Duke Energy to buy power from swine, poultry waste.

A new facility that captures methane gas to generate renewable electricity will be built in North Carolina Duke Energy, a sustainable electric and gas company that serves 7.3 million customers in the midwestern and southeastern United States, plans to purchase swine and poultry waste output from a facility planned for North Carolina – using the captured methane gas to generate renewable electricity at four power stations. Carbon Cycle Energy will build and own the facility, which is to be located in eastern North Carolina, although the exact location of the facility has not yet been announced. "It is encouraging to see the technological advances that allow waste-to-energy projects in North Carolina to be done in an environmentally responsible and cost-effective manner for our customers," said David Fountain, Duke Energy president -North Carolina. Under North Carolina's Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (REPS), Duke Energy companies must meet specific compliance targets for swine and poultry waste. Duke Energy is already buying electricity generated from other facilities in the state. "We are pleased to partner with Carbon Cycle Energy to help meet our compliance objectives," added Fountain. "The gas from this project will generate carbon neutral electricity compared to the emissions that would result if the waste was left to decay naturally." Expanding the utility's renewable energy output, the captured methane will be treated, injected into the pipeline system and used at four Duke Energy plants in North Carolina. Under a 15-year term, Carbon Cycle Energy is expected to produce more than 1 million MMBtus of pipeline-quality captured methane a year. Duke Energy should yield about 125,000 megawatt-hours of renewable energy a year – enough to power about 10,000 homes for a year. The renewable energy credits (RECs) generated annually by the effort will help satisfy state mandates. contributed by wattagnet.

Poultry, pig manure used to produce energy in Chile.

Researchers at University of Concepción use waste to produce biochar and thermal energy Researchers at the University of Concepción are using the solid waste from poultry and pigs in the region of Bío Bío in central Chile to produce biochar and thermal energy. Professor Cristina Muñoz and Cristina Segura are exploring the technical and economic issues of using strong heat – pyrolysis – to recovering the energy locked up in organic waste from poultry and pig farms to produce biochar and energy. The process appears to be a green option for the treatment of materials that would otherwise have the potential to add to greenhouse gas emissions or groundwater pollution. Segura explained that large quantities of organic waste – slurry, manure, bedding materials, feathers and spilt feed – are produced by the region’s poultry and pig farms. The pyrolytic process results in a carbon material known as biochar and thermal energy in a safe, environmentally friendly and cost-effective way, say the researchers. Due to be completed in October this year, the project is funded by the Regional Government of Bío Bío. Muñoz explained that the first aim of the project has been achieved, namely to obtain a homogeneous and marketable material. Now, the biochar is being evaluated by the University as a soil improver for a wide range of horticultural applications. contributed by wattagnet.

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Helium discovery a 'game-changer'.

Scientists have discovered a large helium gas field in Tanzania. With world supplies running out, the find is a "game-changer", say geologists at Durham and Oxford universities. Helium is used in hospitals in MRI scanners as well as in spacecraft, telescopes and radiation monitors. The precious gas has been discovered only in small quantities during oil and gas drilling.Using a new exploration approach, researchers found large quantities of helium within the Tanzanian East African Rift Valley. They say resources in just one part of the Rift valley are enough to fill more than a million medical MRI scanners. Prof Chris Ballentine, of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, said: "This is a game-changer for the future security of society's helium needs and similar finds in the future may not be far away."Dr Pete Barry added: 'We can apply this same strategy to other parts of the world with a similar geological history to find new helium resources. Helium is formed by the slow and steady radioactive decay of terrestrial rock. However, global supplies are running low, with warnings that supplies cannot be guaranteed in the long term. Prof Jon Gluyas, of the Department of Earth Sciences at Durham University, who collaborated on the project, said the price of helium had gone up 500% in the last 15 years. "Helium is the second most abundant element in the Universe but it's exceedingly rare on Earth," Prof Gluyas told BBC News. "Moreover, any helium that you do find if you're not careful, will escape, just like a party balloon it rises and rises in the atmosphere and eventually escapes the Earth's gravity altogether. "It's used in a whole array of key instrumentation, particularly medical MRI scanning and so on, and so we have to keep finding more." The researchers say volcanic activity in the Rift Valley releases helium buried in ancient rocks, which rises up and becomes trapped in shallower gas fields.The amount of helium is estimated at more than 54 billion cubic feet - which could potentially meet global demand for several years. The next step is to find the best place to drill to exploit the gas and bring it to the surface. Helium is used for 1)It is used in the space industry to keep satellite instruments cool, to clean out rocket engines and was used to cool the liquid oxygen and hydrogen that powered the Apollo space vehicles 2) Helium is used as a cooling medium for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the superconducting magnets in medical MRI scanners 3)Helium is used to fill party balloons, weather balloons and airships because of its low density 4) A mixture of 80% helium and 20% oxygen is used by deep-sea divers and others working under pressurized conditions. 5) Helium-neon gas lasers are used to scan barcodes at supermarket checkouts. contributed by BBC NEWS.

