Teru Talk Newsletter
Volume VI, Issue 7,
February 15,
2016
Teru Talk by Michael
Theroux (pronounced
"Terú")
Teru's Trash Talk
Here’s a horror story we’ve all
experienced: you put a plastic
container too close to a pan on
the stove. It heats, it melts,
it permanently becomes part of
that metal pan. Or worse yet,
it catches fire, sending up
clouds of toxic smoke and it is
almost impossible to
quench.
Now, imagine trying to melt
down thousands of tons of waste
plastic and do
anything
with that
goo, without gluing it to the
insides of every metal part in
the system. Wow. You’ve just
mentally shared the anguish
that a great many techy folks
have been struggling with for
the last decade or so,
attempting to un-make waste
plastic. The normal way waste
plastic has always been
recycled is to grind it into
little tiny beads and pellets,
and melt that plastic feedstock
to form more bottles. Or maybe
squeeze that melted plastic
mess through a hole and remake
it into fence slats, parking
lot bumpers. Or mix it with
wood and make decking. Now,
that’s pretty cool, so what’s
the problem?
With all of today’s recycling
added up, we still have only
been recovering five to ten
percent of the tsunami of waste
plastic constantly making its
way toward disposal. Plastic
burns hot, really hot, so
incinerators eat it up just
fine. But industry works very
hard to make many kinds of
plastic, and hey, all those
different plastics are
chock-full of Resources.
Plastic does such marvelous
things, like allowing us to
carry wet stuff in our pocket
without leakage, or conveying
water for miles, buried under
our feet. A plastic is a
‘polymer’, a long string of
complex molecules that have
been manufactured for their
ability to resist falling
apart, resist letting moisture
through, resist
everything
. It
makes sense that taking it
apart to its constituent
chemicals wouldn’t be easy: it
never is easy to un-bake a
cake.
It is bad enough to end up with
gazillion tons of plastic in
landfills. It is quite another
magnitude of bad for that
ever-lasting plastic crud to
end up in the world’s oceans.
Wonderful image: seals with
plastic beer can holders
stretched around their necks.
Sharks eating water bottles.
Dinner fish, with enough of
those tiny plastic micro-beads
in their flesh to cause
problems for kids fed fish for
dinner. Great bobbing mats of
floating plastic waste are
circling in the globe’s five
mid-ocean gyres, some the size
of Texas.
Fortunately there are
bright people who see those
mountains of waste plastic as a
challenging business
opportunity and have stubbornly
pushed new technical approaches
forward for conversion of
plastic for resource
recovery. Yes, you can heat up
plastic, very carefully, and
separate those myriad vapors as
they emerge. Recondensed, the
vapor can be turned into fuels
or lubricants. They’ll turn
back into gas, or ‘syngas’,
with more heat and syngas makes
lots of good things. There are
even microbes that eat plastic
and spew out valuable
chemicals. And like magic,
bright folks have figured out
how to unmake plastic and turn
plastic waste back into useful
stuff, and back into
Business.
Hey Rube!
Grantsmanship is seldom a good
way to make money, and if
making money is the sole
objective, application usually
isn’t worth the resource burn.
What grantsmanship can
be, is focused
advertising to the agencies and
institutions that dole out the
dough. Oh yes, and attending to
grantsmanship
might
result in
money. Lots of grants opening
up right now,
folks.
This Week's Extra
Reading
IEA
Renewable Energy Tech
Development Releases
RES-T-BIOPLANT
Report
The International Energy Agency
Renewable Energy Technology
Development program (IEA-RETD)
has released a detailed
assessment of opportunities for
integration of second
generation biofuels operations
within 1st generation
facilities, and of biodiesel
production operations for
conversion of fossil fuel
refineries.
02/09/2016
This Week's Top Story
Construction
Progresses on ENVIA's
Oklahoma Landfill
Gas-to-Liquid
Project
Velocys plc announced that it
has contracted for installation
of process modules, related
piping, and ancillary
equipment, for ENVIA Energy's
Oklahoma City gas-to-liquids
(GTL) plant to be located
adjacent to Waste Management's
East Oak landfill site.
