That sand is the rock of the year has probably not noticed very many. Why that is so, about it reports the contribution "Sand - the underestimated raw material" (28 min.) from 11.9.2016 on ZDF. Because experts warn: Our little-known sand hunger could become a global sand crisis in the future.
Because:
Worldwide, 15 billion tons of the granules are consumed annually - and the trend is rising.
Every German uses an average of 2.9 tons of sand per year. About 80 percent of this is used in houses, roads and bridges.
200 tons of sand stuck in a family home
30,000 tons of sand stuck in one kilometer of six-lane highway
Building material recycling of sand or mineral building materials is possible, but in practice it is mainly downcycling. For this reason, the substitution of mineral building materials with renewable building materials is favoured in concepts for ecological buildings. Numerous settlements and quarters show what this can look like in concrete terms: www.holzbau.siedlungen.eu.
In addition to the well-known ecological footprint, which describes the use of biocapacity by the population (in Germany about 2.5 times the available area), an attempt is currently being made with funds from the Ministry of Education and Research to develop an ecological handprint for positive sustainability effects.
This should enable consumers to orient themselves towards sustainable consumption. The Wuppertal CSCP, a spin-off of the Wuppertal Climate Institute, was commissioned. Three universities are involved: Kassel, Witten Herdecke and Lüneburg. On 5.11.2015 the kick-off workshop took place in Berlin. In June 2016 there was a stakeholder workshop and on 22/23.9.2016 the 3rd workshop will take place in Lüneburg.
In addition to construction, the project is about food and consumer goods. Various players from the economy were invited to the specialist conference.
Berlin, 22 October 2018: Vattenfall Energy Solutions, Gewobag and the energy storage start-up Lumenion are jointly piloting a new type of sector-coupled steel storage system at Bottroper Weg in Berlin-Tegel, which absorbs regional generation peaks from wind and solar energy in a grid-serving manner and later provides the renewable energy as heat and electricity in line with demand.
"With this pilot project, we want to demonstrate the particular technical and economic suitability of thermal storage systems for the effective utilisation of large quantities of wind and solar energy in a very practical way," says Alexander Voigt, founder and Managing Director of Lumenion. "Some of our team have been working with renewable energies for over 30 years and with energy storage systems for over ten years. Based on this experience, we made a conscious decision in favour of steel as a storage medium for the second phase of the energy transition, which is just beginning."
The Lumenion steel storage system stores "electricity peaks" for less than 2 cent/KWh in a cost- and space-efficient manner at up to 650° Celsius as heat, which can be converted back into electricity using a turbine unit if required - or used entirely as heat. As a co-founder of Solon, Q-Cells and Younicos, among others, Voigt has been successfully launching solar modules and storage systems on the market since the 1990s.
Hanno Balzer, Managing Director of Vattenfall Energy Solutions GmbH: "Decentralised systems and energy storage are key factors in the energy transition; heat is a particularly cost-effective form of storage. If the stored energy can then be utilised not only as heat but also in the form of electricity, that is a milestone. The high-temperature storage system brings us a big step closer to this!"
Karsten Mitzinger from Gewobag Energie- und Dienstleistungsgesellschaft adds: "The energy transition can only succeed if it is decentralised and based on partnership. As a housing industry, we are making our contribution to climate protection in our neighbourhoods. With this project, we are pleased to be able to demonstrate the good cooperation between energy supply companies, municipal housing associations and innovative start-ups. Only together can we master the major challenges of the energy transition."
In the Tegler pilot project, a 2.4 megawatt hour (MWh) storage block is being trialled for commercial use and transferred to regular operation. To this end, the unit will be integrated with an existing gas-powered CHP unit from Vattenfall Energy Solutions into the neighbourhood electricity and local heating supply of a 1970s apartment building owned by Gewobag. The storage system will temporarily absorb any power peaks that are not required and feed them into the heat supply later on as needed. In a second step, a reconversion into electricity is also planned.
Parallel to the construction of the pilot project, Lumenion is testing a 450 kWh prototype on the campus of the University of Applied Sciences (HTW) in Oberschöneweide. The HTW is supporting Lumenion with practical accompanying research in the development, testing and validation of data, as well as in the regulation and operational management of the innovative storage system.
In further projects, Lumenion storage systems with 40 MWh and even 1,400 MWh are to be created as the next milestones. These giga-storages can integrate existing and newly added large quantities of renewable electricity generation from wind and solar power into the existing grids in a particularly favourable, efficient and demand-oriented manner, thus enabling a significant acceleration of the energy transition.
Difu study provides recommendations for more effective use of funding in NRW
Staff shortages and high administrative demands are two of the reasons that prevent cities, districts and municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) from drawing down available urban development funding on time. This is an important finding of a study conducted by the German Institute of Urban Affairs (Difu) on behalf of the then Ministry of Building, Housing, Urban Development and Transport of North Rhine-Westphalia (now: Ministry of Home Affairs, Local Government, Building and Equality).
In the past ten years, about 83 percent of the municipalities in NRW used urban development funds. Due to a very high number of project applications - with a total volume of around 1.45 billion euros - four to five times more funds were applied for than were originally earmarked. This illustrates the high demand of the municipalities and at the same time the fundamental acceptance of the existing funding instruments.
However, more than 80 per cent of the cities and municipalities surveyed criticise the public procurement law, as the resulting administrative burden is a key obstacle for them in making smooth use of urban development funding. In addition, the municipalities surveyed believe that there are generally major staffing bottlenecks. Many municipalities also feel that the cost calculations for funding measures that have to be submitted with the application are too time-consuming and detailed. This is also due to the fact that multi-year forecasts are always subject to uncertainties regarding the actual time allocation by the funding agencies, price developments and possible unforeseeable developments.
Based on the results of its survey of North Rhine-Westphalian municipalities, Difu therefore recommends dispensing with new programmes in favour of merging and/or redesigning the existing federal-state programmes for urban development funding. In addition, the existing procedures should be made more flexible. This applies in particular to the application for and settlement of funding by the municipalities with the state. However, the municipalities must also make their contribution: urban development funding must be a "matter for the boss" and requires sufficient personnel resources and continuous cooperation between all the departments and treasuries involved in the cities and municipalities. However, the municipalities need support from the state to build up sufficient personnel capacities in the technical areas.
They sat unanimously next to each other: the mayor, the Peruvian mountain guide, high-ranking representatives of churches and foundations and activists...
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