Mundus Nordic Green News – 26 October, 2020

Preem applies for permission to develop renewable biofuels 

Petroleum refiner Preem announced in a press release that it is seeking permission to expand its refinery Preemraff in Lysekil to develop renewable biofuels. The statement comes not long after the company shocked Sweden’s business world by withdrawing its decision to expand its refinery to produce fossil fuels, which faced a public backlash over an expected increase of climate emissions by 1.7 million tonnes annually. Preem’s CEO Magnus Heimburg says that the plant will use tall (pine) oil, rapeseed oil and recycled frying oil as feedstocks. The new plant will require an investment of SEK 3-5 billion. 

 

Explosion brings sales of hydrogen cars in Norway to a halt

In June last year, a hydrogen station in Sandvika, operated by hydrogen company, Nel exploded, following a leak from a high-pressure hydrogen storage tank.  Afterwards, all hydrogen stations in Norway were closed. This created big challenges for people who drive hydrogen-powered cars, and since then, it has been difficult to sell hydrogen cars. Hyundai's PR manager says they have sold zero such cars so far this year. Toyota says they have sold 15 cars of the first generation Mirai hydrogen cars to date in 2020.

 

Danish research finds “almost no birds” die in collisions with wind turbines

The results of a multi-year scientific study in Denmark has concluded that birds are quite good at avoiding wind turbine blades. The study, carried out by three consultancies for Vattenfall, investigated the area around 11 turbines every three days for three periods of just over a month in both the first and third years after the erection of the Klim Wind Farm in northern Jutland (between 2016-2019). The Klim Wind Farm is located in the immediate vicinity of the Natura 2000 bird protection area. According to the study – the results of which will be published in DOF BirdLife a Danish scientific journal –  in the first year of investigation, a total of 17 dead birds were found under the 11 selected wind turbines. In the third year, 22 dead birds or their remains were found.

 

Danish project aims for increased recycling of industrial plastic

Denmark’s Innovation Fund has granted DKK 22.7 million to a new research project with a view to increasing the recycling of plastics in industry. The "Re-Plast" project will help to develop machines that can fine-tune plastic waste by type of plastic. The goal is to get a purity in the recycled plastic of at least 96% in relation to the polymer type and divided according to unwanted colors, fillers, etc.

 

The project is to be carried out by Aarhus University Plastix A / S Vestforbrænding and Dansk Affaldsminimering. It will use an AI-controlled sorting machine which will contain three different kinds of cameras that together can photograph the properties of the plastic material directly in a conveyor belt system - a CMOS camera, a hyperspectral camera and a terahertz camera. According to Assistant Professor Pernille Klarskov Pedersen an expert in terahertz technology at the Department of Engineering Aarhus University “Terahertz provides a detailed picture of the specific properties of a given plastic material. By using terahertz technology we can characterize material properties with much higher precision than otherwise”.

 

MUNDUS NORDIC GREEN NEWS IS TAKING A SHORT PAUSE FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK

 

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