Burning Bio News

In the Coachella Valley, CA, Thomas Azwell and Costco have forged a partnership — with the help of several million worms on a worm farm at the Salton Sea — turning green waste from Costco’s Palm Desert and La Quinta stores into high-grade organic fertilizer. Paper, cardboard, food scraps — anything that was alive at one time, Azwell said — are collected at the stores and then sent to California Bio-Mass, a composting facility in Thermal. The next stop is Salton Sea Farms, also in Thermal, where about 100,000 pounds of red wiggler earthworms chomp through the compost, refining and enriching it with beneficial microbes and bacteria. The resulting fertilizer, called Vermigrow, is now sold at 27 Costcos in California and is being used at organic farms.

In this final weekend of the 2009 Iowa legislative session lawmakers have voted to establish new regulations for spreading liquid livestock manure on snow-covered fields and frozen ground. Under the bill, liquid manure may not be spread on farm fields between December 21 and April 1. – mj: An interesting twist. As one moves further north in the US, the window to get crops in before the growing season begins gets smaller and smaller. An economic solution will almost necessitate the development of a non-fertilizer solution, or a fertilizer solution that has considerably more value than it has had historically.

New Washington State biogas law facilitates the development of biogas energy from regulated residuals like manure and food waste. Without the law, the existing regulations were a barrier to combining the two materials. Adding food waste to manure increases the gas production (and opportunities for revenue).

Last fall, New York state began an incentive program to support and improve biomass-fired heating equipment. The program was designed to foster the development of manufacturing jobs and the betterment of environmental performance of biomass technology. New York State Energy Research and Development Authority Spokesman Sal Graven said that the initiative encouraged two pellet boiler manufacturers to relocated to New York, one to Dunkirk, on Lake Erie, and the other to Schenectady. Additionally, more operations are chipping wood.

The Massachusetts state attorney general’s office has sued New England Pellet LLC for accepting orders for wood pellets for winter heating while knowing the orders would not be filled. The attorney general’s office is alleging that at least 194 Massachusetts consumers were not reimbursed more than $139,000 for unfilled orders. A similar lawsuit was filed last December in Connecticut by the Connecticut Attorney General’s Office. –mj: It is important to be reminded that things don’t happen as planned. Sometimes they go very wrong.

California air regulators on Thursday adopted a first-in-the nation mandate for low-carbon fuels, telling the petroleum industry that it must help combat global warming by offering cleaner-burning alternatives. The standards approved by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) are expected to create a new market for alternative fuels and set the stage for a national debate on the future of the country’s transportation system.

– mj: California has a knack for pushing environmental innovations and the missing the mark. There are a number of excellent innovations in a low-carbon fuel standard, but they have tied it to land use changes in other countries — which has almost nothing to do with biofuels use in this country. Similarly, the use of output-based performance standards is a much better tool than less accurate technology-based standards. Yet regarding the NOx emissions from stationary power-plants, CARB has set the standard below anything that in commercially achievable??? If their innovative policies are not achievable, they are headed for serious legal/economic hardship. One of the great things about this country is that our political leaders have the right to both innovate and create chaos.

A Kansas farmer, Brad Ohlde, discusses the nuances of getting the most use of the manure from his 1,400 dairy cow manure. Ohlde uses an umbilical manure spreader that allows the manure to be pumped up to 2-miles without compacting the ground by hauling it in a spreader. It uses less fuel and eliminates time in backhauls to the farm. With increased fertilizer prices the manure nutrients are also increasing in value.

A new method of fractionation - separating the starch, bran and germ in corn for use in ethanol production - is poised to bring changes to the industry that will strengthen demand for corn, open new markets for both additional and improved co-products produced at ethanol plants and reduce the risk of the ethanol industry’s price volatility. It can also increase an ethanol plant’s energy efficiency and decrease overall carbon footprint. MOR Technology in Metropolis, Ill., developed this new process specifically for the ethanol industry, with a focus on creating the highest-value products and lowest cost.

The City of Decorah, IA, has made a commitment to reduce carbon emissions. At a recent City Council Meeting, the steps that have been examined and taken were reviewed. Some measures were not cost-effective. Some are high tech like the installation of variable frequency drivers (VFDs) to eliminate power spikes upon motor startup. Some are as simple as turning off the lights.

Diesel Brewing (www.dieselbrewing.com) announced the company has launched its initiative to manufacture cellulosic biobutanol from Oregon’s ample supplies of biomass and dairy farm manure. “Our program will begin with a demonstration facility built in Salem by the end of 2009, which will process a ton a day of biomass”, said Jeff Raines, CEO of Diesel Brewing. “Next, we will build and operate a semi-commercial plant in eastern Oregon utilizing 10 tons per day (TPD) of nonfood-based waste products. Our final phase will consist of installing multiple 100 TPD biorefineries at selected locations throughout the northwest.”

