Teru Talk Newsletter
Volume III, Issue
25, June 24,
2013
Teru Talk by Michael
Theroux (pronounced
"Terú")
Teru's Trash Talk
Last week
we made the bold statement
that We Now Have Options
with cool clean techy
things that can turn crud
into goodies. Let's check
out a few that have shown
up so far in June. Making
power: the big engine folks
like Cummins and GE are
supplying tried and true
generators to brainy
up-start companies like Ad
Astra and PHG to run on
their waste-sourced fuels.
Making heat is cool, too,
just ask the people at the
Alliance for Green Heat;
there's a new generation of
high efficiency wood stoves
hitting the market that can
heat your home or business
a lot cleaner and cheaper,
on a fraction of the
pellets. Then there's
Cyclone Power and GE's
"Clean Cycle", perfecting
ways to turn any sort of
heat right back into very
useful
energy.
This is a
trend to watch these days:
Make Fuels and Chemicals.
Why turn a truckload of
biomass into $10 to $15 of
power when you can make
$100 to $150 worth of
sugar, acid, polymers, or
fuel. Here's part of the
puzzle; you have to use or
sell heat and power, as you
make them, while you can
store the fuels and
chemicals for another day.
You do both if you turn
food waste, sewage and
fats, and oils and grease
into methane-rich biogas.
You can use some now to
make electricity to run the
facility and store the rest
for later use. Calysta's
got a nice new twist; turn
that same biomethane into
high-value lactic acid,
something NatureWorks needs
for its Ingeo bioplastics.
Speaking of plastics: with
the proper touch like that
being developed by JBI, you
can "unbake the cake" of
waste plastics back into
the chemicals from whence
it came.
Companies
are perfecting ways to
break those long cellulose
molecules in wood down into
shorter sugar chains, and
you apparently can make
just about anything outta
sugar. For one Canadian
company, it's the dietary
Xylitol sugar they want,
and they are looking for
biorefineries that can use
their left-overs. In
France, GBE's figured out
that if you turn sugar into
a high-value isobutene
gas, you don't have
nearly the problem
separating the goods from
what's left.
Yeah, but
what about the stuff
still left after all that
Wizardry? Well, if you bake
that residual and catch the
gas, you can still make
power. Then there's my
current favorite from New
Zealand that sucks up
emissions from industry and
grows microbes that can
turn even that pollutant
into fuel. Siemens Metals
has decided LanzaTech
actually does know
what they are doing, and is
partnering with
them to fit those
CO2-to-Fuel tools into
their own client's steel
mills,
world-wide.
You might
have heard that Oslo is
running out of trash and
having to import garbage to
feed their conversion
systems. Lessons to be
learned from the grand
scheme of the Circular
Economy: if you still make
"waste" you'd better learn
how to Own It.
Hey
Rube!
And speaking of Owning Your
Waste: that's the theme for the
California Air Board and
CalRecycle as they work to make
use of every scrap of stuff we
throw away while cutting
greenhouse gases across the
state's Waste Management
Sector. Dig in, review, and
comment on their draft plans
(see the action item below).
You may not completely agree,
but you have to admit it's nice
to see the agencies playing so
nice
together.
The
Week's Extra Reading
See
Teru's
comments
to
the California Energy
Commission on the 2013
Progress-to-Plan for the
Bioenergy Action Plan,
and regarding the status
of bioenergy development
in the state.
The
Week's News
NOTE:
If you are using
IE10 and our website isn't
loading as smoothly as you
would like, or you click on a
link to go to a certain news
item and the page jumps to
another item, just change to
"compatibility view" and all
will be well.
USFS Awards
$2.5MM in Grants for 10
Woody Biomass to Energy
Projects
Forest Service Chief Tom
Tidwell has announced ten
grants totaling about $2.5
million to small businesses and
community groups for
development of woody biomass
energy projects.
06/22/2013
LanzaTech
and Siemens Metals Partner
for Steel Mill CO2 to
Bioethanol
New Zealand based LanzaTech has
entered into a ten-year
world-wide partnership with the
Metals division of Siemens for
development and marketing of
its technology platform.
