Burning Bio News

BioTown, USA aka Reynolds, IN is the Indiana Governor’s project to take a small rural community off the grid using biomass. The initial excitement in 2005/2006 consumed everything. The economy and reality of doing things that had never been done before interfered with most of the planned bioenergy projects. But like the little engine that could, BioTown just keeps plugging along. Algaewheel Technologies installed a $2.7 million, 6,500 square foot greenhouse as a wastewater treatment technology in January. – mj: I was involved in the first few years of BioTown, USA. They are all good folks and I am thrilled to see them moving a long at a pace and scale that fits the community. Well done!

Project Apollo, a 25-megawatt biomass power plant to be built in Milwaukee, WI, should be operational in late 2013. Developer Alliance Federated Energy (AFE) plans to use Westinghouse Plasma Corp.’s plasma gasification technology to convert municipal and industrial wastes into syngas for energy.

Affordable Bio Feedstock, Inc. has developed a brown grease waste recycling plant which turns grease into biofuels in Kissimmee, Florida. In addition to creating biofuels, the company also converts food solids into fertilizer or animal feedstock. The company has developed a Thermal Depolymerization technology, which allows them to separate its contents (oil, organic solids and water) into three commercially marketable products: brown grease, nutrient rich organic solids and nutrient rich water. The plant will process 50,000 gallons of grease trap waste per day.

California communities are becoming more restrictive of high-strength wastewater from wineries. High-strength wastewater should be an automatic flag to think about anaerobic digesters or perhaps a modular ethanol unit. The article backs its way into a reference to the digester work being done in Sonoma County.

Kansas University researchers are working to turn microbes from treated sewage into a commercially viable biofuel, fluid that one day could be used to power the nation’s cars, trucks, airplanes and other modes of transportation. “From the point of view of the EPA, this should be like heaven,” said Val Smith, a KU professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. “We’re harnessing a waste, making it do work for America, and purifying it all at the same time. Bob Honea, the institute’s director, is confident that the work of KU researchers — collaborating on a “Feedstock to Tailpipe” program that includes a wide variety of biofuel efforts — is on the right track.

As part of a project to create alternative sources of energy, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories (NM) are cultivating green algae that holds promise as a new supply of biofuel. Cecelia Williams, Sandia National Laboratories, has conducted work with algae and dairy manure, but is targeting a commercial algal technology to utilize the manure from NM 340,000 dairy cows.

In a two-step process, Israel-based Applied CleanTech (ACT) remove cellulose from municipal sludge and agricultural liquid waste, then Marlborough, MA-based Qteros ferments this treated material into cellulosic ethanol using a fast-acting microbe sourced from MA Quabbin Reservoir. According to ACT President Dr. Refael Aharon, a fairly large wastewater plant, handling a population of two million people and processing 150 million gallons a day, would have enough capacity to keep a small ethanol plant supplied with processed cellulose feedstock. And for every ton of that treated feedstock (which they call “Recyllose”) some 120 to 135 gallons of ethanol can be made.

The city of Stamford in southwestern Connecticut will collaborate with Vancouver, British Columbia-based Nexterra Systems Corp. to install a biomass gasification system to power the Stamford Water Pollution Control Authority’s (SWPCA) biosolids dryer, in lieu of natural gas. The system will gasify approximately 6,000 to 8,000 bone-dry tons of wood waste per year, which will be diverted from local waste streams and transported to the facility via truck, a maximum of two trucks delivering fuel to the plant each day. Nexterra estimates the synthesis gas produced from the system will eliminate the use of approximately 77,000 MMbtu per year of natural gas, an 85 percent displacement of the facility’s current natural gas consumption.

Tularosa, NM, Village trustees have joined a cattail evaluation study begun by the Otero County Commissioners. The study is a test grow-out of cattails to demonstrate two results municipal wastewater clean-up and ethanol production for use in municipal and county vehicles. Peggy Korth, owner of Sustainable Technology Systems is conducting the study.

