Teru Talk Newsletter
Volume VI, Issue 8,
February 22,
2016
Teru Talk by Michael
Theroux (pronounced
"TerĂº")
Teru's Trash Talk
For those under 30, the term
'refinery' just brings to mind
smoking stacks and the reek of
sour petroleum. For prior
generations however, having
local refineries also meant
solid industrial
jobs.
The younger generation has
thankfully not been so steeped
in oily fumes and NOx smog, so
the concept of sprawling
refineries is a bit vague.
There is now the need to
translate the Older Refinery
Knowledge into a new context
and new jobs. The current term
'bio-refinery' has become part
of the lexicon, but the reality
has not yet been fully
integrated into Society's
fabric.
The imperatives of the
Industrial Revolution 'refined'
our capacity to convert
petroleum into the myriad
things that an expanding
Society demanded. Now, many
look to the conversion of
various forms of Biomass to
somehow displace Petroleum as
the feedstock of progress. But
this overlooks the problem of
the mountains of Waste we
generate, only part of which is
'biomass'. Fortunately, we are
finding that our Refinery
knowledge base and the
technologies work just as
handily for all the diverse
stuff in Waste as for fossil or
fresh biomass.
The
requisite tools remain the same
whether we are taking apart
fossilized plant sourced oily
goo pumped from deep in the
earth, refining newly made oily
goo made from fresher biomass,
or disassembling plastics and
polymers for their
constituents. Complex molecular
mixtures of carbon and hydrogen
require the same basic tools
and know-how for deconstruction
and remanufacturing whether
we're calling the input /
output 'hydro-carbons' or
'carbo-hydrates'.
So let's dispense with the 'my
Bio-Refinery is better than
your Petro-Refinery'
name-calling, and concentrate
on the job at hand. All of our
wastes are costly liabilities
we can turn into valuable
assets. We have been avidly
using new things and
disdainfully tossing old things
for so long, it is easy to
forget that what we are
actually doing is managing, or
mis
-managing,
resources.
A Refinery is just an
industrial complex that takes
apart low-value feedstock and
turns it into higher value
heat, power, and foundation
chemicals. There are synergies
gained when we integrate
processes. Collection and
aggregation, piping and
conveyance, control rooms, and
product distribution routing
are just as necessary for an
agricultural waste conversion
plant as when commissioning a
natural gas to urea
facility.
An
'input-process-output' model
describes the flow of feedstock
into a refinery, the steps
needed to convert whatever
those inputs might be in that
location, and the management of
the products for distribution.
The model works regardless of
the diversity of the feedstock,
the intricate network of
integrated processing elements,
or the wealth of products
generated. A Refinery needs to
be redefined as
any
industrial
complex where
liability-input can be
cleanly converted to
asset-product: to close
the gap in the circular
economy, we need to
Refine our global
Waste.
Hey Rube!
It is easy to get lost in the
weeds, focusing on the minutia
of the input-process-output
model examples and lose the
broader resource recovery
picture. There is Business in
each step, and refining is best
seen as an integration of
expert steps. It is just as
important to turn wood-sourced
sugar into levulinic acid as it
is to use microwave-driven
pyrolysis and distillation for
separating plastics into useful
parts. Waste conversion today
requires a close examination of
these intricacies, yet we also
must remember to step back and
recognize these tools as the
needed elements of tomorrow's
highly integrated Waste
Refinery.
This Week's Extra
Reading
Fungi from
Farm Animal Manure
Successfully Converts
Biomass to
Sugars
Researchers have found that
anaerobic gut fungi from goats,
horses, and sheep perform as
well as the best fungi
engineered by industry in their
ability to convert plant
material into sugars that are
easily transformed into fuel
and other products.
02/19/2016
This Week's Top Story
Flint Hills
Resources Licenses Edeniq’s
Pathway
Technology
California company Edeniq, Inc
has announced that it has
signed an agreement with Kansas
based Flint Hills Resources to
license Edeniq’s Pathway
Technology for all of its
ethanol plants.
02/15/2016
The Week's News
CEC
Schedules Empower California
(AB865) Workshops and
Meetings
The California Energy
Commission (CEC) has scheduled
a general informational meeting
and three workshops on
February 26, 2016, to begin
implementation of Assembly Bill
(AB) 865.
02/19/2016
GFBiochemicals
Enters US Market for
Levulinic Acid by Acquiring
Segetis
Italy based GFBiochemicals has
acquired the assets and
intellectual property of
Minnesota company Segetis, the
main levulinic acid derivatives
producer in the US market.
02/19/2016
VTT
Separates Proteins from
Agro-Waste, Especially
Brewers Spent
Grain
According to research by VTT
Technical Research Centre of
Finland, extraction with deep
eutectic solvents (DESs) offer
an efficient, sustainable, and
easy method for dissolving
proteins from agro-biomass
by-products.
02/18/2016
All
MillerCoors Major Breweries
Reach Landfill-Free
Milestone
MillerCoors has announced that
all of its major breweries are
now landfill-free, with the
Fort Worth Brewery as the
latest site to reach this
impressive milestone.
02/18/2016
Bioethanol
Made from Ag Waste Used For
First Time In Cleaning
Agents
Switzerland based Clariant in
cooperation with German company
Werner & Mertz has launched
a project which expands the
possible applications of
bioethanol made from
agricultural residues such as
straw to detergents, cleansers,
and cleaning agents.
02/18/2016
Eco-Cycle
Releases Report - Community
Zero Waste
Roadmap
The Colorado-based non-profit
Eco-Cycle Solutions has
released a no-charge report,
Community Zero Waste Roadmap.
02/17/2016
Comet
Biorefining to Build
Biomass-to-Sugar Plant in
Ontario,
Canada
Canadian company Comet
Biorefining, Inc has announced
that its commercial-scale
biomass-derived sugar facility
in the TransAlta Energy Park in
Sarnia, Ontario will come
online in 2018 producing
dextrose sugar from
locally-sourced corn stover and
wheat straw. 02/17/2016
Versalis and
Genomatica Produce
Bio-Rubber with
Bio-Butadiene
Italy based Versalis (Eni) and
California company Genomatica
have announced that they have
successfully advanced to
pilot-scale production of
bio-butadiene (bio-BDE) from
fully renewable feedstock.
02/16/2016
US DOE
Requests Information on
Biofuels / Bioproducts
Process
Facilities
The U.S. Department of Energy
(DOE) is seeking input from
industry, academia, national
laboratories, and other
biofuels and bioproducts
stakeholders to identify
existing pilot- or process
development-scale facilities
with the capability to perform
process verifications for
biomass conversion pathways to
biofuels, bioproducts, or
intermediates.
02/15/2016
The Week's Action
Items
Due
04/07/2016: Proposals for
Critical Raw Material Closed
Loop
Recovery
The European Critical Raw
Materials Closed Loop Recovery
project intends to invest in
trials to demonstrate
innovative new methods for the
collection and reprocessing of
waste electronic and electrical
equipment (WEEE) leading to
increased recovery of target
critical raw materials.
02/17/2016
Due
05/10/2016: Abstracts for
2016 GSTC Conference
Presentations
The Gasification and Syngas
Technologies Council (GSTC) is
issuing a call for
presentations for the 2016
Gasification and Syngas
Technologies Conference
(October 16-19, 2016 in
Vancouver, Canada).
02/16/2016
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