We need to understand energy and environment better than before

Finland is an energy intensive and very northern country. There are months and times when I’d like to live in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy or Greece. South America might be a great alternative.

But, we should be speaking about energy. Finland wants more nuclear power plants. What should I say? Should I take a position “for” or “against”?

I don’t oppose nuclear power plants. I’m a pragmatic person, even though I understand the problems of nuclear waste handling. Not all the aspects of it, but it’s a problem we leave unresolved for our children.

Bioenergy is less complex. It’s a perfect distributed energy solution, but we’re not living in the villages – not even in Finland. The urban lifestyle adapts very well to large scale, centralized nuclear energy. Should we move back to the village? Many problems could be handled in a small is beautiful environment with less centralized decision making.

We’re not ready for such a change. Digital Villages might be the best thing for global development, but the concept has to be promoted much better than before.

Cogeneration through network organization

A very interesting project has been developed in the field of cogeneration in Belgium. I learned about this while visiting the ChemBio exhibition Finland 09 that took place in Helsinki, and was focusing on:

• Networking
• Innovation
• Business

Let's move back to Belgium. The Kaserbacke industrial estate is located within the commune of Amel. When its expansion became necessary in 2004, the decision was taken to develop a cogeneration system.

The project emerged as the solution to the technical problems arising from the site's development: on the one hand the industrial estate was not connected to natural gas network. On the other hand, it was at the end of the power line.

The cogeneration project was the solution that made it possible to overcome these power supply problems.

Companies involved:

1. timber sorting center
2. sawmill
3. production of wood shavings and pellets
4. project management

The products used in the cogeneration process are supplied by the three production companies. The biomass consists of barks and timber related products that were not previously recovered (log stocks, rotten wood). In return, they pay attractive prices for the heat generated.

Cooperation for cogeneration

1. This is a cooperation between companies within the same industrial estate
2. In the field of energy, this seems to rare enough to be worthy of comment
3. The project is hinged on the recovery of materials previously considered as waste

Financial benefits

From the financial point of view, the heating costs of the partner companies are cut threefold. Cogeneration makes it possible to replace over 10 million liters of heating fuel a year for the production of the useful heat alone.

The project started January 2006

Work of this project started in January 2006 and the installation is up and running since November 2007. On the strength of this success 4Energy Invest has built an extension that makes it possible to practically double the site's capacity an that was brought into commercial operation May 2008.

More Nuclear Power Plants to Finland

Environmental Inspector, Respolar Oy, Eurajoki, is looking for more people and professionals for the operations at the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant.

AREVA NP and Siemens AG are building a new nuclear power plant for TVO (Teollisuuden Voima Oy) in Olkiluoto, already two nuclear units are in operation. AREVA NP, an AREVA and Siemens company, is supplying the nuclear island, comprising the reactor and associated systems, while Siemens is responsible for the conventional island (turbine and generator).

We've two nuclear power plants in Loviisa and there Fennovoima is planning a new one in Ruotsinpyhtää. The location is only one of the three alternatives. Here are the potential Fennovoima locations on the planning board:

1. Ruotsinpyhtää (Souteastern Finland)
   
2. Kristiinankaupunki (Westcoast Finland)
   
3. Simo (Northern Finland)
   

Respolar Oy has already provided more than 100 professionals with Olkiluoto and is one of their leading recruiters for this project.

• The Fennovoima project is visioning a nuclear power plant of 1 500 – 2 500 MW
  
  
• The new plant should be operational 2016–2018
  
  
• It takes a long time to plan and to get the political acceptance
  

What kind of jobs and responsibilities are available at Nuclear Power Plant site? There is a lot of inspection and documentation. Every single move has to bee tracked.

Respolar Oy is looking for an:

ENVIRONMENTAL INSPECTOR

Qualifications:

A comprehensive knowledge of Contract requirements, International and Finish Codes & Norms ask by the OL3 Project contract is requested.

For his/her function a correct knowledge of office applications (Acrobat, Word, Excel, Power Point and Outlook) is requested.

A good level of English is indispensable in writing (documentation in English) and orally (different nationalities on the Site).