06/21/2013
Enerkem
Raises CAD $50MM for
Gasification of Municipal
Solid
Waste
Montreal based Enerkem has
announced securing $50 million
Canadian in its most recent
round of financing, bringing
2013 investments to $87
million.
06/21/2013
Pöyry
Releases White Paper on
Potential Significance of
Using Biocoal in
Asia
The Finnish engineering company
Pöyry has announced release of
a white paper, "Biocoal –
Bioenergy Game Changer in
Asia?" at the Centre for
Management Technology (CMT)
Biomass Pellets Trade &
Power conference in Seoul,
September 9-10, 2013.
06/20/2013
Alberta
Innovates Bio Solutions
Awards $1.3MM for Novel
Biomass
Uses
Canadian public/private
corporation Alberta Innovates
Bio Solutions (AI Bio) has
announced release of awards
totaling $1.3 million to six
Canadian applied research teams
for advanced and novel uses of
residual biomass.
06/20/2013
New Earth
Solutions Starts Power
Export from Avonmouth RDF
Plant
United Kingdom (UK) based NEAT
Technology Group Limited has
announced that it has begun
export of electricity on
contract to the regional grid
from its refuse-derived fuel
(RDF) facility in Avonmouth.
06/20/2013
GE Jenbacher
Engines Generate Power from
First Sub-Saharan Biogas
Plant
GE has announced that its
authorized Jenbacher engine
distributor, the United Kingdom
based project developer Clarke
Energy, will install GE engine
units on an anaerobic digestion
(AD) project owned by Tropical
Power for production of
combined heat and power.
06/20/2013
Global
Bioenergies Ready to Begin
Industrial Isobutene
Production
Scale-Up
Based in France with an office
in Ames, Iowa, Global
Bioenergies (GBE) has announced
successful pilot plant trials,
and has scheduled scale-up to
industrial production of
isobutene beginning in July
2013.
06/19/2013
Xylitol
Canada Successfully
Completes Wood Sugar
Extraction
Demo
Based in Toronto, Xylitol
Canada has announced completion
of a three-month pilot-scale
program to demonstrate its
energy efficient, low cost
methods for extraction of the
wood sugar xylose from which
the dietary sugar xylitol is
made.
06/19/2013
CEC and US
DOE Collaborate for Energy
Research and Demo
Projects
The California Energy
Commission (CEC) announced that
it has established a framework
for collaboration on energy
research and demonstration
projects by entering into a
"first-ever" Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) with the US
Department of Energy's (DOE)
Advanced Research Projects
Agency - Energy (ARPA-E).
06/18/2013
SARTA
Launches AgStart Program to
Accelerate Ag Technology
Ventures
The Sacramento Regional
Technology Alliance (SARTA) has
announced the launch of
AgStart, SARTA's newest
industry-cluster-focused
program, which will accelerate
the growth of companies
developing and bringing to
market innovative sustainable
agricultural technologies.
06/18/2013
Calysta and
NatureWorks Agree on Joint
Biomethane-to-Chemical
R
California based Calysta Energy
has announced entering into a
multi-year collaboration with
international bio-sourced
polymer development company
NatureWorks LLC, a
Minnesota-based subsidiary of
Cargill.
06/18/2013
The Week's Action
Items
Due
07/05/2013: Advisor
Applications to EPA for MSW
Landfill Stds
Review
The US Environmental protection
Agency (EPA) has announced that
it is accepting
self-nominations from small
businesses to become advisors
to a Small Business Advocacy
Review (SBAR) Panel for the
development of a proposed
rulemaking and potential
revision of New Source
Performance Standards (NSPS)
for municipal solid waste (MSW)
landfills.
06/21/2013
Due
07/12/2013: Comments on
California's AB 32 Waste Mgt
Sector
Plan
As Teru Talk reported last
week, the California Air
Resources Board (CARB) and the
California Department of
Resources Recycling and
Recovery (CalRecycle) held a
public workshop yesterday to
present a draft framework for a
Waste Management Sector Plan as
required by the 2008 Scoping
Plan.
06/19/2013
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