Terrabon LLC, a Houston company that’s been investigating making fuel from waste for more than a decade, announced this week that waste collection giant Waste Management of Houston will become an investment partner.

WM, along with existing investment partner Valero Energy Corporation, hopes to make Terrabon’s vision of producing gasoline from waste a viable green alternative fuel within about two years.

Terrabon, unlike ethanol producers, will make its fuel from sewage, human solid waste and organic food garbage, not food stock. And it’s output will be a virtual chemical match (but at a higher octane) for the stuff that’s already powering your car or truck, not a gasoline additive. This key difference means that the Terrabon fuel can be added directly to the existing gasoline fuel stream, a convenience that the company is promoting as an easy, green way to reduce US reliance on foreign oil.

This process, which Terrabon calls MixAlco could displace some yet undetermined percentage of crude oil in gasoline without any special infrastructure, once it’s distilled from the sewage or organic waste that serves as its “feedstock” or base material. Or so the plan goes.

The company has been developing this proprietary technology by supporting research led by chemical engineering professor Dr. Mark T. Holtzapple at Texas A&M University since the 1990s. It hopes to have a fermentation facility up and running at Port Arthur in 2011.

We asked Terrabon CFO Malcolm F. McNeill to explain the firm’s unique process:

Q: Can you elaborate on the chemical process you’re using?

A: The process begins with biomass. We’ll take municipal solid waste and we’ll treat it, break down the lignin. That exposes the cellulose and then we ferment it anaerobically.

Q: How long does that take?

A: There’s a “pile method” – like a compost pile in an enclosed anaerobic environment. That can take a month to six weeks (to ferment). The other method is “submerged fermentation.” We’re building a facility in Port Arthur for that. And that takes just a few weeks. It’s (the solid waste) submerged in water with inoculants.

Q: What is the next step?

A: The fermentation creates these organic salts which are loaded with carbon and hydrogen…We process them into ketones and then put them into a gasoline reactor. We apply heat, and that breaks ketones down into gasoline molecules.

Q: It sounds like that could go right into a gasoline engine?

A: It could, but we don’t. Our idea is to put it into the refiner’s stream….So it’s blended with gasoline that’s produced from oil…

Q: At what proportion?

A: The proportion is still pretty low. We’ll add to a refinery that’s producing millions of gallons (of gasoline) a day and we may add 10,000 gallons a day to that. (Or more: A 220-ton per day facility would produce 5.5 million gallons per year, assuming a 245 day/year work schedule, that would equate to roughly 16,000 gallons per day of input to the gasoline stream.)

The point is, it does reduce our dependence on foreign oil and it’s much cleaner than petroleum gasoline.

Q: It sounds like it’s quite green and sustainable?

A: We’ve found a 180 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions – if you look at the whole process…

Q: You mean compared to the carbon footprint of pulling crude oil from the earth, shipping it here and refining it?

A: Yes, comparing that to our process of collecting waste and processing it. Blue Source Canada, which does carbon assessments for companies, did the evaluation…

Q: And there seems to be a synergy here with the waste company being in Houston and the gasoline partner (Valero) in San Antonio.

A: Yes, we can create the organic salts by creating a facility close to where there’s a waste collection area. The other benefit is that (this process) requires very little adjustment of existing infrastructure. We can easily ship the salts to a blending station or refinery.

Q: So there are more options for mixing it with the gasoline; that can be done regionally?

A: Yes.

Q: And this investment from Waste Management must be a critical piece in moving forward?

A: There’s a serious framework in place now to collect the feedstock that we need and to deliver the resulting product in to the marketplace. Valero is the key to that side of the operation and Waste management is key to delivering the feedstock.

A Waste Management spokesman said the new partnership will help its company meet sustainability goals of doubling its renewable energy production and investing in emerging technologies that put waste to use.

Terrabon also produces gasoline from sorghum biomass at a biofuels research facility in Bryan, Texas, near A&M.

Restaurants looking to green their operations by generating some of their own electrical power are finding it easier as vendor companies try to fill in the gaps.

Owl Power Company, for instance, has developed a way for restaurants to more conveniently use vegetable oil as fuel. Owl’s Vegawatt is a combined heating and power system that runs on vegetable oil and can be connected to existing heating and power systems to be used as supplemental green energy.

Founded by James Peret, President and CEO of Owl Power Company, Vegawatt was first introduced last December at Finz Seafood & Grill in Dedham, Massachusetts.

Here’s how it works: A restaurant deposits vegetable oil waste into the unit and Vegawatt goes to work using a four-step cleaning process to turn used vegetable oil into biofuel. The unit is located outside the restaurant; just like a central air conditioning unit is placed. It contains one electrical hookup, a water feed, and a return feed. This reduces the power required for the water heater, because the water is partially heated through the Vegawatt. Better yet, the Vegawatt requires no maintenance, according to Owl.

While Vegawatt cannot power an entire restaurant, it can produce 10-25% of the energy required, which could translate to hundreds of dollars per month on saved utility costs. Right now, some restaurants pay companies 10-25 cents per gallon to dispose of their used vegetable oil, though others use their oil in vehicles.

With Vegawatt, a restaurant can saves an disposal costs and turn their oil recycling into a cash-positive operation.

Vegawatt, says Owl, provides many environmental benefits. It is:

• Non-toxic
• Non-flammable
• Produces no liquid byproducts
• Reduces carbon emissions
• Decreases waste going into landfills

The $32,000 Vegawatt co-generation systems (their cost after the federal tax credit of 30 percent is $22,000) can be leased or purchased. The company says a restaurant can save about $1,000 a month — offsetting the purchase price in two years — if it produces 80 gallons of waste vegetable oil per week.
(Obviously, a lease makes the equipment payback virtually immediate, as long as the lease amount is less than the money saved on energy cots.)

As with many of green products, there are multiple government incentives when purchasing Vegawatt. Along with the federal tax credit of 30 percent of the cost, the equipment also could qualify for state refunds.

The company is selling primarily in the Northeast, but hoping to expand to the Mid-Atlantic states. “There is a lot of interest in California, Hawaii, the Caribbean, and other places internationally as well,” Peret said.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Everyone knows that cooking oil can be used as a source of fuel, but most folks think of that as something only done by hardcore do-it-yourselfers willing to tinker forever in the garage. If Owl Power Company has its way, that image is going to change, starting in commercial kitchens across America.

The Massachusetts company recently announced its Vegawatt, a user-friendly product with which restaurants can generate between 10 and 25% of their electricity and hot water with used oil from deep fryers.

Traditionally, restaurateurs have had to pay companies to haul away used grease; those of us who had high-school jobs in the fast food industry likely remember the stench of the dumpster-like receptacles in which that waste awaited pickup. Recently, some companies have reversed the equation, paying restaurants up to 25 cents a gallon for newly valuable grease — but the Vegawatt eliminates the middle-man entirely, delivering an energy value that its makers estimate at $2.55 per gallon.

The self-contained unit requires no maintenance from kitchen staff, needs no additional ingredients beyond the grease itself, and produces no liquid byproducts. It’s about the size of a fridge and is located outside the building, much like a central air conditioner. In a recent announcement, the company touted the positive experiences of local business Finz Seafood & Grill, which has been using a Vegawatt for about a month now.

Owl Power quotes Finz owner George Carey, their first customer, saying, “As a restaurant operator I am constantly looking … for costs-saving measures. My largest line-item expense is runaway utility costs. The Vegawatt™ system enables me to significantly reduce my energy costs, generate clean energy on-site, and very importantly, reduce the heavy energy footprint of my restaurant.”

The device is currently offered in a five-year lease plan costing $435 per month, roughly half the amount the company estimates the average restaurant will save in energy costs.

