Teru Talk Newsletter
Volume V, Issue 19, May 11,
2015
Teru Talk by Michael
Theroux (pronounced
"TerĂº")
Teru's Trash Talk
When one important element of
our lives falls short, we see
more clearly just how
everything is dependent upon
everything else. Water, in the
western US, is in scary-short
supply. That deep and
dependable Sierra Nevada
snow-pack is simply absent this
year. The weather map of the
Jet Stream, that climate flow
that is supposed to bring rain
to our western shores, looks
positively
broken.
The California Governor's
Office is laying down the
Drought Law, and backing the
mandates with new water usage
restrictions and with serious
capital to find and quickly
implement water conservation
measures. Word is that the
Office is being inundated with
"drought
solutions".
Our personal favorite?
Transponding water from the Wet
Northwest. Uh, thanks, Cap'n
Kirk. OK, not really - let's
get back to that
inter-connectedness concept:
there is a clear relationship
between what we can call the
Water - Energy - Waste
Nexus.
Western Agriculture creates an
enormous amount of food, sucks
up rivers of water and in so
doing, generates an equally
huge amount of organic
residual. There's only so much
grape skin, seed, and stem crud
that can reasonably be tilled
back into the dirt, only a
certain percentage of straw
that should be left in the
field after harvest. Packing
sheds select only what they
think they can sell to the
markets or the processors. A
market produce manager knows
which apples will never leave
the rack. We have the
technology; we now know very
well how to turn all those
rapidly rotting rutabagas into
compost, to convert those
squished tomatoes into biogas,
and bake those grape stems and
vines into biochar. The more
organics we add back into the
soil, the less water flushes
right past those spinach roots
and fewer shallow ag wells go
dry.
By the way: most veggies are
mostly water - so it can't be a
very good idea to bury those
tomatoes and all their
contained water in a lined
landfill, only to collect and
clean up the resulting leachate
later. While we are busily
ripping out water-guzzling
tropically-adapted (but so
pretty!) landscape vegetation
and acres of lush green lawns,
have a thought to where that
greenery will end up. True,
those plants won't suck up
irrigation water once they are
in the dump, but better to put
that green waste back into
beneficial use, holding water,
and making energy. Here's a
question nobody wants to ask:
what water will you use to get
that newly-installed
"desert-adapted landscape" baby
plants
started?
We need
energy to get water and it
takes a lot of water to make
energy. Now we need more water
than ever, yet we are still
wasting so much of what we
manage to beg, borrow or pump.
We keep sending organics to
landfills, organics that need
to be converted into energy and
water-holding soils amendments.
We constantly use and abuse our
water supply, but like we've
said before: don't muddy the
water; we may need to drink it
soon.
Hey Rube!
Aside from this
water-energy-waste issue, there
is evidence of change in the
way the world perceives the
conversion of waste into
energy, fuels, and other
commodities. As you pick apart
our News this week, think about
how each effort involves water,
yes, but also think about the
socio-political attitude shift
that has facilitated the bulk
of these projects. As
California's Governor directed:
feedstock-driven, technology
neutral clean waste
conversion.
This Week's Top Story
Fulcrum
Awards EPC Contract to
Abengoa for MSW to Jet Fuel
Facility
Fulcrum BioEnergy, Inc, has
announced that it has awarded a
$200 million fixed-price
engineering, procurement and
construction (EPC) contract to
Abengoa for the construction of
Fulcrum’s first municipal solid
waste (MSW) to transportation
fuels facility, the Sierra
BioFuels Plant in Nevada.
05/06/2015
The Week's News
Covanta
Continues Operation of
Resource Recovery Facility
in Long
Beach
Covanta Long Beach Renewable
Energy, a subsidiary of Covanta
Holding Corporation, has
announced an extended agreement
with the City of Long Beach,
California, for the operations
and maintenance of the
Southeast Resource Recovery
Facility (SERRF).
05/08/2015
Vega
Biofuels Will Hold Open
House at Virginia Bio-Coal
Plant
Vega Biofuels, Inc has
announced that it will hold an
Open House to showcase how
Bio-Coal is manufactured at
noon on Saturday, May 30, 2015.
05/08/2015
AnaeCo Is
Granted One European and
Three Australian
Patents
Australia based AnaeCo Limited
has announced that the company
has been granted one European
and three Australian patents
for its waste treatment and
processing technologies.
05/8/2015
Start-up
Clean Sea Fuels Launches
Campaign for Micro
Waste-to-Fuels
Service
In central Ghana, the start-up
Clean Sea Fuels is well into
their IndieGoGo crowdfunding
campaign, seeking support for
its pyrolysis based,
micro-scale waste to fuels
recycling service.
05/07/2015
Pacific
Ethanol Selects Whitefox
Membrane System to Cut Water
Consumption
United Kingdom based Whitefox
Technologies Limited has
announced entering into an
agreement with California based
Pacific Ethanol, Inc for the
delivery of an industrial scale
membrane system.
05/07/2015
MagneGas
Fuel Will Replace Acetylene
for Railway Repairs and
Construction
MagneGas Corporation has
announced that one of the
largest transportation
companies in the United States
will be using MagneGas® in its
railway division for repairs
and construction.
05/06/2015
Renmatix
Acquires Former Mascoma
Production Unit for Biomass
to
Sugar
Renmatix has announced that its
acquisition of existing assets
of the former Mascoma
corporation’s 56,000 square
foot manufacturing facility in
Rome, New York.
05/06/2015
Novozymes to
Supply Enzymes to ST1
Biofuels' Biorefinery in
Finland
Novozymes has announced that it
will supply enzyme technology
to a new biorefinery to be
built by St1 Biofuels in
Kajaani, Finland.
05/06/2015
Ener-Core
Powerstation To Generate
Electricity at Santiago
Canyon
Landfill
California based Ener-Core, Inc
will install its 250kW
Powerstation EC250 at the
closed Santiago Canyon Landfill
in Orange County, California,
which will allow Orange County
Waste & Recycling to
generate clean electricity from
a gas that is currently being
flared.
05/05/2015
The Week's Action
Items
Due
05/30/2015: Start-up Pitches
to Sofinnova Renewable
Chemistry
Award
European-based venture capital
(VC) fund Sofinnova Partners
has released a call for
submissions toward the VC's
Renewable Chemistry Start-up
Award.
05/05/2015
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