Teru Talk - 2011 Newsletter V-I-23

California has always prided itself on being the gold standard for environmental quality control, many would say to our own economic detriment. The California Environmental Quality Act , CEQA, has been a gauntlet that all "projects" have had to clear in order to reach Permitted Ground since its passage in the early '70s, essentially all the working lives for most of my colleagues. I've always been proud to live and work in California; that doesn't mean getting things done here has been easy, or that the conditions and controls placed upon that work have always made sense. All these years, I've also prided myself that in some way, the work I've done has been to the betterment of the California environment. For goodness sake, I always figured that I was a life-long member of that esteemed "environmental community"… now, here I am, espousing "industrial advocacy".

Curious thing about finger-pointing: you usually end up pointing back at yourself. With a tip o' th' hat to Walt Kelly, I'd offer Poco's observation that "We have met the Enemy, and He is Us…" OK, we've all chewed that bone long enough. The real question is, what are we gonna do about the corner we've painted ourselves into? So little that is really new gets through that gauntlet now that we find we must continue to rely on the Old Ways, despite knowing that there's gotta be a better way to do so many of the things we do, literally every day.

Me? I'm all about reversing the process and accomplishing Waste-to-Resource, but you probably hadn't noticed. I'm after the Tools we need to use now, to extract our environment and our economy out of the mess we have created. I like the EPA's buzz-words "Incremental Mitigation": take out an old dirty one, and replace it with a new clean one. We've managed to at least slow down the rampant excesses marking us a Throw-Away Society; nothing like a good old recession to make us think twice about buying so much one-time-use stuff. We've learned, pretty much, to separate the bottles, cans, newspaper, and yard trimmings. But when we've picked the conveyor belt clean, we're still not done.

We still need to replace Disposal with Recovery. That's what Teru Talk is about.

Do you know who your state and federal legislative representatives are, even for the area where you personally live and work? Have you ever contacted any one of them? Assuming you at least vote, are you happy with the way our Elected Officials have behaved? Unless you let them know it when you are happy, they have to feel like they are winkin' in the dark.

And more importantly, unless you let them know when you aren't so very happy, now, whose fault is it, when they misbehave?

Grundon Proposes Plasma for Scottish Waste Conversion to Energy Facility Grundon Waste Management has revised their previously proposed incineration system for Advanced Plasma Power (APP) technology in a facility under planning and permitting consideration for Shore Road, Perth, Scotland. 07/30/2011

South Carolina Research Authority (SCRA) will fund a study by BMW Manufacturing to determine the feasibility of converting landfill gas to hydrogen (H2) for fuel cells of around 100 vehicles at its 1.2 million

Codexis and Chemtex, a subsidiary of Italy's Gruppo Mossi & Ghisolfi ("M&G Group"), will collaborate on development and production of sustainable, bio-sourced detergent alcohols for household products, including second generation development from cellulosic biomass. 07/30/2011

Earlier this month, the European Commission (EC) formally recognized seven schemes for proving biofuels sustainability and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions control compliance, including the International Sustainability & Carbon Certification organization (ISCC). 07/29/2011

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has awarded a grant of $750,000 to advance use of the blue-green algae cyanobacteria for production of energy-dense biofuels from waste-water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight to a collaboration of South Dakota State University (SDSU), South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, and Oglala Lakota College. 07/29/2011

Oregon based InEnTec released news that they have converted their company structure from a limited liability corporation (LLC) to a full corporation registered in Delaware. InEnTec has also just filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission providing notice of substantial fund raising through offers of securities. 07/29/2011

Gevo to Build Texas Demo Plant for Isobutanol to Renewable Hydrocarbons Colorado based Gevo has announced that they will work with South Hampton Resources Inc., a subsidiary of Arabian American Development Co., to build a 10,000 gallon-per-month demonstration plant outside of the Houston area in Silsbe, Texas. 07/28/2011

USDA Announces New BCAP Project Areas for Biomass Conversion to Biofuels Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack announced new project areas in six states to expand the availability of non-food crops to be used in the manufacturing of liquid biofuels. The four project areas set aside acres in California, Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington for the production of renewable energy crops. 07/28/2011

Joule Receives New Patents for Production of Ethanol through Photosynthesis Massachusetts based Joule Unlimited, Inc announced that they have been issued two new patents, U.S. Patent #7,981,647 and U.S. Patent #7,968,321 for in-cell engineered enzymatic methods of increasing ethanol production capability of photosynthetic micro-organisms. 07/28/2011

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a third Programmatic Policy Based Loan (PBL) to Peru to strengthen the country's sustainable energy matrix. 07/27/2011

SDSU Receives USDA Grant for Biomass to Bio-Oil Production System The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded a five-year bio-oil development grant to South Dakota State University (SDSU) researchers to design a biomass-to-bio-oil production system. 07/27/2011

GreenShift Awarded Patent for Corn Oil Extraction Method for Ethanol After pulling their original patent application and requesting additional US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) assessment due to numerous challenges, GreenShift has now received notice of allowance for their patent application number 11/241,231: “Method of Processing Ethanol Byproducts and Related Subsystems” (the '231 patent application). 07/27/2011

Synthos and Global Bioenergies Partner for Bio-Butadiene Development Polish rubber manufacturer Synthos S.A. and French industrial biology firm Global Bioenergies have signed an agreement for research, development and commercialization of renewable sourced butadiene, which is currently produced only from petroleum and is a building block for synthetic rubber production and many types of plastics. 07/26/2011

University of Illinois Study Says Regulation Must Keep Pace with Technology A recent paper entitled, "Making Regulatory Innovation Keep Pace with Technologic Innovation" has been published by researchers from the University of Illinois (U of I) Energy Biosciences Institute and the U of I College of Law. 07/26/2011

In Orion, Bataan, the Philippines, the investment and development firm Concord Pacific Investment Holdings Limited, Inc. (CPIHLI) has broken ground on its $500 million waste gasification power plant. 07/26/2011

Due 08/24/2011: Nominations to Texas MSW/Resource Recovery Advisory Council The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is requesting nominations to six available seats on the Municipal Solid Waste and Resource Recovery Advisory Council; members are appointed for six-year staggered terms by the TCEQ Commissioners. 07/25/2011

Teru Talk Newsletter