Food processing waste will be the feedstock for a 5 MMgy ethanol plant in the planning stages at Statesville, NC. The project will be developed as a as a joint venture between Custom Environmental Technology Inc., a wastewater treatment firm based in Matthews, NC, and Green Castle Energy Inc., a new technology firm from Maumee, OH. Phase one of the project will be using wastewater and sludge high in fermentable starches and sugars in a standard ethanol process similar to what is used in the corn ethanol industry. Phase two will incorporate waste paper streams, according to James Bleyer, engineering manager for Green Castle. A third dimension of the project will be to treat the unfermentable solids in an anaerobic digester to produce biogas for process heat.

BioEnergy Development Company, Fishers, IN, announced it has signed a letter of intent with a local utility for the development and construction of a 27 MW biomass electric generation plant in Clay County, IN. “We are hoping to complete the contracts and permitting process in time to begin construction in he fall, and finish the plant by the end of 2010.” reported Robert Swain, President, Bioenergy Development Company.

Just five months after announcing the creation of a Center for Integrated Algal Research, Midwest Research Institute (MRI) has installed and activated two technically distinct bioreactor technologies to accelerate the Institute’s pursuits in algae research. MRI recently activated an open pond “raceway” cultivation system at its laboratory in Palm Bay, FL, and a continuous flow, closed loop photobioreactor at its field station near Kansas City, MO.

Roseburg Forest Products, Dillard, OR, began operating a pellet mill last fall to see if it fit into their operations and have concluded it does. Roseburg Forest Product has the capacity to run Douglas Fir wood through their equipment to make particle board or their 22,000 ton per year pellet mill. After the initial run through the winter the pellet mill was shut down to make adjustments. It is slated to begin production again in June.

Pennsylvania Conservation Districts invest in a mobile pelletizing machine that can convert switch grass to pellets for fuel is due to be delivered next month to Columbia County (PA), just west of Luzerne County. Though the pelletizing machine will be housed in Columbia County, it’ll be on loan to Wayne and other counties. – mj: This is a tested, successful Conservation District Model of buying a specialized piece of equipment that can be used more effectively by multiple land owners. It lowers the risk and maximizes the access to new technologies.

Distance, not speed, was the goal on the track at the 2009 Shell Eco-marathon Americas(R), a challenge for students to design, build and test fuel-efficient vehicles that travel the farthest distance using the least amount of fuel. This year, more than 500 students from North and South America were on hand to stretch the boundaries of fuel efficiency. The student team from Laval University, with an astonishing 2,757.1 miles per gallon won the grand prize in the “Prototype” category.

OriginOil Inc. has developed a single-step process to extract oil from algae. In addition to integrating this process into its own production system, OriginOil plans to commercialize the patent-pending process for use by others in the algae industry. After the algae goes through the OriginOil process, in less than an hour, the oil, water and biomass separate by gravity alone. Unlike conventional systems, no initial de-watering is required. The process combines electromagnetism and pH modification to break down cell walls, releasing the oil within these cells.

Green Tech America Inc. of West Lafayette, IN, announced that it has begun producing a genetically modified yeast that promises to make it easier and faster to turn corn cobs, wood chips and a host of agricultural wastes into ethanol. Green Tech America has licensed the yeast technology developed by Ho and her team. That license allows the company to sell the new yeast, tentatively named Purdue Yeast, and also provide companies with the technical help to use it at their ethanol plants. Although Green Tech’s yeast is available now, Ho said she expects her 3-year-old company to begin full-scale production of the product in about a year.

Lockheed Martin’s first biomass facility companywide is located at its systems integration plant in Owego, NY, and uses tons of wood from nearby Wagner Lumber. The biomass system, which includes two, 600-horsepower boilers, is fully automated.The company pays the lumber mill about $1,000 per 28-ton, truckload. The $5.5 million project’s total payback is expected in just more than four years.

On April 17, 2009, the EPA Administrator signed a proposal with two distinct findings regarding greenhouse gases under section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act:
1) The Administrator is proposing to find that the current and projected concentrations of the mix of six key greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)—in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations. This is referred to as the endangerment finding.
2) The Administrator is further proposing to find that the combined emissions of CO2, CH4, N2O, and HFCs from new motor vehicles and motor vehicle engines contribute to the atmospheric concentrations of these key greenhouse gases and hence to the threat of climate change. This is referred to as the cause or contribute finding.
-mj: While this may be a necessary step in balancing the carbon imbalance, punitive rules that identify toxic emissions tend to complicate the process of adding value to undervalued resources. Most higher species of life emit CO2. It is not the emission of CO2 but the imbalance that is the challenge. It is discouraging that EPA seems to have learned very little in the last 35 years, except to write regulations that scream, “Stop that!” This is NOT sustainable.