Teru Talk Newsletter
Volume V, Issue 47,
November 30,
2015
Teru Talk by Michael
Theroux (pronounced
"Terú")
Teru's Trash Talk
The California Energy
Commission has provided a
vision of the Possible in its
most recent Advanced Energy
Communities grant solicitation.
Of course, we look at their
rosy picture through
waste-tinted glasses, but then
everyone sees things from their
own point of view. Let's
translate the Commission's Wish
List into Community-scaled
projects centered on waste
conversion and resource
recovery.
First, we're supposed to come
up with proposals that minimize
the need for new
infrastructure. Uh, what about
when that is specifically the
problem: lack of resource
recovery infrastructure? OK: we
optimally use what
infrastructure is already in
place, and frugally add what's
missing.
Next, proposals need to show a
'zero net energy' pathway:
amount of energy used equals
the amount generated. This is
an EPIC challenge grant:
Electric Program Investment
Charge - but 'energy' can be
defined well beyond
electricity. There's heat,
power, cooling of course, but
this arguably should include
'energy carriers' such as
fuels, and even kinetic energy,
the energy of motion. For now,
let's just assume Electricity,
or compute as
electricity-equivalent
energy.
Then we are to design in
aspects of grid reliability and
resilience; storage is given as
an example. Anything that
levels the electricity supply
load and reduces pressures on
that power grid should be
within bounds. Consider
proposing industrial park
conversion of food processing
waste and other organics for
community-scale combined
heating, cooling, and
power.
The Commission wants to see
projects that can simplify grid
interconnection and provide
long-term grid stability, not
short term projects that just
make power control more
complex. OK, that means
long-term waste-sourced
feedstock supplies converted
with stabile clean technologies
for baseload power generation.
And whatever we propose needs
to be capable of being
replicated and scaled up. When
we're faced with the tonnages
of waste and biomass to be
dealt with, this seems moot.
Yet it is the
design
that
needs to be replicated,
the
number
of
hub-and-spoke resource
recovery park complexes
that need to be scaled
and integrated
regionally.
Meanwhile, our proposals should
be 'financial attractive' to
the Market. Here's an idea: put
in the Community-scale
infrastructure for turning
waste from liability to asset,
and you have created an
economic driver – moving entire
communities out of the red,
into the
black.
When we consider designs at
Community scale, the
Commission's goal of affordable
access to efficient resource
use becomes a core principle.
And when you try to integrate
all the many elements, yes, you
will need to rely on top-notch
'smart-grid' techy stuff and
(brace yourself) this is Big
Data management we're talking
about here. About this time in
proposal development, we'll
want to make sure we wrap
around as many state-wide
enviro and socio-economic
policies as possible, aspects
like the Governor's tree
mortality emergency
declaration. Got all that?
Good: now get busy and propose
your own vision of Advanced
Energy
Communities.
Hey Rube!
Teru will
attend the CEC's EPIC symposium
on
December 3rd and their grant
pre-application workshop on
December 8th
. Do your
EPIC homework, show up and give
us a shout
out.
This Week's Top Story
Financing and
Construction Contract in
Place for UK Waste to Power
Plant
United Kingdom (UK) company
Spencer Group has announced
that a financial package and
contractor are in place to
enable construction of the
£200m Energy Works power plant
in Hull to begin in January
2016, with the 25MW net power
output facility due to be
operational by January 2018.
11/28/2015
The Week's News
Ensyn's
Renewable Drop-In Gasoline
Receives US EPA Regulatory
Approval
Delaware company Ensyn
Corporation (Ensyn) has
announced that it has been
granted key regulatory approval
from the US Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) for
RFGasoline, its drop-in
renewable gasoline product.
11/28/2015
MyLahore
Restaurants Go Zero Waste To
Landfill with FCC
Environment
United Kingdom restaurant chain
MyLahore with facilities in
Bradford, Manchester, Leeds and
Birmingham, teamed up with FCC
Environment earlier this year
to improve its recycling rates.
11/28/2015
Biofuel
Enzymes Market Growing
Spurred by Second-Generation
Feedstock
BCC Research reports that
recent shift in interest from
starch-based ethanol to
cellulosic ethanol has helped
spur growth in the biofuel
enzyme market.
11/25/2015
IBI
Publishes Version 2.1 of
Biochar Standards and
Certification
Program
The International Biochar
Initiative (IBI) has just
published Versions 2.1 of the
IBI Biochar Standards and of
the IBI Biochar Certification
Program Manual.
11/24/2015
Global
Bioenergies Reaches Two
Milestones In BioMA+
Project
French company Global
Bioenergies has announced that
it has reached two milestones
on the labscale development and
the industrial scale up of its
isobutene process, one of them
over two months in advance.
11/24/2015
UK Defra
Updates Proposed Refuse
Derived Fuel
Definition
The United Kingdom (UK)
Department for Environment Food
& Rural Affairs (Defra) has
issued an update to its
proposed definition for
refuse-derived fuel (RDF).
11/23/2015
Genomatica
and Braskem Confirm Direct
Production of
Bio-Butadiene
Genomatica and Braskem
announced they have been
successfully producing
butadiene at lab scale since
June 2015, using their direct,
bio-based process.
11/23/2015
FCC Is
Awarded Contract to Recycle
Dallas Waste for 15
Years
Spanish company FCC has
announced that it has been
awarded a contract by the Texas
city of Dallas to build and
operate a plant to manage all
of the recyclable waste in the
city for a period of 15 years,
which may be extended by a
further 10 years.
11/23/2015
The Week's Action
Items
Due
02/05/2016: Grant
Applications for CEC EPIC
Challenge
The California Energy
Commission (CEC) has released a
solicitation for Grant Funding
Opportunity GFO-15-312 to fund
a competition that will
challenge project teams to
develop innovative and
replicable approaches for
accelerating the deployment of
Advanced Energy Communities in
Pacific Gas & Electric
(PG&E), Southern California
Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas
and Electric (SDG&E)
service territories.
11/25/2015
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