Hydrogen from sludge; Energy Star updates
I’ve got a feature today in the Toronto Star looking at new Energy Star standards for personal computers (notebooks, desktops, game consoles) that will go into effect on July 20. This is long overdue, given the proliferation of electronic devices in the home. Following computers, TVs will be the next target. Hopefully this will help to counter the increased energy consumption that comes with buying big-screen plasma and LCD TVs.
Another story, which was run earlier this week, looks at the possibility of turning wastewater sludge into hydrogen at municipal wastewater treatment facilities. Two researchers, in a paper to be published soon in Bioresource Technology journal, say that seeding sludge with biosolid pellets could be a good way of maximizing hydrogen production because the pellets contain microbes that produce hydrogen. This is important, because sludge alone contains both hydrogen-consuming and hydrogen-producing bugs, self-limiting hydrogen creation. By using biosolid pellets, the researchers figured out a way of giving the good microbes the upper hand in the production-consumption battle.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca