Implementing Green Energy in our Daily Life

Many articles were mentioning about implementing green energy for achieving carbon neutrality. Unfortunately, we are ambiguous about the implementation. We have discussed carbon neutrality in many articles, now we want to talk about the approach to achieve carbon neutrality. One of the strategies is switching the energy source from coal to green energy, but this will definitely incur an impact on energy cost.

Even though achieving carbon neutrality is our ultimate goal but we have to implement it wisely so that it will not sacrifice the overall economy, and make it not sustainable.

Implement green energy is a way to achieving sustainable Carbon Neutrality.

Switching to Green Energy

Renewable Energy — Solar Energy – Green Energy

Promote and encourage the use of green energy is a way to reduce carbon footprint in the environment. However, fossil fuel and coal which is more cost-effective than any green energy. Hence, bringing down the overall green energy cost becomes the key challenge to determine if consumers are willing to switch to green energy.

From the economic, we understand the cost is affected by two importance factors:

Scale
Productivity

If both the usage of green energy scale and productivity could be improved, then we have enjoyed the fruit of green energy. Furthermore, we will also reduce the carbon footprint and achieving carbon neutrality in long run.

Implement Green Energy

We need a sustainable strategy while comes to implement green energy in our society. We have to set up a strategy in order to achieve a sustainable carbon neutrality goal. There is a three-way implementing green energy strategy setup:

Green Energy Production
Energy Transmission
Consumer

This three-way energy triangle becomes a course-effect relation, any improvement will promote the growth for the next categories.

For instance, the improvement of Green Energy Production will nourish the growth of Energy Delivery. Furthermore, the convenience of Energy Transmission will encourage Consumers to consume this green energy. As a result, green energy consumption will become the catalyst to enhance energy production.

The Implementation Stages

The 3-ways strategy setup for green energy are the important pillars for implementing green energy. Let us discuss a little details for individual steps.

Green Energy Production

Solar energy is one of the green energy. Perhaps, this sector is the key green energy source. So, converting solar energy to electric power is a photovoltaic process. The efficiency of energy conversion and energy storage becomes a challenge for the industry.

The improvement of photovoltaic for the past 10 years is enormous. With the technology improvement, the photovoltaics cost is reduced 89% since 10 years ago. With the technology improvement, the industry is looking for half the cost in the next 10 years.

Energy Transmission

In Malaysia, most of the population and industry are located on the west coast, whereby east cost has less crowded. Hence, the east coast could be a good location for developing green energy production, this includes solar and offshore wind energy.

In this case, the transmit of east coast energy to the west coast becomes a challenge. In order to reduce the energy loss during the energy transmission, one of the methods is implementing Ultra High Voltage (UHV) technology. Current high-voltage transmission is carried out at 220kV, whereby UHV technology will increase to 800kV. Among all the UHV development, China is leading in the world for now. Our reader is advised to understand the situation in the China UHV video clip.

Consumers

How we are going to encourage consumers to adopt green energy in Malaysia? You are right, let’s move toward the electric car. The government is giving incentives for electric cars so that fossil fuel consumption will reduce and replace by green energy.

The needs and convenient access of green energy becomes the driver for Green Energy Production.

There is no shortcut to implement green energy. There are many challenges along the way. This article reveals a method and strategy for how green energy could slowly come into our life with minimum cost impact. I believe, there are many other approaches while the time comes.

May 1, 2021May 1, 2021

The Carbon Neutrality

You should have noticed that many countries already started talking about carbon neutrality. Europe already made an announcement that they want to achieve carbon neutrality in the year 2050. Whereby the China government also announced achieving carbon neutrality in the year 2060.

Many should have said that there are at least 30 years from now, but time is running short. Unless we are having some basic fundamentals from several aspects, else we are unable to fulfill the goal.

Carbon neutrality is to ensure neutral impact on environment.

What is Carbon Neutrality

The carbon over here stands for carbon dioxide discharge from human activity into the environment. In our daily life, we are creating carbon dioxide via our breathing, activity, manufacturing, etc. The carbon discharge indicates the footprint of human activities on the environment.

In order to maintain a sustainable living environment for our next generation, many countries have pledged to achieve neutrality in the year 2050 or 2060. The carbon-neutral means the amount of carbon discharge from the human is equal to the amount of carbon absorbed.

The first step to achieve carbon neutrality is reducing the carbon footprint.

Let me show you some figure why achieving carbon neutral is not a simple assignment even though the strategy could be simple, plant more trees.

The Carbon Amount

Many say the absorb of carbon dioxide is simple, can be achieved by the photosynthetic of a tree. The leaf needs carbon dioxide in order to carry out the photosynthetic process, hence the tree has become the hope to absorb the human discharged carbon dioxide. Let see what is the figure says.

The Carbon Discharge & Absorb

This is the figure from the USA government. An adult is generating 270kg of carbon dioxide every year. Whereby, a 10 years-old woody plant only able to absorb 22kg of carbon dioxide per year. This means an adult needs 12 woody-trees in order to offset his carbon discharges every year.

By the way, do you think the tree itself is creating carbon dioxide? For instance, a fallen leaf is rotten, and this process also consumes oxygen and discharges carbon dioxide into the environment. So by simply planting more trees may not be sufficient to achieve carbon neutrality.

Technology Application

By understanding the human carbon footprint and the carbon discharges figure, we could conclude that planting trees or back to nature kind of lifestyle may not be sufficient to achieve carbon neutral. In short, we need technology improvement to help us in reducing carbon discharge.

Reduce CO2 Discharge

Among these 3 petroleum products, coal, gasoline, and natural gas, coal is charging the most CO2 among the 3. And natural gas is less CO2 discharge. Under this circumstance, reducing the coal application is the goal. Even though coal is still the highest energy source consumed every year but the trend is reduced since the year 2013. However, the world is consuming 8.5million tons of coal per year and this converts to 30billion tons of CO2. It is really a huge figure.

We are seeing more and more choices of renewable energy are introduced into the overall energy supply industry.

Improve CO2 Absorbtion

The leaf absorbs CO2 by the photosynthesis process but the absorption rate is low. Furthermore, not every place we can plant trees. So engineer is identifying an efficient way to collect the CO2 discharge. One of the technology is collecting the CO2 at the discharge area and converted to carbonate mineral via a chemical process. Under this technology, the CO2 is contained and not discharged to the environment. This also fulfills the greenhouse effect too.

We believe with the worldwide effort, more technology is yet to improve and reduce the CO2 discharge into the environment. From current technology and energy consumption, achieving carbon neutrality still, be a great challenge.

March 8, 2021March 5, 2021

The Choices for Renewable Energy

Renewable energy all the while is the main topic in the energy sector. With the technology development, many have thought that we should have built an alternative other than fossil fuel.

No doubt, we are seeing many choices for energy sources unfortunately we are still far behind in practical application. In this article, we are going to analyze the pro and cons of this century’s energy topic.

Renewable Energy is always drawing everybody’s attention, however, it comes along with great challenges too! The aspect from Technical, Cost, and Management.

What is Renewable Energy

Currently, most of the energy source is coming either from petroleum or coal. Both are derived from fossil fuels which classify under non-renewable products.

Petroleum products have supported a decade of industrial development. This is the moment for us to explore cleaner energy and becomes a sustainable energy source for us to live on the planet.

Features for Renewable Energy

A renewable energy is having below characters:

Generate via renewable resources.
Cleaner in terms of less CO2 and dust emission.
Sustainable energy sources.
Replenish naturally and constantly.

As we are aware, air pollution is one of the severe environmental challenges. This is because particulate and CO2 are generated and emitted into the air. Attention and hope are placed on the greener and sustainable new energy source.

Renewable Energy Choices

Coal and petroleum products consider as non-renewable products, so renewable sources are.

Solar Energy.
Wind Power Energy.
Hydropower.
Bioenergy, such as Biomass.
Nuclear Energy.

There are several sectors besides the above. However, the emphasis is on the above 5 sectors. By quick glance, these 5 sectors are having a good prospect, unfortunately, there are many technical barriers which need to overcome.

The Challenges for New Energy Source

Adapting a new energy source requires support from every aspect. Here are a few challenges which currently the engineering is working on it.

Solar energy. This is clean and green energy. Many places with long-hour sun exposure are suitable for installing solar panels. The challenge for Solar Energy includes a) energy storage; b) High solar panel cost.
Wind Power Energy. Wind blow is the resultant of airflow. Installing an air turbine to collect the energy from the airflow. We are facing a similar restriction as solar energy as we mentioned earlier. Furthermore, the setting up of wind turbine stands will affect the local airflow pattern.
Hydropower. This is the powerful energy derives from fast-moving or falling water. The China Three Gorges Dam is the largest hydropower station in the world. Unfortunately, the capacity of hydropower is far less for our needs. Dam fabricating and maintaining is a huge cost too!
Bioenergy. Bioenergy may not consider green energy however it turns the biomass into an energy source. It still classifies as a renewable energy source.
Nuclear Energy. Nuclear power is a huge energy source, it is a zero-emission and also sustainable energy source. The challenges come from nuclear power control and operation management control. Nuclear leaks and radiation incidents are still the main concern.

The Energy Prospect

The development of renewable energy is under on-going mode for 10 years or even more. Even though fossil fuel is still the main energy source for now but the contribution of renewable energy is increasing through-out the year.

In general, there are still many challenging for renewable energy especially the cost is still higher compared to the energy generated from fossil fuel. The challenges include:

Combine the new energy into the existing power grid.
Reduce the power transmission loss.
Improve the power storage capability and capacity.

There is no quick fix for renewable energy but we have to work in this direction. Not only we need the explore new energy sources but also fulfill the CO2 emission control.

We are the main biomass supplier in Malaysia and we will stay very positive in terms of renewable energy prospects.

June 26, 2019March 4, 2021

About Activated Carbon

Activated carbon is a common substance used in water treatment. Home use water filtration system or industry use water treatment plant also consist of activated carbon.

Categories of Activated Carbon

There are many organic substances found in nature can be processed and converted to activated carbon. To your surprise, I have seen some activated carbon which made from durian shell. Of course, this is mainly for engineering developing purpose. In common, we know that there are 4 main type of activated carbon substance in Malaysia, namely

Coconut shell base
Palm shell base
Coal base
Peat base

Among these 4 categories, activated carbon made from coconut shell base and palm kernel shell base is highly demanded due to better quality. This is because both shells are given a better absorption rate as well as product hardness. Malaysia does manufacturing both activated carbon, and the products mostly for export purpose.

Coal-based activated carbon is the common categories found in Malaysia. Malaysia is not a country supplying coal, hence, most of the coal base activated carbon are imported from overseas, especially China.

Powder or Granular Form Activated Carbon

Many has come across the question whether what they want to use Granular or Powder form of activated carbon. Again, there is no absolute answer for this question, it is very much depend on the filtration purpose.

In general, granular activated carbon is the most popular and commonly seen in many applications. Especially the mesh size 8*30 is hot sell product. Many water treatment plant use this type of granular activated carbon.

The powder form is less wanted now in the market. This doesn’t mean powder activated carbon has no market. The function for powder form activated carbon has been replaced by the water treatment process. Chemical removal and biological removal methodology are showing remarkable improvement. Many impurities which originally removed by powder type activated carbon has been replaced by chemical and biological removal.

When to use Activated Carbon

The main purpose for activated carbon is to remove tiny impurity which unable to filter via mechanical filter methodology. The porous structure on activated carbon is given the nature for impurity absorption. The absorption capability is very much illustrated by the iodine value of the activated carbon.

Eventhough activated carbon has the best absorption value as compare to other substance, however, in a filtration system, we always apply the activated carbon cartridge at the last station in order for very tiny impurity removal. Those larger size impurity should be removed by filter cartridge and filter bag.

August 20, 2012December 16, 2012

EFB Pelletization Process

Biofuel pellet is increasing it demand and application. In order to cope with the increase demand, many raw feed stock materials have explored becoming biomass pellet. In this article, we are elaborating the pelletization process by using EFB pellet as an example to reader who is interested to understand this process.

1. Preparation Before Pelleting

The shredded EFB fibre is the raw material from palm oil factory. The shredded EFB fibre may reach up to 200mm in length. The long length of EFB Fibre is not suitable for pelletization process.