Copyright © 2009 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

An expectation met is rare enough. An expectation surpassed is a culturally appropriate winter solstice celebration miracle.

So imagine my surprise and delight when reading the miles per gallon readout on the trip computer of the 2009 Jetta TDI during a recent holiday drive over the river and through the woods. The display reads: 43.7 mpg. That’s significantly above the Environmental Protection Agency estimate of 40 mpg in highway driving.

And we weren’t doing any of that 55 mph, coast-down-hills, hyper-miler sort of driving. We were zipping along at 70 mph or so, singing loudly along with the Christmas tunes provided by the satellite radio.

That sort of fuel economy apparently isn’t a fluke. Volkswagen hired a third party, automotive evaluation company AMCI, to test the real-world fuel economy of the Jetta TDI and found it performed 24 percent better than EPA estimates, getting 38 mpg in the city and 44 mpg on the highway.

Such miserly fuel use is one reason the Jetta TDI earlier this year was named the 2009 Green Car of the Year by Green Car Journal.

“The Volkswagen Jetta TDI rose to the top as Green Car Journal’s 2009 Green Car of the Year® for some very important reasons,” said Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of Green Car Journal and editor of GreenCar.com.

“Hybrids have dominated the discussion of environmentally positive vehicles in recent years.” Awarding the title to the VW, Cogan said, “shows that advanced clean diesel has arrived and is poised to change this dynamic. With its affordable price point, refined ride and handling, and high fuel economy, the Jetta TDI shows that hybrids now have a strong competitor in the marketplace.”

The diesel cars of today aren’t the clattering, smoky, smelly diesels of 20 years ago. The new vehicles meet even strict California emissions standards, in part because of regulations requiring the development of ultra-low sulfur fuel. Refiners reduced the sulfur content in diesel fuel by 97 percent, making exhaust control systems more effective.

The new, clean-burning diesel cars such as the Jetta are a better alternative to conventional automobiles than even gasoline-electric hybrids such as the Toyota Prius, according to a RAND study.

The study, presented in November 2007 at the annual meeting of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management in Washington, D.C., examined the benefits and costs of three alternatives to the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine for the 2010-2020 period. The alternatives were advanced diesel technology (the kind making its way to dealer showrooms), gas-electric hybrids and duel-fuel vehicles burning E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.

Biomass technology promises what few other alternative fuel schemes can: energy created from waste. Given the controversial use of corn (and other food crops) for biofuel, which is turning out to be less of a greenhouse gas saver than once thought, waste is looking pretty attractive.

A new plant in Central Texas, dedicated last week, promises to take sewage waste, organic garbage, grass clippings and manure, and convert them into gasoline.

Initially the plant, designed as a large-scale demonstration project, will use forage sorghum as its base material. Forage sorghum, unlike other varieties grown to produce sorghum seed for food products, does not steal directly from the human food chain. It is used as feed for cattle, but even so, it’s more renewable than corn because about five times more can be grown per acre.

After proving itself using forage sorghum, the biomass plant is expected to begin converting waste into fuel, a process that offers the dual benefits of recycling waste and capturing its energy, while increasing the options for locally produce energy.

At the moment, the distribution chain for delivering sewage and municipal waste is not as evolved as would be needed for a large-scale production; that is, cities aren’t set up to efficiently deliver their solid waste. Delivery cost and sanitation present kinks in the system.

Still, once all the systems are “go” as they say, using waste and garbage for fuel makes a lot more sense that digging more landfills, according to the innovator behind the conversion process.

“Financially, we benefit at both ends. At the front end, we earn money from ‘tipping fees’ for accepting the waste. At the tail end, we earn money from selling the biofuel,” said Dr. Mark Holtzapple, a professor of chemical engineering at Texas A&M University in College Station.

“The environment benefits because we don’t have to dig holes and throw it (garbage) away, which requires that they be monitored forever because there’s always this fear about toxic chemicals leaching away in landfills,” he said. “Another environmental benefit is that biofuels are CO2 neutral because they were derived from plants and not fossil resources.”

