Teru Talk Newsletter
Volume III, Issue
29, July 22,
2013
Teru Talk by Michael
Theroux (pronounced
"Terú")
Teru's Trash Talk
Pee is a
valuable renewable resource
according to Dr. Ieropoulos
at the Bristol Robotics Lab
in the UK. The good
Professor has figured out
how to convert urine
directly into electricity,
enough to charge your cell
phone or to run your camp
lights. Dr. I's "E-Bots"
are urine-fed microbial
fuel cells that convert the
nutrient and salt waste
solution we all make: pee
in, power out. It's just a
little power, but it's
enough to let you call home
and tell 'em what you've
done.
But we
make a lot more of that
kinda waste than we can
feed to a microbial fuel
cell. Along come OriginOil
and their French partner
Ennesys, with the tools to
turn all the human effluent
from an entire commercial
building into sterilized
nutrient soup that algae in
tubes on the building's
roof will gobble up. Then
they harvest the algae oil
for local energy, and close
the loop.
At the
other end of the poo-power
scale are the folks working
on what to do with the
"residuals" generated on an
annual basis by 16.5
million hogs. It's easy:
grow energy crops in that
muck, grind it up and mix
it with the manure and the
used bedding material. Rip
that crud up and
brew it with Chemtex'
PROESA pre-treatment and
fermentation know-how, and
you've got the makin's for
a whole lot of cellulosic
biofuel.
A far
cry from where we were just
a decade ago, Waste
Conversion now sports quite
a panoply of sophisticated
tools for "un-baking the
molecular cake" and turning
just about any sort of
discard back into the raw
materials needed to make
new goods. The major
systems are available, and
now globally our inventive
attention is turning to
fine-tuning our
capabilities. Companies are
commercializing highly
effective front-end
pre-treatment technologies
that break down those
resistant molecular bonds
in cellulose, the tough
scaffolding that holds
plants upright, making
short-chain molecules of
sugar soup, and letting
other kinds of processing
deal with the cell
contents. Once the central
Conversion step produces
the raw materials, there
are new remanufacturing
methods showing up every
day to turn those
intermediates into just
about anything the Market
will absorb.
There are
really very few things we
can't recycle if you use
that term rightly to
encompass all the ways we
can turn crud back into
goods. But this makes the
agency job a tough one: how
to understand all those
pathways well enough to
manage them and keep the
field level and clean. One
great way to use up waste
stuff is to convert it into
biofuel alternatives to
petroleum-sourced gas and
diesel, but the Cal Air
Board got a wake-up call on
just how complicated making
Low Carbon Fuel Standards
can get this week, courtesy
one of the country's
largest biofuels producers
and the decisions of the
courts. CalRecycle is
struggling hard to figure
out how to make honest
comparisons between just
the front-end parts of a
couple of the more common
recycling pathways. Is it
best for each of us to
separate our own waste,
picking out what we assume
is recyclable from stuff we
figure nobody can do
anything with? Or do we
send it all away in one big
can, and let the Experts
and their new tools do the
separation?
Hey
Rube!
CalRecycle
would really appreciate your
thoughts on that one,
whether our modern Mixed Waste
Processing Facilities are as
effective at Diversion from
Disposal as our own
source-separation. But then, if
everything is recyclable
with the right tools, then
what's left to
separate?
The
Week's News
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Bristol
Robotics Lab Scientists
Charge Mobile Phone with
Urine
Power
The Bristol Robotics Laboratory
(BRL), a collaboration between
University of West of England
(UWE) Bristol and the
University of Bristol, has
developed a microbial fuel cell
(MFC) that can be fueled by
urine, and can provide power
sufficient to charge a mobile
phone and similar small
devices.
07/20/2013
Ionic Liquid
Thermocell Harvests Waste
Heat for Power
Generation
Monash University in Australia
has announced that a small team
of their researchers have
developed a highly efficient
method for converting waste
heat directly into electricity.
07/20/2013
BDI Starts
Producing at Multi-Waste
Feedstock Biodiesel Plant in
Portugal
Austrian
based
BDI-BioEnergy International
AG
(BDI)
has
announced
that it has
successfully begun biodiesel
production at its 25,000 ton
per year multi-feedstock plant
in Sines, Portugal for its
customer, Enerfuel S.A.
07/19/2013
OriginOil
Algae Technology Processes
Building Sewage at Paris
Demo Site
Los Angeles
Based OriginOil has announced
success in treating the liquid
sewage effluent generated by a
large building complex with its
Electro Water Separation (EWS)
technology at Ennesys urban
algae demonstration site near
Paris.
07/19/2013
California
Appellate Court Publishes
Formal Opinion on LCFS
Ruling
The California Fifth District
Court of Appeal issued a formal
Opinion on July 15, 2013
detailing its provisional
ruling in response to a lawsuit
brought by POET LLC and other
parties against the California
Air Resources Board (ARB).
07/18/2013
Dominion
Converts Altavista Power
Station from Coal to
Biomass
Dominion Virginia Power has
announced that it placed its
Altavista Power Station in
Campbell County, Virginia into
commercial operation on July
12, 2013 with renewable biomass
as its fuel, the first of three
stations to be converted from
coal to biomass.
07/18/2013
Quezon City
Facility in Philippines
Expands Landfill Gas to
Energy
Plant
Quezon City, Philippines, has
announced that the Quezon City
Integrated Disposal Facility,
Waste to Energy Biogas Plant
located in Payatas has been
expanded, adding two 320 kW
engines to supplement the
existing 236 kW engine.
07/18/2013
Chemtex,
Murphy Brown Sign Feedstock
Supply Agreement for Project
Alpha
North Carolina based Chemtex
International, Inc. has
announced entering into a long
term agreement for the supply
of purpose grown energy crops
and residues to be used as
cellulosic feedstock with
Murphy Brown LLC of Warsaw,
North Carolina.
07/16/2013
Sapphire
Energy and Linde Group to
Refine Hydrothermal
Treatment
Process
San Diego based Sapphire Energy
has announced an expansion of
its partnership with The
Linde Group launched in May 2011.
07/16/2013
The Week's Action
Items
Due
08/01/2013: Comments to
CalRecycle on Source
Separation vs
Alternatives
The
California Department of
Resources Recycling and
Recovery (CalRecycle) has
conducted the first of two
highly detailed workshops
addressing one narrow yet
complex aspect of
implementing AB 341, the
Mandatory Commercial
Recycling legislation.
07/17/2013
Due
08/09/2013: Proposals to
WAPA for Sale of RECs for
Federal
Agencies
The Western
Area Power Administration
(WAPA, or Western) has released
a Request for Proposals (RFP)
for purchase of Renewable
Energy Certificates (RECs) on
behalf of federal agencies.
07/17/2013
Due
08/09/2013: Comments to
DEFRA on Waste Management
Plan for
England
The United Kingdom (UK)
Department for Environment,
Food & Rural Affairs
(DEFRA) has announced the
publication of a Waste
Management Plan for England,
and opened a public
consultation seeking
stakeholder input.
07/16/2013
Due
08/09/2013: Comments to CEC
on Transportation Energy
Scenarios
The California Energy
Commission (CEC) has announced
a workshop on July 31, 2013 to
explore potential growth
projections for alternative
transportation fuels, vehicles,
and infrastructure, and factors
related to growth, seeking
stakeholder input.
07/18/2013
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