Teru Talk
Newsletter
Volume I, Issue
4
-
March 21,
2011
Teru Talk
by Michael Theroux
(pronounced
"Terú")
Teru's Trash
Talk
The term “symbiosis” was
coined by a gentleman named
Walter B. McDougall, a
botanist who studied
taxonomy and plant ecology
under Asa Gray who wrote
the first real plant tax
manual for North America in
the late 19th century.
For Walter’s doctoral work,
he studied forest
interactions between, among
other things, soil fungi
and tree roots. He found
that there was no clear
boundary: fungal hyphae
invaded and became part of
the tree roots, and the
fungal mass within that
forest soil literally
connected one tree to the
next throughout the
stand.
Fungus helps trees pick up
nutrients; trees help the
fungus with air and water
uptake. These two very
foreign bodies are
symbionts; they are
so closely linked as to
effectively be one complex
organism.
When fungus does that with
algae, you get lichen. When
fungus hooks up tree roots,
you get, well, one big
genetically-connected plant
showing up as a bunch of
upright tree trunks, with
some very particular
mushrooms under them. I
said, genetically
connected: genetic
material moves through soil
fungus, along with other
enzymatically-digested
minerals and organics
between tree root
systems.
Be especially careful with
those GMO FrankenBugs,
folks; genetic material
spreads. My old mentor Dr.
McDougall, bless his
botanist’s heart, thought
“symbiosis” was a
nice
word.
Hey
Rube!
The CEC’s revised draft
2011 Bioenergy Action Plan
is on the agenda for
approval this coming
Wednesday, March 23rd.
This draft has really been
worked over compared to the
one released last December
2010. Yes, we did submit
comments on the first one.
There was no formal request
for comments this time, but
we’ll submit some anyway,
post them to Teru Talk for
your reference, and attend
the CEC’s March 23, 2011
Business Meeting. See you
there? Say hello, if you
come.
OK, so trying to comment on
CalRecycle’s 382-page Draft
Anaerobic Digestion
Programmatic Environmental
Impact Report (whew!)
probably means you should
actually read the
document. Yeah, like
that’s gonna happen
… but you should
comment, you know, or at
the very least you need to
understand what has (and
perhaps what has not) been
accomplished. So we will be
providing our Cliff Notes
version in our
upcoming Focus Report that
will be posted to Teru Talk
sometime today. Oh, and at
least try to get
those comments in by April
4th.
The Week's
News
Design Phase
Begins on Waste Plastics to
Fuel Plant in
Ireland
Swiss engineering giant Foster
Wheeler AG announced earlier
this month that their firm has
been selected for process
engineering design services on
Cynar Plc’s 6000 ton per year
facility for conversion of
waste plastics to liquid fuel.
03/20/2011
New Biofuels Cluster to Produce
Fuel from Plant
Waste
The Commonwealth Scientific and
Industrial Research
Organisation (CSIRO) has
launched the new Cluster on
Biofuels to focus on
development and use of enzyme
biotechnology techniques to
produce liquid fuels from the
cellulose and lignin solids of
waste plant feedstocks.
03/19/2011
Lignol and
Novozymes Complete
Cellulosic Ethanol
Production R&D
Phase
Lignol Innovations, Ltd and
Novozymes have successfully
completed a major phase of
cellulosic ethanol production
research and demonstration
(R&D). Lignol Innovations,
Ltd is a wholly owned
subsidiary of Lignol Energy
Corp.
03/19/2011
Google
Ventures Backs
CoolPlanetBiofuels
Google’s investment arm, Google
Ventures, has announced their
investment in the Camarillo,
California advanced biofuels
company CoolPlanetBiofuels,
backing the company’s
development of technology for
conversion of low-grade biomass
into high-grade fuel and
biochar.
03/19/2011
ZeroPoint’s
Initiative Supports
On-Landfill Biomass
Gasification
New York headquartered biomass
gasification company ZeroPoint
Clean Tech, Inc has announced
their Renewable CHP Solution
initiative for integration of
biomass gasification on
landfill sites to support
expansion of renewable energy
generation.
03/19/2011
UK’s Aston
University Developing Pilot
Bioenergy-Bioproducts
Plant
Aston University in Birmingham,
United Kingdom (UK), announced
that they are developing a
£16.5m renewable low carbon
technology laboratory, which
will include a small scale
biopower plant integrated with
algae photo bioreactors.”
03/18/2011
EPA Proposes
3 Year CO2 Emissions
Permitting Deferral for
Bioenergy
The US Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) has released a
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
that would defer, for a period
of three years, Title V and
other greenhouse gas (GHG)
permitting requirements for
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions
from biomass-fired and other
biogenic sources.
03/18/2011
UK’s Bore Hill Farms
Redevelopment to Integrate
Biogas Plant for
CHP
United
Kingdom (UK) based Malaby
Biogas announced that
redevelopment of the long-idle
Bore Hill Farm complex in
Wiltshire will include
integrated combined heat and
power supplied by anaerobic
digestion of local and regional
commercial organic food waste.
03/18/2011
Ballard
& GS Platech to
Demonstrate MSW Plasma
Conversion for Fuel
Cell
Canadian
fuel cell company Ballard’s
Power Systems division has
announced their partnership
with Korean company GS Platech
to demonstrate plasma
conversion of municipal solid
waste (MSW) to hydrogen for
fueling Ballard’s fuel cells.
03/18/2011
Greenleaf
Biofuels Receives Initial
Funding for 10 MGY Biodiesel
Plant
Connecticut based Greenleaf
Biofuels has received a
“pre-seed” investment to
support final engineering work
and provide working capital for
development of an initial 10
million gallon per year (MGY)
biodiesel processing operation
at New Haven Terminal, with a
groundbreaking planned within
90 days.
03/16/2011
Korean
Biogas Plant Converts
Livestock Manure to
Energy
As part of their global
sustainability efforts, Cargill
announced that they have helped
fund and develop a pilot biogas
plant on the Korean island of
Jeju.
03/14/2011
The Week's Action
Items
Due
05/10/2011, 06/09/2011:
Applications for USDA
Advanced Biofuels
Funding
United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA) Secretary
Tom Vilsack has announced that
the USDA is seeking
applications to increase the
production and use of renewable
energy sources with focus on
advanced biofuels.
03/15/2011
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