Conference Report: Biomass for a clean-energy future
Bioenergy Australia [101], an alliance of 86 government and private sector organizations with an interest in the development of sustainable energy and products from biomass, held its 11th annual conference in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, in December 2010. Several speakers reminded delegates that bioenergy is complex, not well understood and therefore tends to be considered as the ‘poor renewable energy cousin’ to hydro, wind, solar and geothermal energy. This perception remains a problem for the industry, even though bioenergy provides nearly 4% of Australia’s total primary energy supply [1] (approximately 71% of renewable energy in Australia [2]). Bioenergy is a difficult concept and story to grasp for policy makers and the general public since it encompasses a mystifyingly wide range of feedstocks (from municipal wastes to purpose-grown energy crops) that can each be converted via numerous routes into either heat, electricity, liquid or gaseous fuels for the purpose of transport, biochemicals or biomaterials. Therefore, what the ‘best use’ is for the available biomass can be difficult to determine. Those attending the wide variety of presentations would have come away with a good understanding of what biomass has to offer as a clean-energy source, both now and in the future. Unfortunately, only a few delegates represented the farming, local-municipal authority and financial sectors. These are three key sectors that need to fully understand the complexities of bioenergy if the industry is to progress at the rate of deployment needed to significantly contribute to energy demand and meet its full potential. This annual event, successfully coordinated since 1999 by Steve Schuck, Manager of Bioenergy Australia, highlights the role of biomass from a national and international perspective. Good progress has been made over the past decade, although at times, as some of the papers from 2010 showed, it seems like three steps forward and two steps back (or at least sideways). The issue now is, how to move forward in giant strides. There were 330 delegates at the conference, mainly from industry, research and government organizations. Over 110 presentations covered policies and programs, biomass feedstocks and supply-chain aspects, bioenergy projects and case studies. Topics included: biomass heat and power; pyrolysis; gasification; algae for biofuels; carbon sequestration via biochar; anaerobic digestion of livestock wastes; energy from municipal solid waste and overarching aspects including sustainability and GHG emissions and their mitigation. A total of 100 conference delegates participated in a technical tour, which was an informative adjunct to the c onference. Facilities visited included:
Sustainable biomass supply chain for the Mallee woody crop industry
This Rural Industries R&D Corporation report provides a pre-feasibility assessment of the mallee woody crop supply chain based on a comparative assessment with the sugar supply chain. The report will assist in developing a sustainable supply chain for the mallee industry. 
The report is targeted at the stakeholders of the mallee woody crop industry. Stakeholders include seedling nurseries and contract tree planters, farmers, harvesting contractors, road transport operators, biomass processors and conversion industries, consumers of the products from conversion industries, CRC, university and public sector industry development workers and private sector industry development individuals and corporations other than farmers.
A device for uranium series leaching from glass fiber in HEPA filter
For the disposal of a high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) glass filter into the environment, the glass fiber should be leached to lower its radioactive concentration to the clearance level. To derive an optimum method for the removal of uranium series from a HEPA glass fiber, five methods were applied in this study. That is, chemical leaching by a 4.0 M HNO3–0.1 M Ce(IV) solution, chemical leaching by a 5 wt% NaOH solution, chemical leaching by a 0.5 M H2O2–1.0 M Na2CO3 solution, chemical consecutive chemical leaching by a 4.0 M HNO3 solution, and repeated chemical leaching by a 4.0 M HNO3 solution were used to remove the uranium series. The residual radioactivity concentrations of 238U, 235U, 226Ra, and 234Th in glass after leaching for 5 h by the 4.0 M HNO3–0.1 M Ce(IV) solution were 2.1, 0.3, 1.1, and 1.2 Bq/g. The residual radioactivity concentrations of 238U, 235U, 226Ra, and 234Th in glass after leaching for 36 h by 4.0 M HNO3–0.1 M Ce(IV) solution were 76.9, 3.4, 63.7, and 71.9 Bq/g. The residual radioactivity concentrations of 238U, 235U, 226Ra, and 234Th in glass after leaching for 8 h by a 0.5 M H2O2–1.0 M Na2CO3 solution were 8.9, 0.0, 1.91, and 6.4 Bq/g. The residual radioactivity concentrations of 238U, 235U, 226Ra, and 234Th in glass after consecutive leaching for 8 h by the 4.0 M HNO3 solution were 2.08, 0.12, 1.55, and 2.0 Bq/g. The residual radioactivity concentrations of 238U, 235U, 226Ra, and 234Th in glass after three repetitions of leaching for 3 h by the 4.0 M HNO3 solution were 0.02, 0.02, 0.29, and 0.26 Bq/g. Meanwhile, the removal efficiencies of 238U, 235U, 226Ra, and 234Th from the waste solution after its precipitation–filtration treatment with NaOH and alum for reuse of the 4.0 M HNO3 waste solution were 100, 100, 93.3, and 100%.