Natural and Organic Food

My previous post here at Organic Sanity, looked at solar lighting and how it makes a lot of sense to install solar panels on your roof if you live in a sunny climate. In this article, I’m going off on a tangent away from cutting waste to look at another environmentally friendly method of producing power: biomass.

Biomass is another word for anything that has once lived such as that which has been created from plant matter, or produced by a process of photosynthesis using energy from the sun. In ordinary speak, that means wood, coal, peat or similar that will burn. This doesn’t include oil or its derivatives as we know them, such as diesel or petroleum, plastics etc, although we’ll get onto them in a minute.

A biomass power plant is one that can produce electricity from burning stuff that would otherwise end up in a landfill site, thereby helping to cut down on land pollution while benefiting society by producing some of the power it needs. That power produced in biomass power plants displaces some of the power that would otherwise be produced by oil, or coal fired power plants or nuclear power plants, thus similarly cutting down on that variety of power production.

So what can go into a biomass power plant?

Well, the easy stuff is paper, cardboard, processed woods such as chipboard, medium density fibreboard (MDF) and pretty much anything else that will burn and would otherwise have ended up polluting the land in a landfill site.

Some of the more unpalatable substances that biomass power plants can use which greatly benefit the environment are things like sewerage effluent, animal manure etc which is obviously better burned and the pathogens they carry killed in the process than them ending up in rivers and the oceans.

The gases that are produced by the combustion of these waste products are also collected to be re-used as fuel for further power production, so very little is wasted in a biomass power plant.

So you see, biomass power plants do a great deal of good whilst producing the electricity we need by recycling waste products and making good use of them in the bargain. That’s good for us, good for the environment and good for the future of our planet that we should all be investing in.

Terry Didcott
Natural and Organic Food

Well I’m back again with another instalment here at Organic Sanity. This time I want to look at some simple ways of brightening up your garden at night without drawing any power from the national grid.

Solar garden lighting has come a long way in recent years with a more user friendly profile and a more in your face positioning at the big DIY stores. Add to that the fact that they have come down in price quite a lot as well as improving the amount of light emitted with ever better LED’s and they are now a seriously good choice for providing some nice ambient lighting for patios, paths and other areas that you need some light outside bit don’t want to be a drain on the nation’s power resources.

Different types of solar lighting can be easily sourced from many different big DIY outlets such as B&Q, Homebase etc as well as large supermarkets that carry home and garden supplies and also garden centres.

Solar garden lights work on a simple principle that uses a small solar (photovoltaic) panel which generates electricity when the sun shines on it. This electricity is then fed into small rechargeable batteries housed inside the unit. When the sun goes down, they can be set to automatically switch themselves on (or it can be done manually) and the small, electricity miser LED emits a bright white light powered from the batteries. A full sunny day’s charging will be enough to keep them lit all night long and they will then switch off when the sun’s light hits the photovoltaic panel and teh cycle begins anew.

This is such a great way of cutting waste by not using national grid electricity to light your garden especially when for the most part, no one is even going to be in the garden!

So if you haven’t already got some, go out and buy some!

Terry Didcott
Natural and Organic Food