Teru Talk Newsletter
Volume II, Issue
6, February 6,
2012
Teru Talk by Michael
Theroux (pronounced
"Terú")
Teru's Trash Talk
Is Sugar the latest evil
substance or the new
Gold? Any sugar it seems,
whether it's in the form of
sucrose (table sugar),
fructose (fruit sugar) or
xylose (wood sugar), and
whether it has five of six
carbohydrate molecules (C5
or C6). Sugar is such a
potent "fuel" that there's
talk of regulating its
consumption, like alcohol
or tobacco. Our bodies,
after all, are just
conversion systems that rip
apart those molecules and
turn them into energy … and
store them as fat (ahhh,
there's the rub). Once you
have that golden substance
Sugar, you can rearrange
those carbohydrate chunks
into biofuels (ethanol,
methanol, n-butanol) and
chemicals (acetate, all
sorts of substitutes for
the usual petro-sourced
stuff). Once you've got
Sugar, you've also got Food
for any number of
bio-electro-chemical
systems, including, of
course, our own. And we
even know how to teach
sugar-eating microbes to
directly excrete drop-in
fuels. Go,
Sugar!
Almost any biomass can be
whacked hard enough to
knock its components apart
into C5 and or C6 sugars,
and there's really nothing
better to use than waste
organics that would
otherwise cost for
disposal. Hit that waste
and residual wood with 800
to 1000 degree water under
pressure ("super-critical
water") and it just flies
apart; sometimes you may
want to add a Special Sauce
of the new enzymes that are
becoming economically
available these days. Clean
out the bugs and grit, run
that waste biomass soup
over the right metal
catalysts and stir well,
and out comes Stuff We Can
Use.
The Sugar Economy has been
around a long time, but
that value chain is getting
a major boost right now
from our dire need for
biofuels and biochemicals.
Whole industries have risen
and fallen as the tides of
that sugar market have
shifted among companies,
and among countries. Sugar
is Gold. And now, the
"powers that be" start this
talk of an Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and SUGAR
agency, to once again
protect us from ourselves.
Gee, I wonder if the two
market wars might be
related.
Hey
Rube!
Those
Canadians, eh? They can show
the US a thing or two about how
to kick-start the recovery of
their Bio-Economy. British
Columbia is surging ahead with
highly integrated and
well-thought-out plans.
Ontario's support base for
early biofuel and bioproducts
companies is
also functioning well.
We're tracking what our
northern neighbors are up to,
and if you have an itch to get
back to work NOW, so should
you.
The
Week's News
BioNitrogen
Secures LOI for 300K Short
Tons per Year of
Urea
Last August,
Hidenet Secure Architectures
Inc changed its name to
BioNitrogen Corp after
acquiring BIO-SNG Technologies
International Corp. Just seven
months later, the company has
announced a letter of intent
(LOI) with Iowa based United
Suppliers Inc for its purchase
of up to 300,000 short tons
annually of granular (prilled)
urea, a high-nitrogen (46%)
fertilizer.
02/05/2012
Enerkem
Files for Initial Public
Offering
Montreal's
waste-to-biofuels company
Enerkem has announced filing a
Form F-1 for an initial public
offering (IPO) with the US
Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC).
02/05/2012
UK Health
Agency to Fund New MSW
Incinerator
Study
The United
Kingdom Health Protection
Agency (HPA) will fund a new
assessment of the localized
public health impacts of
well-run municipal waste
incinerators (MWIs) from April
of this year until March 2014.
02/04/2012
Dynamic
Fuels, Mansfield Oil Enter
Advanced Biodiesel
Distribution
Agreement
Oklahoma-based
Syntroleum Corporation has
announced that Dynamic Fuels
LLC, its 50/50 joint venture
with Tyson Foods Inc., have
entered into a strategic
marketing alliance,
commercial off-take and
supply chain management
agreements with Mansfield
Oil Company.
02/04/2012
CEC
Schedules Combined Heat and
Power Workshop for February
16th
The California
Energy Commission (CEC) has
scheduled a public workshop on
combined heat and power (CHP)
for February 16, 2012.