3D Printing Pen that Uses Soap Suds Instead of Plastic.

This amazing new 3D printing foam pen that swaps melted plastic for soap bubbles. It seems like the type of thing that you would buy, use once and then think to yourself ‘why on Earth did I buy a pen that 3D prints with soap?’. But I’ll be honest, I’m still really tempted to pick one of these things up. If only because it looks easier to use than a regular 3D printing pen, and I’m a sucker for any gizmo that makes me feel smart when I figure out how to use it quickly. The Awamoko 3D Foam Pen, from Japanese toy manufacturer Shine, is clearly made for children, but considering foam is such a forgiving sculpting medium, it’s kind of perfect for the artistically impaired. The pen uses the same foaming hand soap that you find in public restrooms, so any mess that you make is going to be halfway cleaned up while you’re making it. There is no heating element like with standard 3D printing pens, so it is perfectly safe for anyone to use, even small children. And users don’t have to do anything to make the pen extrude foam, just press the button and the foam starts squirting out at a slow enough pace for you to start building up layers for a large soapy object. The foam pen comes with a ton of accessories so you can actually do some pretty serious foam sculpting. There are two different sized printing nozzles and three stamp extruders that produce three-dimensional foam shapes like a smiley face or a flower. The pen also comes with a sculpting spatula, so if you make any 3D printed soap bubble errors they can easily be fixed. The foam sculptures are meant to be printed on some flat, sponge material that comes with the pen, presumably because it won’t absorb the water or soap as quickly. And if all that you can manage to do with the foam pen is print big, gloopy mounds of soap, don’t worry — you can decorate them with cute faces, ears and various cutesy accessories so they will start to resemble cute animals. It seems that the pen will also include 3D animal shape forms that can be used as a cheat when sculpting animals. Just print the foam around the form, and then add the eyes, ears and tails. Contributed by 3DPRINT.COM

A DAY IN THE ABATTOIR.

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Separating Conjoined Twins with the Aid of 3D Printing.

Surviving birth is already an achievement for them, but separating conjoined twins is only possible if they are not sharing vital organs. This was the situation twin girls Knatalye Hope and Adeline Faith were facing. Until they were 10 months old, they were conjoined at the chest and abdomen, which included their chest wall, lungs, pericardial sac, diaphragm, liver, intestines, colon and pelvis. Surgeons at the Texas Children’s Hospital started planning the highly-complex separation surgery nearly a year in advance. To visualize the intertwined organs, they used Materialise’s Mimics software to design a 3D-printed model based on high-quality CT scans which were designed to generate optimal contrast within the shared organs and the vasculature. Following computerized segmentation of the anatomy, the color-coded output was subsequently exported for 3D Printing and showed in great detail the babies’ heart, lungs, stomachs and kidneys, and where exactly they were connected. “Having a 3D-printed model gives you an insight into what you’re going to encounter,” Dr. Rajesh Krishnamurthy, chief of radiology research and cardiac imaging at Texas Children’s Hospital, said in a video released by the hospital. “This type of surgical planning becomes very important when you decide to assign an organ to one twin or the other.” The key collaborators in this project were Mr. Nicholas Dodd, an advanced visualization expert at Texas Children’s Hospital, and Dr. Jayanthi Parthasarathy of MedCAD in Dallas, who supervised the 3D Printing process. In addition, the surgeons implanted tissue expanders into their torsos, stretching the skin ahead of the separation. The final surgery, which took nearly 30 hours and involved more than 26 clinicians of 13 different specialties, managed to successfully separate the two babies. Contributed by materialise