Teru Talk Newsletter with current news, action items, and some trash talk on matters of waste conversion for resource recovery.

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Teru Talk Newsletter

Volume I, Issue 7 -  April 11, 2011 
Teru Talk by Michael Theroux (pronounced "Terú") 
 
Teru Talk learned this week that Teru has been holding back (I know; it's hard to believe). It seems he has been writing articles and white papers for years, long before this website came to be, and stashing them away. Teru Talk will be posting them over the next few weeks and the first one is special because it was written in 2009 (BTT) and the subject is the theme of our website:

Waste Conversion for Resource Recovery

 
Teru's Trash Talk 
 

Conferences come and conferences go, but what are you gonna DO about it, that’s what I’d like to know … The 8th Annual California Biomass Collaborative Forum on April 5th and 6th has indeed come and gone, and Teru Talk will be sifting gold nuggets from gravel for a couple weeks. The pages of notes and stack of cards are daunting, yet unless you work those business cards you collected and actually follow up on the main contacts you made, it’s just another rodeo. Looking around the room, we all saw a whole lot of very familiar faces. Many of us have been, as Doug W. put it, “chewing this same bone” for quite some time. Chin up … there WERE signs of progress, and maybe that tunnel light wasn’t a train, after all. Stay tuned here, for help in sorting out the lessons learned.

 

Hey Rube!

 

Now, I’d bet Google thinks their donation of one billion core-computing hours will be used to find a global cure for insomnia, or some other dread disease. I’ll bet nobody has considered that all that heavy-handed data crunching might just work out a cure for our Energy Sickness, this addiction to trading blood for oil. I just think that there SHOULD be an “academic researcher” out there somewhere who could use that number-crunching to wean us off of Dinosaur Juice (that’s very crude oil, folks) once and for all. So contact the best and brightest data-crazy researchers in our industry and tell ‘em about Exacycle, Google’s class act. See this week's Action Item below.

 

The Week's News

 

LCFS Advisory Panel Releases First Meeting Summary

The Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) Advisory Panel has released a summary of its first meeting held on February 16, 2011. 04/09/2011

 

White House Releases Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future

The Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future released last week by the Obama administration outlines a three-part strategy: (1) Develop and Secure America’s Energy Supplies, (2) Provide Consumers with Choices to Reduce Costs and Save Energy, and (3) Innovate our Way to a Clean Energy Future. 04/09/2011

 

Trillium FiberFuels Receives SBIR Grant

Oregon  based Trillium FiberFuels has received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to advance their cellulosic ethanol development. 04/09/2011

 

H.R. 1425 Reauthorization of SBIR includes VCs

The US House of Representatives met on April 7, 2011 to consider H.R 1425, a bill that in part calls for 3-year reauthorization of the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant program. 04/09/2011

 

Plasco Energy Secures $143MM Financing

Pacific Northwest investment bank Cascadia Capital and the Soros Management Fund have both recently engaged in what is now totaling a $143 million financing round for Canadian waste to energy firm Plasco Energy Group, Inc. 04/08/2011

 

Clenergen Secures $8MM for Integrated Biopower Development

Clenergen Corporation has acquired a 1.5MWe Anaerobic Digestion (AD) Biomass power plant near Salem in Tamil Nadu, India. The plant operates using chicken litter as a source of feedstock in order to generate renewable electricity. 04/08/2011

 

Gwinnett County, Georgia Constructs Co-Digestion BioGas Plant

A co-digestion “gas to energy” plant under construction at the F. Wayne Hill Water Resources Center in Gwinnett County, Georgia, will convert sewage biosolids, fats, oils, greases and other wastes into renewable energy. 04/08/2011

 

Energos MSW Gasification Plant Receives First-of-Class ROCs

United Kingdom (UK) based Ener-G subsidiary Energos operates an advanced gasification facility for conversion of municipal solid waste to energy on the Isle of Wight, UK. 04/08/2011

 

APS Seeks Small Renewable Projects

The Arizona Public Service (APS) is seeking a variety of renewable energy generation projects in the range of 2 to 15 megawatts (MWe) generating capacity. 04/07/2011

 

Rhode Island Considers Waste Cooking Oil Reuse Legislation

Last month, Teru Talk reported that the Environmental Council of Rhode Island (ECRI) was exploring development of a waste food collection program. 04/07/2011

 

Weltec Biopower Builds AD Biogas Plant in Latvia

German AD specialist Weltec Biopower GmbH is constructing their second anaerobic digestion (AD) biogas facility in the town of Limbaz ̌ i in north-western Latvia, about a dozen miles inland from the Baltic Sea. 04/07/2011

 

Agilyx Investors Back Their Waste Plastics to Synthetic Crude Process Waste Management Inc. has made a strategic investment in Oregon-based Agilyx Corporation, bringing this newest round of financing to $22 million. 04/04/2011 

 

The Week's Action Items

 

Due 05/31/2011: Proposals for Google’s Exacycle Program Grants

Google is donating one billion computing hours to science. Google’s Exacycle for Visiting Facility is designed to “address grand challenges in science and engineering” by offering visiting scientists staff and CPU resources. 04/09/2011

 

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