Jim Brumm: Long-Term Thinking for a Short-Sighted World

The concept of operating wind turbines in a closely spaced array has potential advantages in reducing capital costs associated with design and construction, improving wind turbine system reliability and optimizing wind turbine operating efficiency.

Now that the President's healthcare bill has passed (in what turned out to be a cliffhanger of a vote) and as mid-term elections approach, Democrats have begun a courting ritual of sorts in order to enlist Republican support for a climate bill.

The company Termo Cabi, represented in France by the company Europe Chauffage Concept, has presented a 300 to 1000 kW burner. This burner presents two advantages. Firstly, it can be adapted on existing boilers and can then convert fossil fuel boiler houses to biomass fuel and this more cheaply. Then, unlike existing burners already on the market, it can burn agro pellets which can reach up to 10% of ash content, without any vitrification problem. Indeed, the burning chamber is regularly cleaned of its ashes by the combination of metallic bars movements and compressed air insufflation. This product can for example find its place in cheese factories by recovering the farmer by-products.

The company Fröling proposes this year a condensation module which can be adapted on the whole existing range of P4 pellet boilers. Thanks to this equipment which must be placed by an installer, the boiler gains 10 to 15% of efficiency, thus offering 104% efficiency on PCI. The return on investment for the installation of this module is of 6 to 7 years.

This cooker is a success regarding compactedness. In a 60x60cm standard size, it integrates both functions of cooker and pellet boiler. Being also airtight, it collects combustive air from outside and thus can be used in Low Consumption Buildings, knowing nonetheless that its power is of 18 kW.

The jury has selected this stove for the R & D approach. Indeed, instead of bringing improvements to existing products on the market, the company Solbéo has decided to start from a blank page. The result is a stove perfectly adapted to Low Consumption Buildings, easy to set up and much more silent. The stove enables a totally linear power modulation by adjusting very precisely the pellet feeding. The programming is done with a big tactile colour screen, which does not require any instructions for use. The product enables notably to program 7 time slots per day, not in ON/OFF binary mode as it is the case for the other products of the market, but with target temperatures. Finally, when running at slow power, the stove is able to function without ventilation and thus makes very little noise.

While the wood cooker market is in expansion again, this cooker with a modern aesthetic and very well made meets also the needs of new Low Consumption Buildings. It offers the possibility of both heating with log firewood and keeping the comfort of pellet automatism. Unlike other products on the market, it brings security because only the cooking plate is burning hot. Being almost airtight, it enables to collect combustive air from outside of the house.

The jury has selected the DPM 470 automatic fabrication centre of the Italian company Pinosa which has gathered all its know-how in this splitter-saw. The main innovations are the ability to process any type of wood at the same time, whatever its diameter, even with twisted wood. Pinosa has used the 'load sense' hydraulic pump system which enables to stop electricity consumption during dead times and to thus reduce of 50 to 60% the energy consumption of the production unit. Finally, Pinosa has put into place several securities in order to protect almost immediately the operator thanks to the implementation of the latest automaton model from Télémécanique.

The size of pellets silos particularly in the case of substitution of fuel oil boilers is a recurrent problem for installers. During the Bois Energie 2009 Exhibition, the jury of the Innovation Competition had rewarded two Austrian companies which had presented flexible silos. These systems enable to gain the 30 to 35% of lost volume due to the bottom of the silos in diamond point or with triangular section. The products presented last year work with motors. This year, Hargassner and Ökofen have presented even simpler solutions which do not use electrical power. Equipped with springs, these initially plane-parallel silos give back step by step their V-shape to the bottom of the silo as the silo drains out.

The size of pellets silos particularly in the case of substitution of fuel oil boilers is a recurrent problem for installers. During the Bois Energie 2009 Exhibition, the jury of the Innovation Competition had rewarded two Austrian companies which had presented flexible silos. These systems enable to gain the 30 to 35% of lost volume due to the bottom of the silos in diamond point or with triangular section. The products presented last year work with motors. This year, Hargassner and Ökofen have presented even simpler solutions which do not use electrical power. Equipped with springs, these initially plane-parallel silos give back step by step their V-shape to the bottom of the silo as the silo drains out.

This new boiler from the Austrian company Herz, represented in France by the company SB Thermique, offers a unique compactedness for this range of power on the market. Its creators have combined various technologies enabling the Biofire range to rapidly adapt itself to the woodchips humidity variations going from 10 to 45%. In order to achieve this, the regulation brings the fuel with a double feeding screw which guarantees a controlled flow of the woodchips. The mobile grate boiler chamber is composed of two independent parts. The first part with longer steps enables to dry the fuel which then falls on the shorter steps of the part where the combustion is done. Thus when the regulation detects a more humid fuel thanks to the lambda probe, the boiler slows the feeding and drying speed of the woodchips, decreasing of course the supplied power.

French energy company, Alstom said on Thursday that it will enter a partnership with BrightSource Energy Inc. in order to enter the solar energy market. Alstom announced it is investing up to US $55 million in BrightSource Energy Inc., with an equity stake that positions Alstom as one of the main shareholders in the company. This operation takes place as part of a capital increase of $150 million organized by BrightSource. The California State Teachers’ Retirement System was also an investor. The company has now raised more than $300 million.

Canadian company Magma Energy Corp. has signed an agreement with Geysir Green Energy ehf (GGE) to purchase all of GGE's stake in Iceland geothermal company HS Orka hf, increasing Magma's stake to 98.53%.

Deutsche Bank and National Wind LLC have closed a senior secured financing facility for National Wind, a Minnesota-based developer of community utility-scale wind energy projects.

The jury has chosen the Aqua insert of the Austrian company because it answers perfectly the new requirements of Low Consumption Buildings. It is a boiler stove using both log firewood and pellets. Its total airtightness and its small power (8 kW) are ideal to smartly integrate itself in a living room and to supply warm domestic water and additional heating on a solar installation. Finally, it gives the possibility to burn principally log firewood with the comfort of the pellet take over in case of absence.

The jury has awarded the Grand Prix to this very innovative product for the following reasons. This 500 kg plastic tank enables women and elderly people to limit the pellets loads to the weight of their convenience whereas bags weigh 15 kg minimum. The airtight packaging guarantees a storage which is free from humidity, whereas bags are fragile. The Pellets Box is an environmental breakthrough: around 1,000 plastic bags are needed to manufacture this product and it is entirely recyclable. This avoids waste and pollution due to plastic packaging of the pellets bags. Finally the end user spreads his heating expenses throughout the season instead of normally having a delivery on pallets for the whole season at the beginning of the winter. Thanks to this innovation and to the distribution concept that will be put in place by the company Crépito, the wood pellet should make a new step towards comfort of use and decrease of its environmental impact.