Teru Talk Newsletter
Volume II, Issue
4, January 23,
2012
Teru Talk by Michael
Theroux (pronounced
"Terú")
Teru's Trash Talk
Let's take a look at some
of the more gnarly aspects
of growing biomass
feedstock and get "down in
the weeds" on the details.
This isn't about using food
plants, or the straw and
other residuals; this is
biomass you intentionally
crop for electricity,
fuels, and other
commodities. It seems so
simple: just grow a lot of
some kind of plant, so you
(or someone else) can mush
it up and chemically treat
it, or feed it to microbes,
or heat it until it comes
all apart. There's a rather
silly term for growing and
then harvesting plants for
energy and fuels; they call
it "biocropping". Yeah,
well, what sort of
agriculture ISN'T
"biocropping"? I guess we
need to call this
something, so "biocropping"
it is. What makes a good
Biocrop? It mostly depends
on what you want to do with
it. If you intend to
squeeze all the oil out of
it for biodiesel, you grow
and harvest something with
lots of oil. Is
fermentation to alcohol
more your thing? Then you
need to grow something with
lots of sugar, or at least
lots of starch you can turn
into sugar. If all you want
is heat, grow plants with
little moisture, maybe some
volatile tars, and lots of
dense wood. So far, so
good…
Now, a really good Biocrop
has to be able to make a
lot of biomass in a short
amount of time, with very
little fussing from its
caretaker, and do all that
growing on crappy soil.
Here's where we start to
run into problems. If a
plant can grow on anything
with next to no care, it
has all the characteristics
of what we'd otherwise
recognize as a Weed, or
even as an Invasive Plant,
the anathema of both native
vegetation and agriculture
alike. We've got LAWS
against spreading around
plants like that. And the
better a plant is for
Biocropping, the more
characteristics it has in
common with those Botanical
Outlaws. How ya gonna keep
'em down on the (biocrop)
farm when with every
breeze, they send a
gazillon little seeds
everywhere? And every time
you cut 'em up, the bits
you drop start sprouting?
And those Special Species
you've engineered? They
just seem to snicker a
little, and slip off into
the rest of the
Environment.
Energy is like that,
whether we're talking
electricity, heat or fuel:
the better something is at
providing what we need, the
more risk there is in
handling it. And this isn't
anything new: I'll wager
the first few cavemen to
harness fire spent as much
time nursing burned fingers
as cooking. It's taken us
a few hundred years to
figure out how to get and
use petroleum as a source
of energy, and well, we're
still not that good at it.
So we shouldn't be
surprised that Biocropping
can be a bit dicey to
manage. Then again, it
isn't the sharpness of the
tool, but the clumsiness of
the worker that is the
biggest concern. Do the
work, but be careful out
there,
people.
Hey
Rube!
There's a
particularly cool program
called the Clean Energy
Challenge running annually that
scares up some of the darndest
ideas. We've covered the
program's activities recently
in both the student category
and for contestants from the
emerging small business
community. We are focused of
course on our personal
favorites, the entrants that in
some way offer waste conversion
related advances. The ranks are
thinning now, down to
semi-finalists and finalists,
and winners will emerge over
the next couple months. Take a
little time to look over the
young companies vying for the
awards; the Top Dogs will
certainly be fascinating, but
the runners-up are already well
worth a look-see.
The
Week's News
AWS Burdens
Installing Base Biogas
Storage Sphere at Wales AD
Plant
Headquartered
in Bristol, United Kingdom,
Base Structures Ltd has
announced sale of a 25 cubic
meter "plug and play" biogas
storage sphere to
Welsh-based anaerobic
digestion (AD) specialists
AWS Burdens Environmental.
01/22/2012
USDA
Conditional Loan Guarantee
Supports Fiberight Advanced
Biorefinery
The US
Department of Agriculture
(USDA) has approved a $25
million conditional loan
guarantee in support of an
advanced biorefinery being
developed by Fiberight LLC
in Blairstown, Iowa.