The first step of pelletization process is grinding. The shredded EFB pellet will go through the grinding process to grind to shorter length, in most cases, the grinded length should reach 3mm or shorter.

2. Drying the Grinded Fibre

Due to the nature of Shredded EFB fibre, the grinded fibre also consist high moisture content, around 50-60%. The grinded fibre will send for drying to the suitable moisture level.

The moisture content is the important parameter for pelletization process. The Grinded EFB fibre need to maintain 10-15% moisture level in order to produce quality pellet.

3. Pelleting process

The dry fibre will send for pelleting machine. There are not additional binder adds requires during pelleting process.

The EFB pellet is in dense form, hard surface and high temperature right after extruded from the pelleting machine.

4. Pellet Cooler Machine

The hot EFB pellet will transfer to the cooler for removing the surface temperature, the hot heat will be absorb and discharge.

From machinery design, the hot air removing from the post extruded pellet will send for drying purpose.

5. Pellet Packing Mechanism

The EFB pellet will send to packaging. In our case, the EFB pellet is packed under jumbo bag form. Every jumbo bag weight around 800kg, this is mainly for easy handling purpose.

EFB Pelletization process is a simple, it mainly contributes by 5 major processes, namely 1) Grinding; 2) Drying; 3) Pelleting; 4) Cooling; 5) Packaging. However manufacturer needs to wisely control the process in order to deliver quality product.

A quality EFB pellet is hard in surface, not easy broken, smooth and shinny surface. Kindly contact DST Technology for any interested in EFB pellet.

August 12, 2012December 16, 2012

EFB Pellet Moisture vs. Calorific Value

Moisture is one of the intrinsic nature for any of the biomass substance. The EFB pellet moisture is the important parameter affecting the calorific value. Base on difference biomass material, it may consist difference moisture level which eventually affecting the net calorific value. For instance a Shredded EFB fibre always consist moisture around 60%. On the other hand, Mesocarp fibre is lower in moisture level. However, an EFB pellet which process from Grinded-EFB fibre only consist of 10% moisture level, this is 4 times lower than it originate source.

In this article we are going to discuss about the impact between high vs. low moisture level.

Why Moisture Cares?

Calorific value is the main concern for biomass substance. Customer is willing to pay higher for low moisture substance as compare to higher moisture substance.

From our instinct, high moisture level substance is not preferable for burning process. In order to get a clearer picture about the impact for moisture level, we need to compare the net calorific value. By comparing the net calorific value, user will be easier to make appropriate judgment.

Calorific value for high and low moisture Level

EFB pellet is made from shredded EFB fibre. Let us compare EFB pellet together with Shredded

EFB fibre.

A shredded EFB fibre with 60% moisture claimed having a gross calorific value at 3200kcal/kg. After considering the 60% moisture level, the net calorific value for shredded EFB fibre drop to 960kcal/kg.

An EFB pellet which consists of 10% moisture is having a gross calorific value of 4900kcal/kg. The net calorific value for EFB pellet is 4070kcal/kg.

In actual biomass boiler process, we could notice only 960kcal/kg of heat energy will transfer to the heating process, other heat energy 2240kcal/kg has been consumed because of the moisture level. In other words, there is 70% of heat energy lost due to the moisture.

From this example, we know the reason why the biomass boiler or factory owner request lower moisture level. Perhaps the 70% lost is solely from the substance heat energy stand point, it also imply a substantial portion of the transportation cost has been consume by the unwanted moisture.

Calorific value for EFB pellet

An EFB pellet make from shredded EFB fibre. In a standard EFB pellet process, the fibre will send to grind and dry before moving to the pellet process.

The EFB pellet comes with the range of moisture of 8-15%. With low moisture level, it implies that most of the gross calorific value will be bringing to net calorific value. A gross calorific value for an EFB pellet is 4900kcal/kg and the net calorific value is 4070kcal/kg. Around 20% heat energy lost due to moisture concern.

High moisture or Low moisture?

By comparing the EFB pellet and shredded EFB fibre, we are seeing and heat energy ratio of 4.2 times, this means from net calorific value stand point, an EFB pellet should sell 4.2 times higher than the shredded EFB fibre price.

Please bare in mind, this has not consider the shipping cost, storage space as well as other hygiene control through out the transportation process.