Teru Talk Newsletter
Volume V, Issue 33, August
17,
2015
Teru Talk by Michael
Theroux (pronounced
"Terú")
Teru's Trash Talk
It seems like being politically
incorrect is in fashion these
days; maybe a whole lot of
folks are just plain
tired of trying to be
so… nice … to everyone and
everything, all of the time.
Well, there's been that
"correctness" stigma attached
to waste conversion for far too
long too, and it has been
focused on using Anything
Thermal as part of the
solution. Watching the news
these days, we see that another
silly self-imposed,
non-scientific barrier is
falling with a resounding,
welcome thud.
Face it: some of our discarded
stuff, you just can't really
pull apart all that easily.
It's really no wonder; we've
gotten quite good at sticking
things together so they
don't fall apart. It
only stands to reason that wed
need to beat on some kinds of
trash harder than others to
break it down into its
components. One way to do that
is with heat. Apply enough
heat, and stuff comes
apart.
A fisherman will tell you that
the top feeding fish eat the
easy bait, the middle fish eat
the top fish, and the bottom
feeders clean up whats left. So
it goes with waste conversion
for resource recovery. We've
got a reasonable hierarchy that
says if we have to make trash
in the first place and
absolutely have to throw
some of it away, our community
should grab the easily salable
stuff off the top. We'll have
to work harder to break down
the next level; organics
conversion to compost and
anaerobic digestion come in
handy there. But the crud that
makes it past those
filters still has value if you
can pull it all apart; we just
need to convert the remainder
to something of value.
That's where turning up the
heat plays its
part.
Turn up the heat a little, you
dry things out. A little more,
and you drain off the liquids
and drive off the gases. Keep
going up the thermometer, and
the solids themselves start to
turn to char, liquids, and
gases, all of which you can
separate out as Valuable Stuff.
Then if all else fails, add
Oxygen and that trash gives up
even the tightly held
Energy.
Communities need to sort out,
clean, and return to the
marketplace the relatively
simple recyclables, the paper
and glass, metal and plastics.
Then communities need to call
in the specialists, and hammer
out the value of the more
difficult to recover
commodities, the things that
need very technical approaches.
And when all the middle feeders
run out of acceptable
feedstock, as a last stop and
INSTEAD of throwing all the
left-overs in a big hole, we
should be squeezing out the
energy, using the heat, making
power.
Talk
about something technical: this
last waste-to-energy thermal
conversion step has
incorporated some of the most
sophisticated tools and methods
on the planet. The days of burn
barrels are long past, yet the
stigmas against even the
cleanest, most tightly
controlled forms of thermal
waste conversion are only just
now falling away. The news this
week includes coverage of both
the analysis of thermal waste
to energy and its practical
application. It’s good to see
the details without the hype.
As Sgt. Friday would say, "Just
the facts,
ma'am."
Hey Rube!
Teru's got pole position at the
Waste
Conversion Technology
Conference & Trade
Show this week. I'll be
chewing on Waste Conversion
State of the Art on Tuesday
in the first session as
first speaker, and
moderating the first
panel on Wednesday. We
KNOW you will be there, so
give a "Hey Rube!" shout-out
and bring me another cuppa
Joe … I'm gonna need
it…
This Week's Top Story
Green3Power
Will Build $175M Renewable
Energy Facility at Florida
Landfill
BioPower Operations Corporation
(BioPower) has announced that
its wholly-owned subsidiary
Green3Power Operations Inc
(G3P) through its subsidiary
Green3Power St. Lucie LLC
(Company) has executed an
agreement to build, own, and
fund a $175 million Renewable
Energy Facility (REF) at the
existing St. Lucie County Solid
Waste Landfill Management
Facility site in Florida.
08/12/2015
The Week's News
Viridor's
Runcorn Energy Recovery
Facility Turns Merseyside's
Waste into
Fuel
United Kingdom (UK) based
Viridor has announced that
operations began last month at
its Runcorn Energy Recovery
Facility (ERF) under a new
residual waste contract between
Viridor and Merseyside
Recycling and Waste Authority
(MRWA).
08/14/2015
eXtension
Foundation Schedules 2nd
Free Biochar
Webinar
The non-profit eXtension
Foundation has scheduled a free
webinar for August 21, 2015, on
the Agronomic and Environmental
Uses of Biochar, Part 2.
08/14/2015
EREF
Releases Report on Using
Municipal Solid Waste as
Biofuel
Feedstock
The non-profit Environmental
Research and Education
Foundation (EREF) has published
and made available at no cost a
new report entitled, Using
Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) as
a Biofuel Feedstock.
08/13/2015
Neste's
NEXBTL Renewable Diesel
Expands into Southern
California
Finnish company Neste has
announced that its NEXBTL
renewable diesel is now
available to drivers in
Southern California at retail
stations After a successful
debut in Northern California.
08/12/2015
Oregon DEQ
Plans to Restart Materials
Management
Grants
The Oregon Department of
Environmental Quality (DEQ)
plans to restart their
Materials Management Grants
Program this September with a
new round of solicitations.
08/11/2015
Ener-Core
Receives $2.1M PO and
Initial License Payment from
Dresser-Rand
California based Ener-Core, Inc
has received a $2.1 million
purchase order (PO) from
Dresser-Rand for two 1.5-2MW
Power Oxidizers that will be
integrated into Dresser-Rand’s
KG2-3G/PO Power-station, and
represents the first commercial
order of the system.
08/10/2015
Copper
Clusters Capture and Convert
Carbon Dioxide to Make
Fuel
Illinois based Argonne National
Laboratory has announced a
process that stops the
greenhouse gas before it
escapes from chimneys and power
plants into the atmosphere and
instead turns it into a useful
product.
08/10/2015
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