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Showing posts from November 16, 2014

UK unveils first waste-fueled bus

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The UK's first ever bus powered on human and food waste has taken to the road today which engineers believe could provide a sustainable way of fueling public transport - cutting emissions in polluted towns and cities.  The 40-seater Bio-Bus, which runs on gas generated through the treatment of sewage and food waste that's unfit for human consumption, helps to improve urban air quality as it produces fewer emissions than traditional diesel engines. Running on waste products that are both renewable and sustainable, the bus can travel up to 300km on a full tank of gas generated at Bristol sewage treatment works – a plant run by GENeco, a subsidiary of Wessex Water. This week GENeco became the first company in the UK to start injecting gas generated from food waste and sewage into the national gas grid network and at the same time installed a gas refueling plant for the bus. GENeco general manager Mohammed Saddiq said: “Through treating sewage and food that unfit for hu...

Researchers use social media to track air pollution

According to the University of Wisconsin-Madison computer science researchers, a method for using social media posts to estimate air pollution levels with significant accuracy has been developed. Graduate students Shike Mei, Han Li and Jing Fan analyzed Sina Weibo — a Twitter-like site that is China's most popular social media outlet — to uncover real-time information about air pollution levels in Chinese cities. Though the approach cannot forecast future air quality, it can provide accurate, real-time information on the Air Quality Index (AQI). For 30 days, the team monitored Weibo posts from 108 cities to see how often people complained about the air. The group analyzed the text of the posts, as well as a time- and-space correlation among cities and days, since pollution flare-ups typically cover large amounts of territory and can last for days. Between 350,000 and 500,000 Chinese citizens die prematurely each year because of air pollution, according to ...