Teru Talk Newsletter
Volume V, Issue 46,
November 23,
2015
Teru Talk by Michael
Theroux (pronounced
"TerĂº")
Teru's Trash Talk
California, like many other
places around the globe, is
rapidly approaching a time when
plant and animal left-overs
simply are not allowed in
landfills. Naturally, we have
to have some other place to put
all that biomass. To make full
use of this Business
Opportunity, we need to figure
out how to access all that
biomass, find economical uses
for the products, and get
projects permitted. Given the
terrible drought in California,
using urban and ag-sourced wood
to hold water in the soil seems
to make perfect sense. Add to
that immense tonnage all the
forest health and fire
reduction centered biomass
removal. Fortunately, the
state’s waste agency CalRecycle
has revised regulations to
simplify and speed the
permitting of biomass mulch and
composting operations. Surely,
those regs have taken into
account all the environmental
and legal ramifications, so we
can all just get busy Using
Biomass.
We’ll just gather up all these
landscape and forest trimmings
and turn them into water
holding mulch and compost! If
we follow the new CalRecycle
permitting process and make new
stuff out of the excess plant
and animal trash, we are good,
right? Wrong; nothing is THAT
simple.
There’s another California
agency called the Department of
Food and Agriculture (CDFA). It
tracks lots of fun agricultural
stuff and also has lots of
toothy regulations. Among the
topics with which the CDFA
concerns itself are all
the diverse pests and diseases
that continually try to take
over our agriculture.
Understandable; California
arguably has the richest ag
production
any
where. At
any one time, most of the 50+
counties in California are
under some type of plant or
animal quarantine, a process
the CDFA uses to corral the
nasties while it fights them.
Quarantines mean you cannot
move infected stuff outside of
CDFA’s specifically identified
boundaries. Stuff like excess
biomass generated in a
quarantine area has to be
proven to no longer be a pest
or disease threat, and that
means some pretty stringent
processing and
testing.
We’re not
just talking about little nasty
bugs here. Among the CDFA’s
Black List is the
organism
Phytophthora
ramorum
that cause
Sudden Oak Death disease.
Not happy to just take
out thousands of native
oak trees, this beasty
also infects a vast
number of horticultural
plants like camellias and
rhododendrons. It is
already serious enough to
mandate changes in
commercial nursery stock
management. While the
CDFA is frantically
trying to round up and
stomp out rampant plant
disease factors,
CalRecycle has revised
its regs for making both
untreated mulch and
treated compost out of
urban, ag, and forest
biomass. But there is no
requirement that sources
of feedstock be tracked,
nor attention paid to
CDFA quarantines. That
seems to put a crimp on
this big idea of Biomass
Utilization, doesn’t it?
Too bad CalRecycle didn’t
incorporate CDFA’s plant
pathogen control
regulations into the new
mulch and compost
permitting
schemes.
Hey Rube!
The California
Oak Mortality Task Force
is a
good place to start learning
about this one-of-many plant
diseases that will
complicate our ability to
make sane use of excess
organics. While you are at
it, read up on CalRecycle’s
revised Organic
Materials Management
guidelines. Then
consider AB
1045, organic waste
management and composting
legislation passed this year
that among other things,
mandates that the agencies
work together on biomass
related
challenges.
This Week's Extra
Reading
2nd
CalRecycle Study
Characterizes Solid Waste
from Commercial
Sector
The California Department of
Resources Recycling and
Recovery (CalRecycle) has
released the second of two
reports characterizing
California's waste stream based
on 2014 data.
11/21/2015
This Week's Top Story
Renmatix
Plans First Commercial
Biomass to Sugars
Biorefinery Next
Year
Pennsylvania based Renmatix Inc
has announced plans to develop
its first commercial
biorefinery next year that will
convert cellulosic biomass into
sugars for the manufacture of a
variety of biomaterials.
11/20/2015
The Week's News
EcoPAS
System Fabricated by
Greenbelt Resources Exceeds
Expectations
EcoPAS utilized the
manufacturing expertise of
Greenbelt Resources Corporation
to fabricate the first
commercial scale PAS-100
(Passive Alcohol System) and
its complementary manifold
system.
11/21/2015
CalRecycle
Schedules Workshops on
Meeting California's 75%
Recycling
Goals
The California Department of
Resources Recycling and
Recovery (CalRecycle) is
hosting two workshops, one in
southern California and one in
northern California, on how to
meet the state's 75 percent
recycling goal.
11/20/2015
California
IOUs Schedule Webinar on
Upcoming BioMAT
Program
California Senate Bill (SB)
1122 was signed into law on
September 27, 2012 and adds an
additional 250 MW of capacity
for investor owned utilities
(IOUs) to offer feed-in tariff
power purchase agreements
(PPAs) for eligible bioenergy
projects.
11/18/2015
EcoPro
Polymers Develops Bio-Based
Formaldehyde-Free Wood
Adhesive
Oregon startup EcoPro Polymers,
Inc, supported by Oregon BEST
and Oregon State University
(OSU), is developing a
bio-based wood adhesive that
contains no urea-formaldehyde
for use in particleboard
manufacturing and other
advanced wood products
applications.
11/17/2015
New
PULP2VALUE Demo Project
Seeks Better Uses for
Sugarbeet
Pulp
The seven PULP2VALUE partners
have launched the new Bio-Based
Industries Joint Undertaking
demonstration project in
Roosendaal, The Netherlands.
11/16/2015
FDA's Final
Food Safety Rule Impacts
Fertilizers, Biochar, and
Compost
The US Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) has
released its Final Rule on the
Food Safety Modernization Act
(FSMA; Docket Folder
FDA-2011-N-092), along with the
Final Environmental Impact
Statement on the Rule's
provisions.
11/16/2015
The Week's Action
Items
Due
01/07/2016: Applications to
US EPA SBIR Phase I
Solicitation
The US Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) has announced
release of the Small Business
Innovation Research (SBIR)
Phase I Solicitation
SOL-NC-16-00001 to develop and
commercialize innovative
environmental technologies.
11/20/2015
Due
01/07/2016: Pre-Proposals to
USDA to Manage Sudden Oak
Death
Impact
The USDA Forest Service,
Pacific Southwest Region, State
and Private Forestry, Forest
Health Protection program has
issued its 2016 Phytophthora
ramorum Request for
Pre-Proposals (RFP).
11/21/2015
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