Function:

Walk down Environmental inspections at site been the main occupation of the Environmental Inspector the time spend to do it should be 80% of the occupation.

The other 20% of inspector occupation been the Environmental paperwork recording and analysis as describe here after.


Daily tasks:

• Environmental inspections
  
  - Performing Environmental Inspections on Site areas & Site sub-contractor’s areas using Environmental inspection guides.
  
  - Reviewing and approving the Sub-contractor Environmental Risk assessments on request of the team leader.
  
  - Ascertaining the existence of the correct the material safety data sheets.
  
  
• Communication on environmental issues
  
  - Providing data for the preparation of the letters about Environmental Issues to Site subcontractors.
  
  - Analysing answers about Environmental Issues received from Site sub-contractors.
  
  
• Environmental requirements analysis
  
  - Recording and handling situations adverse to Environmental Procedures.
  

Weekly (fortnightly) tasks:

• Environmental inspections
  
  - Providing data for Weekly Environmental Inspection Reports.
  
  - Participating to periodical internal inspectors' meetings.
  
  
• Communication on environmental issues
  
  - On delegation participating to in Weekly Meeting with the subcontractors.

Monthly tasks:

• Environmental training
  
  - Performing Environmental Inductions to all Site Management Staff.
  
  - Performing additional Environmental Trainings if needed to Site Management Staff.
  
  
• Communication on environmental issues.
  
  - Preparing all the necessary information in his/her area of environmental inspection in order to prepare the monthly report, including some indicators.
  
  
• Environmental requirements analysis
  
  - Issuing Environmental incidents trend analysis, corrective and preventive actions and proposing improvement actions when necessary.

Quarterly tasks:

• Interface with PLANTS Environmental Management System and associated reporting
  
  - Collecting inputs data for environmental STAR indicators.

Looks like very systematic...

Bioenergy for Small Communities

2006.10.13 07.47 | Bioenergy Plants for sawmills and district heating. I'm moving over material from other blogs. Information has been scattered around the blogosphere. I try to concentrate my stuff to this biotech and engineering site.

2006.10.02 12.10 | Bioenergy and Water | I'll use this blog to write about bioenergy, water, environmental and forestry industry issues.

This is from an old posting 13.10.2007 - nearly a year ago - where I started to research some of our global bioenergy connections. One year later, things are now moving ahead on a new level. I'm happy to have much more readers to this blog.

As the world makes moves towards biofuels (= biomass fuels in this context), the source of the biological material is going to become important. The European Commission has published a green paper called "A European Strategy for Secure, Competitive and Sustainable Energy for Europe", which, in the view of the European Renewable Energy Industry is a missed opportunity for showing the way forward in Europe's energy policy and strategy.

• PRODUCT | Biomass fueled CHP is a proven concept; the 10 – 20 MW plant sizes for France / Europe are however new concepts and the plan to implementation is facing some barriers and uncertainties compared to Scandinavian countries where wood based bioenergy units have a long history.
  
  
• PRICE | The initial CHP investment is higher but ROI over lifetime should support the decision. The acceptance of a higher initial investment price demands strategic decision making and local political wisdom has to be a part of the decision making process.
  
  
• PROMOTION | Biomass fueled CHPs 10 – 20 MW as valuable community / district level investments are not well known outside the Scandinavian markets. Much more grassroots and selective local promotion is needed to advance the Public-Private-Community-District partnership.
  
  
• PLACE | Location, location, location is everything. A CHP (cogeneration heat and power) should be installed in a location where the Public-Private-Community-District initiative has the logistical, operational and supply chain actors participating. To succeed, a multidisciplinary local action group has to be arranged by someone who wants to lead the operation from start to finish. Such a team was in place when the Autun, France, BioGrate 10 MW project proceeded from idea to completion.
  
  
• POLITICS | The City / Community level decision makers have to be a natural part of the planning process and a project team. A CHP plant want be a strictly Business-to-Business sales and implementation project. A successful project requires long term cooperation of several parties. If the networking infrastructure isn’t in place, there will not be a successful project.