These are issues of past newsletters published by Teru Talk in 2012 on all matters of waste conversion for
resource recovery, including renewable energy, biomass, bioproducts, biofuels, bioenergy and solid waste.
Click on a link below to view a particular issue, and then click "Back" in your browser to return to this
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April 30, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 18
Teru talks about perspective and applying the hub-and-spoke model to conversion of waste to energy in Trash Talk..
May 7, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 19
Let's consider some of the most common characteristics for industrial application of waste / biomass-fueled, small-scale distributed systems for generation of combined heating, cooling, power and/or other commodities.
May 21, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 21
There are two things that are really necessary to attract funding and technology for waste conversion. Both are easy to say you will have in hand, simple to assume the work can be done, but particularly difficult to accomplish.
May 29, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 22. In a stunning example of poor form last week, CalRecycle's new director caved to the demands of the vocal minority, countermanded determinations of her own Chief Counsel and rescinded her department's recognition of the Plasco Salinas Valley Project as an alternative waste management pathway in compliance with current regulation and law.
June 4, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 23
MRF First! A "MRF" is a Materials Recovery Facility, which is a fancy name for a garbage pick-apart station. Before we send trash elsewhere, before we decide what else to do with the stuff we toss, we try to send it through a MRF first.
June 11, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 24
When we "Recycle", we divert something headed for disposal and put that something back into the mainstream of useful goods. We think that is what happens, when we put recognizable thingies in the blue recycling bin instead of the black trash can. There! I've Recycled! Not so fast there, folks.
June 18, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 25 We do so much magic and so much harm with words. We've been taught that "disposal" is the act of tossing things away, and that certainly is the case if we toss that something along the roadside, or into a hole or burn-barrel in our back yard.
June 25, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 26. Assembly Bill 341 mandates Commercial Waste Recycling starting on or after July 1. If all we do is require Business to "arrange for recycling services" and don't attend to what happens next, perhaps we should call the program, "Mandatory Commercial Separation."
July 2, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 27. Recycling isn't about counting what gets pulled off the conveyor at the MRF. It's about the whole pathway: the hauler trucks, the MRF operations, and the tonnage that finally gets turned back into usable raw material. Or it isn’t Recycling.
July 9, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 28 If we have Local Recycled Goods Reprocessing, won’t that be cheaper? I mean, think of all the diesel saved, and just Think of the greenhouse gas emissions we could avoid! Won't it be just so much easier and better and cheaper to send those bales of plastic across the street, instead of across the Pacific?
July 16, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 29
It doesn't have to continue; California can become a self-supporting machine any time the political will and the public consciousness say it's time. Pull the Jobs back into the state, make sure the Materials remain here long enough to be "cleaned, treated and reconfigured" for re-entry into California's own marketplace.
July 23, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 30
What is "Post-Recycling Residual," what's left, and why, and aren't there clean ways to make use of THAT, instead of just dumping it?
July 30, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 31
Cap & Trade will kill our Business! Cap & Trade will save our Business! People are all over the map on California's proposed Cap & Trade program. What IS this thing, of which we speak? Well, it was set up to clear the air, not to save the economy, very "Californian" if you ask me.
August 6, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 32. So here's how businesses can turn this new rat's nest of Climate Control regulations to their advantage.
August 13, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 33. Why pay to protect oil Over There, when we can develop it over here? Why hog-tie US security to those who'd just as soon hold us hostage? The only way home-grown fuels are more expensive is if we don't count the real cost of OPEC blood-for-oil.
August 20, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 34. My favorite organic waste converters are called Hermetia illucens, also known as Black Soldier Flies. They are naturally occurring just about everywhere summers get over freezing and winters stay above maybe10 below.
August 27, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 35. It seems to me there's more confidence showing in our waste conversion industry these days. Confidence that says, "if we build it, they will come"… here, let me explain.
September 4, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 36. California lawmakers sent 788 bills to the Governor for signature Saturday morning. A very important one is missing.
September 10, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 37. Our country's got such a Mother Hen over-protective attitude, not just in our laws, but in our whole social approach to governing. That certainly extends into blocking common sense for resource recovery from waste.
September 17, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 38. What is it about "recycling" that enthralls everyone? Simple: it's the Right Thing to DO because it is just stupid to keep throwing resources into a hole in the ground, and then paying to keep them there.
September 24, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 39.
We've entered the Fall Conference period, and so much of the emphasis now is on conversion of waste to electricity, heat, fuels, and commodities that you'd think the battle was won, everyone was already convinced, and the Money was waiting to be picked up for all those new projects.
October 1, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 40. The upheaval this spring caused when the Energy Commission put the kibosh on injection of bio-sourced methane into the common carrier natural gas lines may well have resulted in some legislative sanity, this time with the assurance that there is actual local benefit.
October 8, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 41. No disrespect intended to England, but there are certain similarities between London and Los Angeles County, and much that they can learn from each other about waste management and resource recovery.
October 15, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 42. There's the old joke, "Raise your hand, who's not here…" and it applies to this business of tracking the ways communities convert waste.
October 22, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 43. Heat is a terrible thing to waste. I don't care what sort of fuel you use to make power or what you do with that generated electrical energy. If you're not using the thermal energy, you're throwing away about half of what you make.
October 29, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 44. The language used to talk about "waste" seems to be shifting globally. For too long, anybody that really wanted to talk about waste conversion was expected to step outside of Environmentally Friendly Conversations, banned from polite society - sorta like Smokers.
November 5, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 45. Last Wednesday, we realized to our horror (well, it was Halloween, after all) that even the major energy efficiency programs and associations don't think of on-site waste conversion to electricity, heat, and fuel in the same sense as they do for, say, energy efficient lighting.
November 12, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 46. I watched in fascination as my mother carefully placed a great variety of materials in that Big Blue Bin in the driveway by the back of the house. When I questioned whether all that stuff was indeed recyclable, she looked up in surprise and replied, "Well, it SHOULD be!"
November 26, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 48. The waste conversion industrial sector right now is showing strong signs of clumping, bundling, and dog-piling, all technical forms of aggregation, and we've gathered up a number of examples in this week's News.
December 3, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 49. For the World of Waste Conversion, we can smile at the growing global recognition that intercepting discards and turning them back into raw materials locally makes more sense than brokering waste overseas.
December 10, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 50. Domestic anaerobic digesters aren't much more complex than a standard septic tank, except they make biogas.
December 17, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 51. Not one forest fire has applied for a permit, nor would they have stopped if they'd been denied permission.
December 31, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 53. The North Pole's global distribution specialist Kringle, Inc. has announced the 2012 annual demonstration of on-board anaerobic digestion with biogas upgrading to power generation.
This site is intended to Incite Dialogue about all matters related to Waste Conversion for Resource Recovery. Please join me.
Michael Theroux
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