we’ve failed to keep up. The OECD has a tool that allows you to check how OECD countries rate on different factors of attractiveness for migrants. Unsurprisingly, Australia rates highly for quality of life. We don’t rank quite as well in other areas including quality of opportunities or income and tax.

However, just focusing on those two areas won’t necessarily shift the dial on the attractiveness or sustainability of our cities. What our Index clearly demonstrates is that there’s no “one thing” that makes a city great because our cities are continually evolving in response to tests, challenges and demands from our people. For all the hard infrastructure, our cities need to be malleable.

Take COVID for example. During our hard lockdowns, all of our cities — and perhaps Sydney in particular — identified a significant inequality dependent on where someone lived. Not everyone had access to a home office. Many worked from their kitchen tables or bedrooms for months on end. Others didn’t live near green spaces or beaches and so recreational activities were limited to their surrounding concrete jungles. Access to reliable internet was a challenge for some. The ability to work COVID safely was an issue for others.

The investments we’ve made over the years towards 30-minute cities are now ramping up as we finally recognise that our cities are more than our CBDs. The experience of living in Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane should be consistent no matter which part of the city you live in. The indelible march towards hybrid work arrangements forces us to look at our cities through new eyes. Are we fit for purpose? And if not, what do we need to change?

The beauty of the Sustainable Cities Index, at least from my perspective, is not that it pits our cities against each other — that isn’t the intention. It’s that we can take something from our international peers. There is no pinnacle of success — no one city that trumps them all. We can all learn from each other.

European cities consistently come out ahead in the Sustainable Cities Index, but no city ranks in the top 10 across all three pillars.

Oslo takes the overall top spot in 2022, ranking first in planet, 17 in people and 39 in prosperity. Oslo’s city centre is increasingly car-free and easy to explore by foot or bike. More than half of the municipality is covered by forests and parks. You can swim or kayak in the fjord that extends into the city centre or visit the urban farms.

Tokyo comes in at number three overall and is the only Asian city in the overall top 25. Tokyo ranks in the top 10 for both people and planet, coming in seventh for both. Tokyo has the world’s most sophisticated railway. With 13 subway lines and more than 100 surface routes, most of the metropolitan area can be reached with a train ride and short walk. High employment rates, clean streets and low crime rates are all hallmarks of this international city.

Seattle is number 7 overall and number 1 for prosperity. Washington State’s largest city is home to the headquarters of Microsoft and Amazon and topped the prosperity list for ease of doing business, economic development, green finance, transport infrastructure, employment and job quality. Surrounded by natural beauty, the city came in at 34 for people and 31 for planet.

Once again, sustainable cities are a complex mix of different factors and all the levers need to be pulled if we’re to compete on the world stage as one of the best places in the world to live.

The next time we conduct the Sustainable Cities Index, the results may be very different again. As we speak, our cities are already changing and adapting.

The City of Sydney has released concept designs for a revitalised and much greener Sydney CBD, with more parklands, fewer cars and even a harbourside pool as part of the city’s 2050 vision. More broadly, the vision for Greater Sydney includes the Eastern Harbour City (Sydney CBD as we know it), the Central River City (Parramatta and Liverpool) and Western Parkland City (Penrith and Campbelltown Macarthur). A real step change in how we think about our most populous capital city.

Melbourne has a 2026 vision to be more sustainable, inventive and inclusive. This is only four years away. Collaborating with universities, the City of Melbourne is creating an innovation district north of the CBD to attract more small businesses, startups and social enterprises to the area. Connecting the city is also a priority with the rapidly growing Southbank set to be connected to the Yarra River and Arts Precinct with improved pedestrian access, footpaths, cycling routes, tree planting and more community spaces.

Brisbane is also working on its vision for 2032 to coincide with the city hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games. While there is no detail yet, the City of Brisbane is working with stakeholders, local communities and businesses to create a new masterplan for a city that is more connected, more welcoming, more green and more animated.

I am excited by this Index and what it says about the evolution of our cities to be real drivers of innovation and change. By looking at our cities through the lens of people, planet and profit, we can continue to push ourselves to deliver experiences to our communities that foster inclusivity, sustainability and prosperity for all.

Top 10 sustainable cities

	Overall	People	Planet	Profit
1	Oslo	Glasgow	Oslo	Seattle
2	Stockholm	Zurich	Paris	Atlanta
3	Tokyo	Copenhagen	Stockholm	Boston
4	Copenhagen	Seoul	Copenhagen	San Francisco
5	Berlin	Singapore	Berlin	Pittsburgh
6	London	Vienna	London	Tampa
7	Seattle	Tokyo	Tokyo	Dallas
8	Paris	Rotterdam	Antwerp	Chicago
9	San Francisco	Madrid	Zurich	Baltimore
10	Amsterdam	Amsterdam	Rotterdam	Miami

Stephen Taylor, Australian Cities Director, Arcadis

Top image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/maytheevoran

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/sustainability/article/sustainable-cities-are-constantly-evolving-360296970

A new analysis by researchers at MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) has found that inactive yeast could be effective as an inexpensive, abundant and simple material for removing lead contamination from drinking water supplies.

