Could biogas be the answer?

There is something very appealing about the use of biogas to generate energy. Animal waste is a great source of pollution (not least with methane, which is a terrifyingly potent greenhouse gas) and yet it could be a 'free' source of energy.
The idea is not new.350 homes in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, for instance, receive their electricity thanks to the excretive efforts of chickens.  As so often, once one gets beyond the pilot plant the difficulty is cost. A report by YourIs. Com, the European research media centre, looks at the impact of the EU's Farmagas programme, which finished in 2011.
The purpose of the programme was to disseminate information to farmers, particularly in Eastern Europe, about Biogas. But, the study finds, take-up has been low in Hungary, Romania and Poland despite these largely agricultural countries having considerable potential.
The problems it identifies include high intial costs, the relatively low price of electricity, and the regulatory framework. And its recommendation? Government subsidy. We know this can work. Germany built its PV market in this way, and subsidies here had an enormous impact as well, even if they did skew the market somewhat. Whether in these straitened times those subsidies can happen remains to be seen. But the cause is such a good one - not only generating 'free' energy but also removing a pollutant, that we have to hope it will. Unlike growing crops for biomass, biogas production works in tandem with food production, not against it.

Being clever with heat

Combined heat and power systems are increasingly popular, as is heat recovery. It always seems ironic to me that we are developing these technologies when, through better insulation, Passivhaus etc, we are cutting down on a requirements for heating. And when technologies such as solar thermal can easily heat hot water. Still we do need heat at certain times - the problem is that we don't always need it when it is available.
So it is interesting to see that scientists in Germany have come up with a new way of storing heat, for re-use when it is needed. The storage method, developed by Fraunhofer, is intended in the first instance for use with biogas plants, but since it is is simply a storage method, could presumably be used more widely. The technique, using zeolite spheres, occupies a quarter of the space of heat storage and in water and has the added advantage of not actually storing heat itself. Instead, heat is used to dry out the spheres and, when you want them to emit heat, you allow them to take up water again.
The principle has been known for ages, but the researchers have addressed important practical details. Hooray for science!