Teru Talk
Newsletter
Volume I, Issue
3
-
March 14,
2011
Teru Talk
by Michael Theroux
(pronounced
"Terú")
Teru's Trash
Talk
As we developed this week’s
news item for the Japanese
tangerine-goop-to-ethanol
plant, the Real News
came in: massive
earthquakes, monster
tsunami waves of
destruction. Teru Talk
tracks around 30
Conversion Technology
operations in Japan, a
country far ahead in
their recognition of the
value of NOT throwing
precious resources in a
hole in the ground, and
then paying to keep them
there. In fact, the
Tokyo region didn’t even
use a landfill
when we visited in 2007;
literally
everything was
recovered. Now, there
will be vast amounts of
rubble and crud to be
cleaned up, and a
horrendous amount of
human suffering and loss
that can’t simply be
“converted”. Our
thoughts and hopes for
healing go out to the
courageous, beautiful
people of Japan in this
time of terrible
loss.
In the United Kingdom, lots
going on: DECC announces
the world’s first Renewable
Heat Incentive, ADBA’s
proposal for a bio-methane
carbon credit trading
platform, and Viridor gets
the OK to proceed with
their MRF-integrated WtE
development.
In the States, UCLA
professor Liao gets the nod
this week, for his part in
not one, but TWO
break-throughs, with one of
his labs turning protein to
biofuel, another
accomplishing direct
microbial
biomass-to-isobutanol
conversion. Taming the
FrankenBugs…
And in that Way Cool
category: Ohio State’
Agricultural Research &
Development Center has
figured out how to coax
waste glycerin into
becoming bio-polyol, the
stuff that makes renewable
poly-foam.
Hey
Rube!
Let’s get real here for a
moment. Right now, there
are literally hundreds of
thousands of folks
suffering mightily in the
aftermath of one of the
strongest earthquakes ever
experienced. OK, so we
can’t help everyone, yet we
are a Community, and our
work and lives focus a lot
“on matters of waste
conversion for resource
recovery.” Japan has led
the fray, implementing
common sense and
demonstrating ultra-clean
conversion technologic when
much of the US continues to
watch, cringe, waste and …
wait.
I suggest some focused
Community outreach. Go
through your contacts, see
who you know that works and
lives in Japan, who might
be impacted by the
devastation, and let them
know you are, at the very
least, thinking of them.
See if there is something
you can do, some small
thing that might help get
things moving back to some
semblance of order and
business. Use whatever
means you can: tweet
em’, for goodness sake, if
nothing else gets
through.
We will go through our own
contacts, check on the
status of each Conversion
related development, and
follow up with you to make
sure we keep in mind how
real and personal this
tragedy is, half a world
away.
You can make donations
too, but we aren't
collecting them
here.
The Week's
News
Envergent
Selected for Malaysian
Palm-oil Biomass Waste
Conversion
Illinois based Envergent
Technologies, a joint venture
between Honeywell’s UOP and
Ensyn Corp, has announced
selection of their rapid
thermal processing (RTP)
technology for conversion of
biomass wastes from Malaysian
palm oil processing.
03/13/2011
Bhutan
Becomes SNV’s 8th Country
for Rural Biogas
Production
The SNV Netherlands Development
Organisation has announced
“Blue Flames for Bhutan”, their
eighth effort in Asia to
oversee development of rural
biogas installations to convert
manure and biomass into
clean-burning cooking gas, in
order to reduce the negative
health and environmental
impacts of wood cooking fire
usage.
03/13/2011
Japanese
Tangerine Residue
Waste-to-Ethanol Plant
Completed
The Japan for
Sustainability (JFS)
organization has announced that
testing has been completed at a
pilot plant for manufacturing
bioethanol fuel from the
residue from tangerine juice
production.
03/11/2011
Viridor
Signs WtE Partnership
Agreement with Oxfordshire
County
UK
United Kingdom (UK) based
Viridor has announced execution
of a 25 year Public/Private
Partnership (PPP) contract with
Oxfordshire County to treat the
County’s residual waste.
03/11/2011
United
Kingdom Launches World’s
First Renewable Heat
Incentive
The Department of Energy
and Climate Change (DECC)
Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI)
is described as the first
financial incentive of its kind
to support United Kingdom's
(UK) emerging technologies and
businesses with the goal of
revolutionizing the
way heat is generated and
used.
03/11/2011
OARDC
Research Turns Waste
Glycerin to Bio-Polyol for
Poly
Foam
Ohio State
University’s Agricultural
Research and Development Center
(OARDC) has announced an
agreement with Mansfield-based
Poly-Green Technologies to
supply OARDC’s patent-pending
product bio-polyol.
03/10/2011
Raptor Signs
Biodiesel Plant Fabrication
Agreement with Eco
Ventures
Florida-based Raptor
Technologies Group has
announced an agreement for
fabrication of their third
biodiesel facility.
03/10/2011
Plasco Makes
Progress on Two Waste to
Energy
Projects
Canadian company Plasco
Energy Group is engaged in
environmental reviews focused
on their waste conversion
technology in both Ottawa,
Canada and in the Salinas
Valley of California in the
United States.
03/09/2011
KiOR Signs
Renewable Fuel Supply
Agreement with Hunt
Refining
Advanced biofuels developer
KiOR has announced execution of
an off-take agreement with Hunt
Refining Company to supply
renewable gasoline, diesel
blendstocks, and fuel oil
produced at their first
commercial facility being
located in Columbus,
Mississippi.
03/09/2011
Sapphire
Energy Enters Algae Research
Collaboration with
Monsanto
The San Diego-based company
Sapphire Energy has announced
that they have entered a
ten-year research collaboration
agreement with Monsanto to
build upon Sapphire’s
“transgenic” algal engineering
for biofuels production.
03/08/2011
Solazyme
Executive Elected to RSB
Steering
Committee
Solazyme has announced that
Cameron Byers, Senior Vice
President and General Manager
of Fuels and Chemicals, has
been elected to serve on the
Steering Committee of the
international Roundtable on
Sustainable Biofuels (RSB).
03/08/2011
VERBIO
Receives OK from German
Government for 2nd Biogas
Plant
German
company VERBIO AG has received
governmental approval to
proceed with development of a
multi-feedstock biogas plant.
In the second VERBIO
biorefinery of this kind,
“verbiogas” will be refined to
specification and injected into
the regional natural gas supply
infrastructure.
03/08/2011
UCLA and
ORNL Microbes Make
Isobutanol from
Cellulose
In a research first, University
of California at Los Angeles
(UCLA) researchers,
collaborating with the
Bioenergy Research Center of
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
(ORNL), have succeeded in
remaking Clostridium
cellulolyticum so it eats
cellulose and directly secretes
isobutanol.
03/08/2011
Maverick
Biofuels Receives SBIR for
Syngas to Biofuel
Reactor
Maverick Biofuels has received
a Small Business Innovation
Research (SBIR) grant from the
National Science Foundation for
the development of a catalytic
syngas to liquid biofuel
reactor system.
03/07/2011
UCLA
Researchers Demonstrate
Conversion of Proteins to
Biofuels
Making biofuel from protein
rather than sugars, lipids and
cellulose offers a biofuels
pathway using far more abundant
natural resources, according to
the University of California,
Los Angeles (UCLA) Henry
Samueli School of Engineering
and Applied Science.
03/07/2011
The Week's Action
Items
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