Replacing Coal with Biomass – WIH Resource Group

When thinking about retrofitting coal boilers or building biomass power plants from scratch, utilities should consider all of their options.

Spurred by renewable portfolio standards, impending carbon legislation and public concerns about the environment, utilities across the U.S. are considering how they might lower emissions and incorporate more renewable energy into their electricity generation mix. And while wind, solar and other types of renewable energy plants remain on the table as options to explore, one choice they may already be familiar with is biomass.

If a utility already burns coal, it may be able to convert some or all of its coal-burning plants to biomass plants.

“No question that the utilities in the U.S. are starting to take a serious look at this,” said Charlie Niebling, general manager at New England Wood Pellets, a wood pellets manufacturer. “I think it’s being driven by the prospect of passage of a carbon cap-and-trade bill that will fall heavily on the utility electric generation sector,” he said.

Converting a coal-fired power plant into one that uses biomass is precisely what First Energy plans to do. Last April the utility announced plans to repower its coal-fired R.E. Burger Plant Units 4 and 5 using biomass. Ultimately, the plan is for the 312 MW plant to be powered by up to 100 percent biomass. However, the plant also is being designed with co-firing up to 20 percent coal.

First Energy spokesperson Mark Durbin said the utility is making the switch as a result of a Consent Decree involving the Department of Justice, Environmental Protection Agency and several other parties. “At Burger, we had three choices: install scrubbing equipment, shut it down or repower the plant with another fuel source,” he said.

Repowering the plant with biomass seemed like the best option because it would not only help the utility keep jobs but it would also allow the utility to meet some of Ohio’s renewable portfolio standard goals—with a baseload power source to boot. “Biomass power is continuous and not dependent on the sun shining,” said Durbin. “It can be dispatched when you need it.”

First Energy subsidiary First Energy Generation Corp. is developing the project, which has a cost in the ballpark of $200 million.

Engineers from First Energy traveled to Belgium, Sweden, Denmark and Holland this past spring to visit and learn from existing biomass projects. The system at Les Awirs in Belgium is a retrofitted 80 MW pulverized coal power plant that was converted in 2002 to use biomass as its sole fuel. The utility, Electrabel, uses pelletized recycled forestry/wood waste that is then pulverized before being fed into the power plant’s former pulverized coal boiler. This is a system similar to the one being considered in Ohio.

When complete, the Burger plant will be among the largest biomass power plants in the U.S. Since a project of this size hasn’t been done in the United States, challenges do exist, said Durbin. While the company already has in place equipment and systems to monitor particulates and nitrogen oxide emissions, it will need to solve a number of problems before getting the project off the ground. One problem is storage.

“Coal can get wet, get snowed on,” said Durbin. By contrast, biomass needs to stay dry. Durbin said the company plans to source biomass much in the same way it sources coal: from the best supplier. That may involve using wood chips and/or waste wood and processing it in a manner similar to the way coal is processed, or it may involve sourcing pellets. It’s also possible the company would use organic material such as switchgrass. “We are still working through the logistics,” said Durbin.

What About Heat?

For now, First Energy Generation plans to use the biomass to produce electricity alone and not harvest waste heat for cogeneration or combined heat and power (CHP). And that’s a problem, according to Dan Richter, professor of soils and forest ecology at Duke University.

“If we burn wood for electricity only, about three to four logs need to be burned to recover the energy contained in one. If heat and electricity are recovered with advanced wood combustion (AWC) technology, we can capture three to four times the energy that is recovered when burning wood solely for electricity,” he said.

Richter said AWC technology is widely deployed in Europe with plants achieving up to 90 percent efficiencies from burning biomass. Interestingly, four of the five plants that First Energy Generation engineers visited in Europe are combined heat and power (CHP) plants, even though the Ohio plant will generate electricity only.

Richter and a consortium of experts in the forestry and energy industry believe that burning wood solely for electricity wastes sizeable amounts of thermal energy.

“When we do calculations on how much wood is available in the nation and we look at potential supplies for energy we find that there’s just not enough of it to waste,” he said. “But if we can use it efficiently — capturing 70, 80, 90 percent [of the embodied energy in wood] — then wood does become a pretty interesting source of renewable energy that the country isn’t really aware of yet.”

The group authored an op-ed, Rekindling Wood Energy in America, published on RenewableEnergyWorld.com in June in which they stated, “Wood is widely used for solid-wood and paper products, and is critical to forest biodiversity, water and soil quality, recreation and carbon sequestration. For all these reasons, common sense indicates wood must be used as efficiently as possible.”