01/22/2012
Element
Markets Selected for Ohio
Landfill Gas to Biomethane
Project
Texas
biomethane development and
environmental credit trading
company Element Markets has
been selected to develop a
landfill gas utilization
project at the Apex Sanitary
Landfill in Jefferson and
Harrison Counties, Ohio.
01/21/2012
Wheelabrator
Finalizes Purchase of Hudson
Falls Waste to Energy
Plant
Wheelabrator
Technologies, Inc, a
wholly-owned subsidiary of
Waste Management Inc, has
completed the purchase of a
waste to energy facility in
Hudson Falls, New York from
the Industrial Development
Agency (IDA) of Washington
and Warran Counties, New
York (WWIDA).
01/21/2012
Chesterfield
BioGas Secures Biomethane
Upgrading
Contract
Pressure
Technologies plc (PT) has
announced that its subsidiary
Chesterfield BioGas Ltd (CBG)
has secured a contract to
supply and install biomethane
upgrading facilities at a major
food waste anaerobic digestion
(AD) plant in Stockport, just
outside of Manchester England.
01/19/2012
New USDA Web
Portal Improves Access to
National Renewable Energy
Data
Agricultural
Secretary Tom Vilsack
announced this week that the
US Department of Agriculture
(USDA) has developed and
launched a new data portal
streamlining access to
national energy efficiency
and renewable energy
development and investment
data. 01/19/2012
Joule Closes
3rd Funding Round with $70MM
Private Equity
Investments
Massachusetts
based Joule Unlimited has
now closed its $70 million
third financing round and
will utilize the new support
to complete construction,
commission, and start
operations at its Hobbs, New
Mexico, biofuels testing and
optimization facility.
01/18/2012
Enval
Secures Funding to
Commercialize Recovery of
Unrecyclables
United
Kingdom's advanced recycling
and waste processing company
Enval Limited has secured
funding to scale up its
existing pilot operations to
a commercial scale laminate
packaging recycling plant.
01/18/2012
First
Biodiesel Sustainability
Symposium Set for February
8, 2012
The first
Sustainability Symposium on
Biodiesel is set for
February 8, 2012 on the last
day of the National
Biodiesel Conference and
Expo in Orlando, Florida.
The symposium is being
presented by the National
Biodiesel Education Program,
sponsored by US Department
of Agriculture (USDA).
01/18/2012
Abengoa
Selected for Brazilian Sugar
Cane Bagasse to Biofuel
Project
Global biofuels firm Abengoa
has been selected to develop a
second generation ethanol
facility in Brazil to produce
bioethanol and biobutanol from
sugar cane straw and bagasse.
01/17/2012
Starwood
Secures Interest in 100 MWe
Gainesville Renewable Energy
Center
Connecticut-based Starwood
Energy Group Global, LLC
(Starwood Energy) has announced
acquisition of partial
ownership interest in the
Gainesville Renewable Energy
Center ("GREC") from Tyr
Energy, Inc.
01/17/2012
HyperSolar's
Solar-Nano System Cleans
Wastewater, Produce
Hydrogen
Inspired by photosynthesis,
Santa Barbara-based HyperSolar
Inc. has announced a
breakthrough in wastewater
treatment for production of
fuel-grade hydrogen, clean
water and an array of pure
bi-products.
01/17/2012
SWANA Issues
White Paper on Economic
Benefits of Waste to
Energy
The Solid
Waste Association of North
America (SWANA) has
announced the availability
of a new white paper
illustrating the
socio-economic benefits of
waste to energy (WtE)
facilities.
01/16/2012
PDM Group to
Expand ReFood Anaerobic
Digestion Facility Program
in 2012
The United
Kingdom's (UK) food industry
giant Prosper De Mulder Ltd
(PDM Group) has announced
plans for a £40 million
expansion of its ReFood
anaerobic digestion (AD)
facility network with
construction of two new
plants to be located in
Widnes and East London.
01/16/2012
PERC
Releases Vermont Case Study
on Biomass
Heating
The Property
and Environment Research Center
(PERC) has published a case
study of biomass heating
utilization in Vermont's
schools and commercial
buildings entitled, "Vermont
Schools the Nation in Woody
Biomass Heating".
01/16/2012
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