Teru Talk Newsletter
Volume V, Issue 51,
December 28,
2015
Teru Talk by Michael
Theroux (pronounced
"Terú")
Teru's Trash Talk
We're staring down the barrel
of 2016. Have we learned
anything about this whole
business of waste conversion?
Do we need to stop and maybe
rethink how we spend our time
and money?
We know we should be recovering
resources instead of destroying
them. We need to recycle,
reconstitute, and remanufacture
the resources we recover. We've
spent a lot of time and money
understanding and implementing
the front end of that cycle.
Communally, we can collect,
sort, clean, and pretreat
discards. Now we need to turn
those resources back into
goods. That sounds logical,
environmentally sound, and
maybe even economical. So
what's stopping
us?
Over the course of our
civilized lives, we have
'de-industrialized' our
beautiful communities. The
'constituents' (that's us)
complain, and our chosen
leaders make the laws,
regulations, and policies that
push, push, push all those
nasty industries further and
further away. Now when we look
around for things to do with
the resources we have
recovered, there is precious
little local remanufacturing.
About all we can do is put the
stuff in shipping containers on
trains and boats and trucks,
and wave goodbye. Without
localized
industrial
infrastructure we have no say
in keeping that last
reconstituting and
remanufacturing stage clean.
We've added on thousands of
miles of transport emissions.
We've also given up the jobs
along with the
resources.
We can fix this: we have the
tools; we have the know-how. We
just need the social and
political will necessary to
carve a functional, purposeful
pathway through the regulatory
maze. What does this new
circular pathway look like, if
overlain on our pretty
non-industrial community
structure?
Think 'infill': lots and lots
of smaller, lower volume
back-end processing and
remanufacturing complements,
imbedded in the fabric of our
day-to-day lives. We need to
put the Unmaking
and
Remaking
plants right in close to the
pick-apart stations, adding in
the clean reconstituting and
remanufacturing to the places
where we collect, sort, and
clean the stuff in the trash.
Think 'short-haul': let's learn
to reduce the number of miles
old stuff has to be transported
before it can be taken apart
and remade into new goods.
Think co-location: put the
take-apart and remake plants at
scales and in locations matched
to the types and quantities of
old stuff we throw away, and
match up the remanufacturing to
the very areas where the new
stuff is
needed.
If the
only raw materials we could get
our hands on were in the stuff
we were throwing away, we'd
figure this out and get this
done. Let's pretend that's the
case: that we can't just import
all those special resources we
need to make new goods. We
would have to start looking
around for local resources, and
then we'd find our sources of
resources in the things we
throw away. Pretty soon we'd
stem that tsunami of trash and
be recycling, constituting,
remaking, and reusing just
about everything. When we
really Value Resources, we will
remember that we have these
ready-made local mountains of
raw materials, just waiting to
be mined. Right now, we call
them
Landfills.
Hey Rube!
California's
Department of Resources
Recycling and Recovery is
trying to find a new way to pay
for its own existence. If your
job is to get everyone to
not
dispose
of as much trash but your
paycheck required that
they keep dumping, the
better your effort, the
less money you have to do
the work with. You must
somehow have to uncouple
your agency's survival
from per-ton disposal
fees. Watch this one; it
is getting
interesting.
This Week's Extra
Reading
New
Pretreatment Process
Improves Conversion of Woody
Biomass to
Biofuels
Researchers at Chonnam National
University, South Korea, have
published a study on a new
pretreatment process for woody
biomass that enables efficient
and cost-effective separation
of lignin from cellulose and
hemi-cellulose materials.
12/26/2015
This Week's Top Story
RES Polyflow
Will Build Commercial Waste
Plastics-to-Fuel Plant in
Indiana
Ohio based RES Polyflow LLC has
announced that Ashley, Indiana
has been selected as the
location for its Midwest
plastics-to-fuel production
facility.
12/22/2015
The Week's News
Bio-on and
Gruppo Plan Facility in
Italy to Produce Bio-Plastic
from
Glycerol
An agreement signed by Bio-on
and S.E.C.I. S.p.A, part of
Gruppo Industriale Maccaferri,
will see Italy's and world's
first facility for the
production of PHAs bioplastic
from glycerol, a biodiesel
production co-product.
12/26/2015
California
Air Resources Board Posts
FAQ on New Alternative
Diesel
Regs
The California Air Resources
Board (CARB) has posted a
Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQ) document to assist
regulated parties in complying
with the Regulation on the
Commercialization of
Alternative Diesel Fuels (ADF
regulation) that was adopted by
the Board in September 2015.
12/23/2015
NIB Finances
Biomass Combined Heat and
Power Plant in
Sweden
Nordic Investment Bank (NIB)
and the municipality of
Jönköping have agreed on a
long-term loan for SEK 100
million (EUR 10.8 million) for
the construction of a combined
heat and power (CHP) plant, and
the expansion of the local
fiber optic cable network.
12/23/2015
BETO
Announces NOI to Develop
Pathways to Biofuels and
Bioproducts
The US Department of Energy
(DOE) Bioenergy Technologies
Office (BETO) has announced its
intent to issue a funding
opportunity announcement (FOA)
entitled "MEGA-BIO: Bioproducts
to Enable Biofuels."
12/23/2015
Ramboll
Environ Shows Dairy
Digesters are a Good
Investment for
California
According to a new study by
Ramboll Environ, dairy methane
digesters are among the most
cost-effective investments the
State of California can make to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions
(GHG) and help achieve the
state's climate change
prevention goals.
12/23/2015
US Biodiesel
Production and Blender's Tax
Credit Reinstatement
Approved
The US Biodiesel Production and
Blending Tax Credit (BTC) was
passed on December 18, 2015 by
Congress as part of the budget
package just before their
holiday recess.
12/21/2015
Mitsui and
Avantium to Commercialize
bio-based FDCA and PEF in
Asia
The Netherlands company
Avantium has signed an
agreement with Mitsui &
Co., Ltd, to commercialize 100%
biobased chemicals FDCA
(2,5-Furandicarboxylic acid)
and PEF (Polyethylene
Furanoate) in Asia.
12/21/2015
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