02/03/2012
UPM Plans
Industry Scale Wood Pulp
Waste to Biodiesel
Biorefinery
Finland's UPM
has announced plans to invest
about EUR 150 million in the
development of an
industrial-scale biorefinery on
the company's Kaukas mill site
for conversion of mill wastes
and forest residues into its
proprietary UPM BioVerno
transport fuel.
02/03/2012
UK's CPI
Introduces New Platform for
Development of Small-Scale
AD Systems
The United
Kingdom's (UK) six-year-old
Center for Process
Innovation (CPI) has
announced a new
collaborative project, the
Small Scale Anaerobic
Digestion Technology
(SSAD-TECH) platform, to
develop and prove efficacy
of rural and small business
scale anaerobic digestion
modules.
02/03/2012
British
Columbia Invests $700K in
Waste Wood to Bioproducts
Development
British
Columbia (B.C.), Canada's
Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and
Innovation has announced
provision of $700,000 to the
private non-profit forest
research institute
FPInnovations to assess B.C.'s
bio-economy status and
available options for
expansion, and to identify
economically viable access to
wood fiber for new projects.
02/02/2012
Surrey's
"ENERGYShift" Plan Includes
Food Waste to Fleet
Biofuel
Mayor Watts of
Surrey, the second largest city
in British Columbia, Canada, is
leading a community dialogue
today seeking public
participation in finalization
of the City's new ENERGYShift
plan to move toward localized,
sustainable and efficient
energy programs.
02/02/2012
Primoris,
Synergy Sign Agreement for
Two Puerto Rico Waste to
Energy
Projects
Two
Texas-based companies,
Primoris Renewables and
Synergy Renewables, have
signed a cooperative
agreement to develop two
gasification waste
conversion projects in
Puerto Rico.
02/02/2012
Pellet Fuels
Institute Takes 1st Step to
Standards
Roll-Out
The Pellet
Fuels Institute (PFI) and the
American Lumber Standard
Committee (ALSC) have announced
lab and auditor accreditation
as the first step in
implementation of new
industry-driven, third-party
verified standards for
densified biomass fuel in North
America. 02/01/2012
WTEC to
Provide Modular Waste
Gasification System in Yukon
Territory
Waste to
Energy Canada announced success
late last month in winning a
competitive bid to provide
waste management services to
the Vuntut Gwitchin First
Nation community of Old Crow in
the Canadian Territory of
Yukon. 02/01/2012
DOE Starts
2nd "America's Next Top
Energy Innovator"
Challenge
US
Department of Energy (DOE)
Steven Chu has announced the
second round of the "America's
Next Top Energy Innovator"
program, part of the continuing
implementation of the
administration's Startup
America Initiative.
02/01/2012
NIB Finances
140 MWe Biomass Gasification
Plant in Vaasa,
Finland
Nordic
Investment Bank (NIB) has
agreed to provide a 7 year, EUR
18 million financing package to
Vaskiluodon Voima Oy to support
construction of a 140 megawatt
(MWe) biomass gasification
facility integrated with an
existing coal combustion power
plant. 01/31/2012
Tetra Tech
Awarded $18.6MM USAID
Contract for Colombian Clean
Energy
Pasadena,
California based Tetra Tech,
Inc has been awarded an
$18.6 million contract from
the U.S. Agency for
International Development
(USAID) to support Colombian
clean energy development.
01/31/2012
Royal
Borough Selects Covanta to
Treat Wastes and Residual
Organics
United
Kingdom's Royal Borough of
Windsor and Maidenhead has
signed a 25-year contract with
Covanta Energy Ltd for waste
treatment, with operations to
start in April of this year.
01/30/2012
The Week's Action
Items
Due
02/10/2012: Abstract
Submissions for 2012 US
Biochar
Conference
The United
States Biochar Initiative
(USBI) has issued a call for
papers for the 2012 US Biochar
Conference in Sonoma,
California.
01/30/2012
Due
03/29/2012: Pre-Proposals to
ESTCP for Innovative Energy
Demonstrations
The
Department of Defense's
(DoD) Environmental Security
Technology Certification
Program (ESTCP) has
announced a request for
proposals (RFP) for
demonstration of
installation energy
technologies.
02/03/2012
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