02/08/2016
The Week's News
CEC Releases
2015 Integrated Energy
Policy
Report
The California Energy
Commission (CEC) has released
the 2015 Integrated Energy
Policy Report (2015 IEPR) to
provide the results of the
CEC’s assessments of a variety
of energy issues facing
California.
02/12/2016
Global
Change Awards of €1M
Distributed to Close the
Loop of
Fashion
The Global Change Awards 2015
winners have been announced and
the public decided how to
distribute the €1 million
prize among the five finalist
start-up companies.
02/11/2016
Blume Adds
Patented Vapor Generator
Equipment to Tech
Portfolio
California company Blume
Distillation LLC has entered
into an exclusive Strategic
Development Agreement (SDA)
with Nevada based National
Vapor Industries, Inc (NVI).
02/11/2016
Enval
Technology Identified in
Ellen MacArthur Report to
Recycle Waste
Plastic
United Kingdom based Enval
Ltd’s patented pyrolysis
process has been named among a
number of measures aimed at
addressing the world’s looming
plastic crisis.
02/10/2016
Gevo
Partners With Porta to
Construct Bio-Isobutanol
Plants in
Argentina
Colorado company Gevo, Inc has
announced that it has entered
into a license agreement and a
joint development agreement
with Porta Hnos S.A. (Porta) to
construct multiple isobutanol
plants in Argentina using corn
as a feedstock.
02/10/2016
Ensyn's
Renewable Fuel Oil Qualifies
under California's
LCFS
Delaware based Ensyn
Corporation (Ensyn) has
announced that the California
Air Resources Board (CARB) has
approved its Renewable Fuel Oil
(RFO™) as a renewable feedstock
under California's Low Carbon
Fuel Standard (LCFS).
02/09/2016
Altranex
Establishes Research Links
with Queen’s
University
Canadian biofuels company
Altranex has announced a key
agreement with Queen's
University to extend the firm’s
research and development of
their novel plant oil
conversion platform.
02/08/2016
SHL and GPA
Win Design Competition for
World's Largest WTE Plant in
China
The team of Danish firms
Gottlieb Paludan Architects
(GPA) and Schmidt Hammer Lassen
Architects (SHL) have won an
international competition to
design the world's largest
waste-to-energy (WTE) plant,
planned for construction in
Shenzhen, China.
02/08/2016
New
interactive Features at
Lincolnshire Energy from
Waste Education
Centre
FCC Environment has introduced
a range of new interactive
features at the Lincolnshire
Energy from Waste education
centre, and visitors are now
able to learn more about
recycling and green energy.
02/08/2016
The Week's Action
Items
Due
02/26/2016: Concept to DOE
for Mega-Bio: Bioproducts to
Enable
Biofuels
The US Department of Energy
(DOE) has announced up to $11.3
million in funding to develop
flexible biomass-to-hydrocarbon
biofuels conversion pathways
that can be modified to produce
advanced fuels and/or products
based on external factors, such
as market demand.
02/08/2016
Due
03/01/2016: Comments to CEAA
on Woodfibre LNG
Project
The Canadian Environmental
Assessment Agency (CEAA) is
inviting the public to comment
on an analysis of the
anticipated greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions associated with
the proposed Woodfibre LNG
Project.
02/10/2016
Due
03/04/2016: Seed Capital
Proposals for Waste Plastic
Film
Recycling
The Closed Loop Fund is
accepting proposals for below
market loans for cities and
companies to improve recycling
infrastructure on a rolling
basis.
02/11/2016
Due
05/04/2016: Applications to
EREF for Scholarships in
Solid Waste
Research
The Environmental Research and
Education Foundation (EREF) has
announced that graduate level
scholarship applications are
now being accepted for solid
waste management research for
the 2016-2017 academic year.
02/09/2016
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