The Queen’s Mill in Castleford, West Yorkshire was once the world’s largest  stone grinding flour mill, turning twenty pairs of mill stones . The present water wheel was built in 1884 and is a 20 foot diameter piece of iron and timber Victorian engineering, large for its type and with high efficiency features. It was so efficient in fact that it remained operating until the early 1970s.”

The water wheel is now being preserved from decay, documented and restored to heritage standards. At Queen’s Mill open days this year (2nd May, and 11th July), Blushful Earth will be presenting about the science, engineering and efficiency features of the wheel, its history and how this relates to the history of Castleford, and the restoration project.

Presentation 1, from May: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMsVSHkx-Ns [1]

“Small-scale Biomass Gasification for Sustainable and Local Energy Production” on Monday 2nd March 2015, at Cafe Scientifique et Culturel (Sheffield). Event to be held at the Showroom Cinema; starting at 7 pm. See February’s event at Nottingham for details of this presentation.

Andrew Rollinson be presenting on “Small-scale Biomass Gasification for Sustainable and Local Energy Production” on Monday 2nd February 2015, at Cafe Scientifique et Culturel (Nottingham). Event to be held at the Lord Roberts Public House, 24 Broad Street, Nottingham, NG1 3AN; starting at 8 pm.

Small-scale gasification can provide off-grid electricity and heating from biomass. It is a more simple technology than a boiler, and it can be fed with garden prunings or woodchips that would otherwise go to landfill, or be left to rot where cut. The technology flourished 100 years ago before oil became cheap, and it is now being re-discovered commercially. People can build your own, it provides energy on demand in contrast to wind and solar, and at the local scale it is attractive for community renewable enterprises.

The talk will explain the science behind gasification, and its history from ancient charcoal production through to its widespread use in powering cars during the Second World War. It will discuss the relevance of biomass gasification on a local scale (system availability, maintenance, operation, legality, incentives, biomass resource), and on a national/global scale in comparison to other renewable technologies, mentioning also the potential (or not!) that it has as a means of waste to energy thermal treatment.