Teru Talk Newsletter
Volume VI, Issue 6,
February 8,
2016
Teru Talk by Michael
Theroux (pronounced
"Terú")
Teru's Trash Talk
Let’s allow ourselves to peer
down this Circular Economy
pathway, and explore the
hands-on business of waste
management, conversion,
resource recovery, and return
of reclaimed materials to the
global flow of materials. And
let’s look down this road
through a ‘digital business’
lens.
We’ve got big landfills and
heavy trucks, behemoth
pick-apart stations, and every
manner of technical platform to
take discarded goods down to
their fundamental bits and
pieces. Now we need to
identify, investigate, open,
and develop pathways that
enable direct digital access
globally to resource recovery.
This impacts every link in the
now-circular Value Chain:
collection, separation,
pre-treatment, conversion,
remanufacturing, and
goods-distribution of
waste-sourced resources that
have been turned back into
commodities.
We are witnessing an across the
board shift from physical to
digital, away from
bricks-and-mortar
infrastructure and toward
on-line networking. Every
aspect of our lives and
livelihoods are now making this
shift, willingly or
not.
Moving stuff is governed to a
degree by weight and distance.
There is a paradox between
local vs. global resource
recovery, and the key linkage
between these two ends of the
commerce spectrum is Transport.
The immediacy of the
digitally-driven circular
economy requires that no matter
what the physical material
needing transit from buyer to
seller, there must be a ready
method of secure transport. Not
to be left out, the
waste-sourced resource recovery
linkage must also return the
used goods to the materials
flow and close that gap in the
circle, and that transport also
needs to be both immediate and
secure. Trash trucks only go so
far, and certainly not far
enough: food waste is a good
example. Whatever the resource
material, transport distance to
a reprocessing hub becomes the
limiting
factor.
The old transport model of
trucks, trains, planes, and
boats needs to be revisited and
updated. Are Drones going to be
the answer to the
distance/impact dilemma? Or
possibly, will it be the
‘autonomous vehicle’ expansion
that would lower or eliminate
the cost of human drivers?
Growing pieces, but none will
be The Answer. Rather, it is
the overall low-energy usage /
zero-emissions transit surge
that will facilitate closing
this gap. Yet once again this
level of interconnected remote
management must be Big Data
internet / cloud enabled. Just
over that horizon is the need
for massive-scale proprietary
bandwidth. Front and center:
zero-impact transit mechanisms
managed by video enabled
big-data information
management.
We must constantly re-define
what the buzz-words mean in our
own business endeavors:
‘Corporate Responsibility’,
‘Sustainability’ and for that
matter, ‘Circular Economy’. The
answers to these questions then
inform and constantly modify
our business approaches to each
discrete yet overlapping
emerging
market.
Hey Rube!
The
California Air Resource Board
is looking for live bodies to
participate in planning work
groups to chart out where the
state’s Low Carbon
Transportation Investment and
Air Quality Improvement Program
money will go next year. Step
up, dig in, and see if we can
steer some of those buckets
toward proving out the air
quality benefits of
waste-sourced resource
recovery.
This Week's Top Story
BDI's
Spent-Grain-Fermentation
Plant in Göss Produces First
Green
Electricity
Austria company BDI – BioEnergy
International AG (BDI) has
announced that an important
milestone has been reached
during commissioning of the
spent-grain-fermentation plant
on the grounds of Heineken's
Göss Brewery in Göss/Leoben,
Styria, Austria.
02/05/2016
The Week's News
Machinex Is
Distributor for Krysteline
Glass Recycling Equipment in
N
America
Canadian company Machinex
Industries Inc has announced
its alliance with Krysteline
Technologies for the
introduction of Krysteline's
unique glass Implosion
technology and associated
equipment within the North
American marketplace.
02/05/2016
XFuels
Begins Development of
Combined Carbon/Hydrogen
Fuel Cell
System
Oregon based XFuels Inc has
announced that it will begin
development on a combined
hydrogen and carbon fuel cell
using both XFuels' hydrogen
capture technology and its
non-thermal plasma reforming
technology with Converde Inc.'s
Carbon fuel project.
02/05/2016
McKnight
Grant Expands EESI’s Clean
Energy Project in Iowa and
Minnesota
The Energy and Environmental
Study Institute (EESI) of
Washington D.C. has announced
receipt of a two-year $150,000
grant from the Minnesota-based
McKnight Foundation.
02/04/2016
Renewable
Energy Group to Acquire
Sanimax Biodiesel Plant in
Wisconsin
Renewable Energy Group, Inc
(REG) has announced that it has
signed an asset purchase
agreement with Sanimax Energy,
LLC to acquire Sanimax’s 20
million gallon nameplate
capacity biodiesel refinery
located in DeForest, Wisconsin.
02/03/2016
Tripartisan
Biomass Amendment Adopted
Unanimously by US
Senate
A tripartisan biomass
amendment, authored by US
Senator Susan Collins (R-ME)
and
cosponsored by Senator Angus
King (I-ME), has been adopted
unanimously as part of the
Energy Policy Modernization
Act, which is currently under
consideration in the Senate.
02/03/2016
CEC Awards
$33M to CalCEF Ventures to
Develop SEED
Initiative
The California Energy
Commission (CEC) has posted a
Notice of Proposed Award
(NPOA), selecting California
Clean Energy Fund dba CalCEF
Ventures from submissions to
the agency's Request for
Proposals RFP-15-305 issued
last September.
02/03/2016
Calysta
Completes $30M Financing to
Commercialize FeedKind™
Protein
California based Calysta, Inc
has announced closure on a $30
million Series C round of
financing, including new
investors Cargill and the
Municipal Employee Retirement
System (MERS) of Michigan.
02/02/2016
Blume
Partners with Aufrecht to
Expand Waste-to-Liquid Fuel
Solutions
California company Blume
Distillation, LLC has announced
completion of a Strategic
Development Agreement (SDA)
with Alabama based Aufrecht
Technologies.
02/02/2016
Anellotech
Breaks Ground on TCat-8™
Facility in Silsbee,
Texas
New York based Anellotech, Inc,
a sustainable technology
company focused on producing
cost-competitive renewable
chemicals from non-food
biomass, has announced that the
Company has broken ground on
the installation of its
fully-integrated development
and testing facility (TCat-8™).
02/01/2016
Covanta’s
Durham York Energy Centre
Commences Commercial
Operation
Covanta
, a
leader in sustainable
waste and energy
solutions, has commenced
commercial operation of
the Durham York Energy
Centre (DYEC).
02/01/2016
CARB Seeks
Public Work Group
Participants to Develop
Funding
Plan
The California Air Resources
Board (CARB) has issued a
request for participation in
topical work groups focused on
informing aspects of the
2016-2017 Funding Plan for the
Low Carbon Transportation
Investments and the Air Quality
Improvement Program (AQIP).
02/01/2016
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