Adamant about preserving the town’s unique 51-acre fish hatchery site, Spring Grove (IL) village trustees Tuesday night voted against allowing a company to study the idea of using the property to clean wastewater. The International Institute for Ecological Agriculture had proposed to establish a cattail marsh to treat the village wastewater. Made of 60 percent starch, cattail stalks also are excellent for producing ethanol to create a fuel source, with 7,500 gallons of alcohol yielded per acre,David Blume, IIEA President said.

The Otero County, NM, Commission voted to spend $20,000 on a feasibility study to turn cattails into fuel. According to the proposal from Sustainable Technology, test plots of cattails will be grown to polish and remediate wastewater, enhance the soil and produce abundant starches and sugars that can be made into ethanol fuel.

Flint, MI, has partnered with Swedish Biogas International have signed all agreements and are ready to begin construction on an industrial digester for the City. –mj: Over 100 cities in the US run anaerobic digesters, but these historically have been installed as ancillary treatment technologies. The Flint digester is part of a new kind of digester that puts as much organic waste energy into the digester first. Then seeks to treat what is left.

This fall Dalton Utilities (GA) plans to start a pilot project to produce biodiesel from wastewater on its land application system along the Conasauga River. The pilot facility will be about an acre in size, capable of treating roughly 200 to 500 gallons of wastewater a day with algae that will feed on the nutrients in the water. The utility has partnered with the University of Georgia in the effort. And K.C. Das, director of the university’s Biorefinery and Carbon Cycling Program, says the facility will be the first of its kind in the nation. Das said they expect to get about 430 to 450 gallons of biodiesel per acre per year to start.

The Future Farm Food and Fuel Facility is being build just across the road from the Baldwin Dairy. The Future Farm Facility will produce lettuce and other vegetables and tilapia using the treated wastewater from the Baldwin Dairy digester. The digester technology used by Baldwin dairy produces effluent that is cleaner than most. They have been in the news in the past because they can not get recognition for the cleanliness of their waste water. Now, with the aquaponics facility across the road, they can use their clean, warm water as an input into further processing.

The Tampa City Council voted to place a referendum before the public on whether to use the highly treated wastewater in their drinking water facility. The wastewater is likely cleaner than the river from which it currently draws its water. The question will appear on the 2010 ballot.

Last month, the Reynolds (IN) Town Council approved a plan by Indianapolis-based Algaewheel Inc. to build a special system using algae to process the town’s wastewater. Reynolds, IN is BioTown, USA. BioTown, USA came face to face with many of the challenges that confront new projects. The community leaders continue to carry the vision forward in spite of the enormous challenges. – mj: I was involved early on with BioTown, USA. It received a lot of attention because the systems approach was intuitively the right thing to do. I am no longer involved, but am still excited that they are able to find ways to move forward.

A team of researchers from the University of Minnesota partnered with the Metropolitan Council for the project to identify and grow algae that thrives in wastewater. The subsequent pilot project for growing algae in a wastewater treatment plant in St. Paul, MN, will serve two functions: removing nitrogen and phosphorus from the water and producing algal biomass for use in the manufacture of biofuels.

A demonstration project by the City of Los Angeles that turns biosolids into clean energy has been named as a semi-finalist for the 2009 Award for Innovations in American Government. The award is presented annually by the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The Terminal Island Renewable Energy, or TIRE project is a wastewater treatment facility, producing producing energy, and using deep well injection technology to sequester greenhouse gases.
The top 50 nominees for this award can be viewed at http://content.knowledgeplex.org/streams/ksg/AshInstitute/03.31.09_Top50.pdf

Winnebago, MN’s Corn Plus ethanol plant, is considering the use of 350,000 gallons of treated wastewater from the town in their ethanol plant which uses about the same amount of water. This would improve their water-use efficiency.

The Traverse City, MI, plan to compost biosolids and give them away is not working. Persistent high levels of zinc in the solids are interfering with the finished quality of the compost. They are looking into the benefits and costs of creating methane gas. – mj This $8 composting project is making compost. It is the high levels of zinc in the feedstock that are the problem. This problem apparently existed before they started, but adequate testing was not conducted. This is another case where millions of dollars were invested without really understanding the feedstock. Feedstock testing does not cost. It pays.