The method is so efficient that the team has calculated that waste yeast discarded from a single brewery in Boston would be enough to treat the city’s entire water supply. The findings were published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

Lead and other heavy metals in water are a significant global problem that continues to grow because of electronic waste and discharges from mining operations. Unlike organic pollutants, most of which can be eventually broken down, heavy metals don’t biodegrade, but persist indefinitely and bioaccumulate. They are either impossible or very expensive to completely remove by conventional methods such as chemical precipitation or membrane filtration.

“We don’t just need to minimise the existence of lead; we need to eliminate it in drinking water,” said one of the paper’s authors, MIT Research Scientist Patritsia Statathou. “And the fact is that the conventional treatment processes are not doing this effectively when the initial concentrations they have to remove are low, in the parts-per-billion scale and below. They either fail to completely remove these trace amounts, or in order to do so they consume a lot of energy and they produce toxic by-products.”

The solution studied by the MIT team is a process called biosorption, in which inactive biological material is used to remove heavy metals from water, which has been known for a few decades. But the process has been studied and characterised only at much higher concentrations, at more than one-part-per-million levels.

The team studied the use of a type of yeast widely used in brewing and in industrial processes, called S. cerevisiae, on pure water spiked with trace amounts of lead. They demonstrated that a single gram of the inactive, dried yeast cells can remove up to 12 mg of lead in aqueous solutions with initial lead concentrations below 1 part per million. They also showed that the process is very rapid, taking less than five minutes to complete.

Because the yeast cells used in the process are inactive and desiccated, they require no particular care, unlike other processes that rely on living biomass to perform such functions which require nutrients and sunlight to keep the materials active. What’s more, yeast is abundantly available already, as a waste product from beer brewing and from various other fermentation-based industrial processes.

Stathatou has estimated that to clean a water supply for a city the size of Boston, which uses about 200 million gallons (909 million L) a day, would require about 20 tons of yeast per day, or about 7000 tons per year. By comparison, one single brewery, the Boston Beer Company, generates 20,000 tons a year of surplus yeast that is no longer useful for fermentation.

The team is now working to devise a practical system for processing the water and retrieving the yeast, which could then be separated from the lead for reuse. It could also potentially be used to remove other heavy metals, such as cadmium and copper, which will require further research.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/oasisamuel

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/water/case-study/brewery-waste-could-help-remove-lead-from-water-1643340745

ExpandOS is a protective void fill that is fully certified biodegradable, compostable and also holds SFI certification in the US. It has been used in the packaging industry for over 15 years in the US and Europe, and now has a growing presence in Australia and NZ. ExpandOS can be branded by product owners to help with environmental marketing.

The 40 x 40 x 36 mm triangular structure is made from 400 GSM recycled kraft board with notches on the edges to facilitate interlocking with each other. The result is a rigid mass that is designed to stop product movement in the carton. If a carton is accidentally dropped by freight couriers, the packaging solution can help to absorb the energy from the fall, protecting the product and reducing breakage significantly. For example, it has been used to reduce breakage of flat screen TVs by placing another box around the TV and filling the void with ExpandOS.

Designed to not only reduce breakage in transit but also reduce carbon footprint, the packaging solution is suitable for products such as ceramics, crystal and glass, electronics, commercial parts and equipment, general manufacturing and even in aerospace markets.

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/sustainability/product/expandos-protective-void-fill-packaging-607468825

Sense has announced the establishment of a local operation in Australia within 12 months as the company sees strong potential for its artificial intelligence (AI) technology to be embedded with the next generation of smart energy meters. It will be establishing local electricity retailing and manufacturing partners for its AI technology that uses machine-learning algorithms to analyse high-resolution electricity data, providing a breakdown of individual domestic electricity consumption to an appliance level in real time.

Sense AI technology — which can be embedded in the smart meter — can provide data that is vital to flexible grid management, including the provision of energy disaggregation information in real time.

The technology incorporates high-resolution processing that can be built directly into next-generation smart meters. Its load disaggregation samples power more than 10,000 times per second, then uses high resolution waveform data analysis to track device activity in homes down to individual appliances, even those that aren’t smart. Users can therefore get insight into their home, which can save them on average around 9% of their energy bill, according to the company’s spokesperson.

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/energy/product/sense-ai-technology-real-time-energy-monitoring-for-smart-meters-1431831237