• Energy Research

The importance of emission control has increased sharply due to increased need of energy from combustion. However, biomass utilization in energy production is not free from problems because of physical and chemical characteristics which are substantially different from conventional energy sources. In this situation, the quantity and quality of emissions as well as used renewable source as wood or corn grain are often unknown. To assess this problem the paper addresses the objectives to quantify the amount of greenhouse gases during the combustion of corn as compared to the emissions in fossil combustion (natural gas, LPG and diesel boiler). The test was carried out in Friuli Venezia Giulia in 2006-2008 to determine the air pollution (CO, NO, NO2, NOx, SO2 and CO2) from fuel combustion in the family boilers with power between 20-30 kWt. The flue gas emission was measured with a professional semi-continuous multi-gas analyzer, (Vario plus industrial, MRU air Neckarsulm-Obereisesheim). Data showed a lower emission of fossil fuel compared to corn in family boilers in reference to pollutants in the flue gas (NOx, SO2 and CO). In particular way the biomass combustion make a higher concentration of carbon monoxide (for a incomplete combustion because there aren’t a good mixing between fuel and air) and nitrogen oxides (in relation at higher content of nitrogen in herbaceous biomass in comparison of another fuel). Proceedings of the 19th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 6-10 June 2011, Berlin, Germany, pp. 1296-1304

The importance of emission control has increased sharply due to the increased need of energy from combustion. However, biomass utilization in energy production is not free from problems because of physical and chemical characteristics which are substantially different from conventional energy sources. In this situation, the quantity and quality of emissions as well as used renewable sources as wood or corn grain are often unknown. To assess this problem the paper addresses the objectives to quantify the amount of greenhouse gases during the combustion of corn as compared to the emissions in fossil combustion (natural gas, LPG and diesel boiler). The test was carried out in Friuli Venezia Giulia in 2006-2008 to determine the air pollution (CO, NO, NO2, NOx, SO2 and CO2) from fuel combustion in family boilers with a power between 20-30 kWt. The flue gas emission was measured with a professional semi-continuous multi-gas analyzer, (Vario plus industrial, MRU air Neckarsulm-Obereisesheim). Data showed a lower emission of fossil fuel compared to corn in family boilers in reference to pollutants in the flue gas (NOx, SO2 and CO). In a particular way the biomass combustion makes a higher concentration of carbon monoxide (for an incomplete combustion because there is not a good mixing between fuel and air) and nitrogen oxides (in relation at a higher content of nitrogen in herbaceous biomass in comparison to another fuel).

The effect of different management techniques for plant control in the vineyard were compared in the present work, focusing on plant diversity preservation and management efficacy in a two-year experiment on vineyard row weed community. Biomass-fueled flame weeding (with two intensities) was applied as an innovative plant control technique in contrast to tillage and mowing practices. The results showed that flaming was comparable to tillage regarding weed control effectiveness, and was more efficient than mowing. However, species number and functional evenness were not substantially modified by changing the applied management technique. Functional trait analysis demonstrated that row management significantly affected the frequency of annual plants, plant height, root depth index, and the occurrence of plants with storage organs. As for species composition, meaningful differences were found: only the two flaming treatments (i.e. gentle vs intense) and the gentle flaming vs mowing had consistent species composition. Flame wedding showed some potential benefits in plant control in the vineyard by favouring small plant and controlling overall weed abundance. On the other hand, flaming favoured plant species with asexual reproduction, with a potential negative impact on weed-vine competition and species persistence in the vineyard. Further studies are required to investigate such contrasting aspects, also considering other weed control techniques (e.g. cover-crops), considering a sustainable perspective of an herbicide-free environment.

In recent years, the entire agricultural and agri-food sector, and in particular the wine sector, has been comparing and adapting to the issue of environmental sustainability, both within the vineyard and within the winery. In this context, various projects and methodologies have been developed to measure the environmental sustainability of the wine sector as a whole (VIVA project). To enter into this perspective, however, the wineries must equip themselves with very complex parameter measurement systems as well as data processing and currently only few of them are able to do so, as most wineries do not have the equipment both at the instrumentation and software level and also do not possess the required expertise. In order to verify the measurement and size of some cellar parameters related to sustainability, a survey was carried out in the area of Friuli Venezia Giulia and Eastern Veneto.The results showed that electricity consumption in Wh/l of produced wine varies considerably depending on the average temperature during the harvesting period and, in the specific case of a small-medium sized Friulian winery (about 2,000 hl/year of wine), the performance indicator shows consumption of around 250-350 Wh/l. As for the consumption of water in the cellar, blue water consumption from the aqueduct in general is around a value of 4 liters of water per liter of produced wine. In the three wineries that take part in the VIVA project, the value is 2.5 liters of water/liter of wine (medium-large wineries). From the analysis it can be observed that water and electricity consumption are high but very variable depending on the climate, place, type of wine, type of cellar.

DA