Holtzapple developed the pioneering technology that will be used at the plant, built by Terrebon LLC. The process relies on fermenting the organic waste (or sorghum) and was initially inspired by examining the digestive systems of cattle being studied at A & M.

The process differs from others in the pipeline, used at other biofuel development labs, in that it doesn’t rely on adding enzymes to breakdown matter. Instead, it applies “chemistry that’s been known since the 1920s,” Dr Holtzapple explained.

And while it’s not as carbon-friendly at the user end as its cousin ethanol, which burns more cleanly, locally manufactured gasoline, which will be needed for some time to come, has its virtues — creating local jobs and lessening the need for imported oil.

“I’ve been developing this process for about 18 years,” Holtzapple said, adding that biomass conversion became “his life’s work” after seeing the need for better recovery of waste and energy production during the 1970s energy crisis.

The new facility, dedicated Nov. 7, is in Bryan, Texas, about an hour northwest of Houston, and is expected to be online by year’s end. A smaller pilot project was in operation at the A & M campus nearby for about three years.

At the dedication, Terrebon CEO Gary Luce explained that the fuel could be affordably produced and that cities could generate substantial gasoline from their sewage sludge, according to the Environmental News Service.

For example, the from a city of 200,000 could generate 4.5 million gallons of gasoline every year, he said.

The gasoline could be sold for about $1.50 to $2 a gallon, Dr. Holtzapple said, taking into account a 15 percent return on investment and capital costs of the plant, depreciated over 10 years.

That cost also assumes a payback or “tipping fee” from municipalities for processing wastes, something that is already being done in some locations.

Copyright © 2008 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

While biofuel proponents struggle with concerns that some of their favored technologies — like those turning corn into car fuel — literally take food out of the mouths of the poor in pursuit of fossil-fuel independence, scientists are pursuing alternatives that not only won’t interfere with the global food supply, but actually clean up after it.

A new study published in the Journal of Chemical Technology & Biotechnology claims that renewable bioethanol can be squeezed, not out of olives, but out of the seeds we spit out of them.

According to researchers from the Universities of Jaén and Granada in Spain,
polysaccharides in olive stones “can be broken down into sugar and then fermented to produce ethanol.” Their process involved pressure-cooking the pits, then adding enzymes to degrade them; so far, they’ve achieved yields of 5.7 kilograms of ethanol per 100 kg of pits.

That may not sound like much, but the study quotes an annual available supply of 4 million metric tons of the stuff — removed from olives being packed for table use or squeezed for olive oil — that until now has been treated as waste. What’s more, the pits are so compact they’re economical to ship for processing.

Researchers aren’t claiming olive waste alone will transform transportation, but they do suggest that “if similar principles were employed across all agricultural industries, energy gains would be significant.”

Copyright © 2008 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Swedish Energy Agency (SEA) have extended their partnership with Volvo another three years to develop commercial trucks with greater fuel efficiency. The partnership is an extension of a one-year agreement signed by the three groups in June 2007, with the overall objective of creating heavy-duty engines with at least 10 percent greater fuel efficiency then diesel engines.

A total of $48 million will be used to:

• Test and analyze the impact of different biofuels on diesel engines to increase efficiency and fuel economy, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions of new long haul trucks.

• Develop hybrid vehicle technology for heavy-duty engines and coupled with waste heat recovery.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, green house gas emissions from commercial trucks are steadily increasing. Last year’s statistics reveal green house emissions from commercial trucks are up 69 percent, producing more emissions than commercial airliners.

“This partnership is a step in the right direction,” said Volvo CEO Leif Johansson in a statement. “The climate issue and increasing fuel prices make energy use and energy efficiency some of the most important societal issues of our time.”

“The transportation industry has a special responsibility and this research and development co-operation with the U.S. Government is crucial in our efforts to develop the technology required by both our customers and society as a whole.”

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media