Industry
News
Total cost of the project, including
construction of the pipeline and the processing plant, was $49 million. Through
2012, UNH will sell renewable energy certificates (RECs) generated by using landfill
gas to help finance the overall project cost
and to invest in additional campus energy
efficiency projects. Selling RECs will help
UNH further fund its climate action plan,
which aims to lower campus greenhouse
emissions 50 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2080.
Universities, Industry Form
Midwest Energy Research
Center
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
(UWM), Marquette University and the
Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE),
in collaboration with the U.S. Department
of Energy’s National Energy Technology Lab
(NETL) and several regional companies and
foundations, announced in August the
formation of the Southeastern Wisconsin
Energy Research Technology Center
(SWETRC).
The formation of SWETRC is historic
on multiple fronts. It not only marks the
first time that the colleges of engineering
at the UWM, Marquette and MSOE are
collaborating on a major initiative, but it is
also the first time that NETL is sponsoring a
major university-based research initiative in
the Midwest. With primary facilities in
Pittsburgh, Pa., and Morgantown, W.Va.,
NETL supports DOE’s mission of advancing
the national, economic and energy security
of the U.S. through implementing a broad
spectrum of energy and environmental
research and development programs.
The mission of SWETRC is to develop
an internationally recognized energy research
center within southeastern Wisconsin. The
center’s goals are to create an infrastructure
and enterprise capable of competing at a
national level for large-scale energy research
funds, to perform cutting-edge research
projects that will lead to breakthroughs in
the energy field and to develop state-of-the-art technology that will lead to new products
and processes that foster economic growth
of regional companies.
Led by a contract from NETL, nearly
$700,000 has been raised for seed research
projects that will be used to launch SWETRC.
In addition to NETL, several regional industries and foundations are providing funding
for the center.
SWETRC researchers will collaborate
on research projects in the areas of carbon
recycling and sequestration via algae growth
with coal-fueled power plant flue gas, ultra-efficient nanomaterials for cogeneration,
wind power, new materials for rechargeable
batteries, sustainable building retrofitting,
integration of renewable energy and cutting
nitrogen oxide emissions.
Detroit Thermal, Incinerator
in Contract Talks
The Detroit Free Press reported Sept. 5
that Detroit Thermal had stopped buying
steam from the Greater Detroit Resource
Recovery Authority, the city’s trash-to-energy
incinerator, after the company’s contract
with the incinerator expired June 30. Detroit
Thermal has since been making all the steam
it needs using natural gas.