What’s a Utility to Do?

To use AWC, any burning of biomass must capture and use the heat created in the process. Richter points to college campuses, small towns and urban areas across the country that are using this type of technology through CHP systems; in essence, using biomass to generate electricity as well as to heat and cool buildings in a centralized location.

Richter said that siting is one of the keys to take advantage of AWC technology. “Siting is so important to be able to technologically capture the heat as well as to ensure supplies of the biomass energy itself,” he said.

In other words, people or industries need to be near the system to take advantage of the biomass-generated heat. There also needs to be enough woody biomass nearby to ensure that transportation isn’t an issue.

But what about utilities that are converting coal-fired plants that are not sited in such a way so that they could harvest heat?

“What they might do is think about developing an industrial park around the plant,” said Richter.

Benefits Abound

In western Massachusetts another company is preparing to build a wood-fueled power plant. Russell Biomass is proposing a 50 MW plant on the former home of the Westfield River Paper Co.

According to Peter Bos, project developer, the Russell Biomass plant will use wood from 40 or 50 different wood suppliers. The suppliers will provide wood chips from untreated wood that comes from land clearing and tree removal, stumps, waste pallets and municipal as well as private woodyards that receive clean waste wood.

Bos said New England has quite a bit of waste wood. While the company has yet to sign a purchased power agreement, it is talking with investor-owned utilities and municipal power companies in Massachusetts and elsewhere in New England.

The project is not without opponents, with groups protesting everything from air pollutants to the impact the waste heat will have on salmon populations in nearby rivers. To address this opposition, Bos said the company simply must provide the facts clearly and consistently, again and again. He said this biomass plant is the tightest permitted biomass plant in New England.

“If the others are safe — and there are others at schools and hospitals across New England — then ours is the safest.”

Like First Energy’s plant in Ohio, the Russell Biomass plant (pictured left) will not use CHP technology, instead using biomass to create electricity at an efficiency rate of 25 percent. The heat won’t be harvested in any kind of district heating scenario; “it’s just not a good location for that,” said Bos. However, using the 85-degree cooling water that exits the plant to heat a greenhouse is an option that has been discussed.

With or without CHP, New England Wood Pellet’s Niebling believes we’ll see more utilities looking at biomass power.

“Many utilities are probably quietly exploring this option getting ready for what may be coming out of Washington,” he said. “If it’s cost effective to do, I suspect many of them are going to do it.”

Source: Renewable Energy World and WIH Resource Group

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Solid Waste Landfills are Producing Pipeline Quality Natural Gas – WIH Resource Group

With improved processing technologies and attractive natural gas prices, more landfills are producing pipeline-quality gas.

After several years of inactivity, the number of high-Btu landfill gas energy projects is increasing. Since 2006, 11 construction startups and three expansions of high-Btu projects have taken place, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Landfill Methane Outreach Program (LMOP).

Today’s high-Btu projects employ the latest advancements in technology to remove carbon dioxide and other impurities from landfill gas, resulting in a gas that is more than 95 percent methane and has a heating value equivalent to natural gas. Recent improvements in technology and higher returns on the finished gas have made high-Btu projects a viable option for more landfills — including facilities with lower gas flows.

Ordinary landfill gas consists of roughly 50 percent methane — which is the primary component of natural gas — 50 percent carbon dioxide, a small amount of nonmethane organic compounds (NMOCs) and other trace impurities. Removing the carbon dioxide and other impurities from landfill gas doubles its heating value, making it comparable to natural gas, which has a heating value of 1,025 Btu per cubic feet (ft3) to 1,095 Btu/ft3.

High-Btu landfill gas is most often injected directly into natural gas pipelines. Once in the pipeline, the gas blends with the natural gas and is distributed to a gas utility’s customers.

The Trends

Up until 2006, the growth of high-Btu projects was flat, averaging around one startup or expansion per year, as illustrated in Figure 1 on p. 46. In 2007, however, the number of startups and expansions began to grow steadily. In fact, 18 of the 25 high-Btu projects operating as of August 2009 were started or expanded during the last three years. LMOP expects a total of 10 projects to begin operation in 2009, including five that have come on line already. (Those five are Oak Grove Landfill in Winder, Ga.; Live Oak Landfill in Conley, Ga.; Carter Valley Landfill in Church Hill, Tenn.; Greenwood Farms Landfill in Tyler, Texas; and Turnkey Recycling & Environmental Enterprises in Rochester, N.H.)

In 2007, the Rumpke SLF Landfill in Cincinnati completed a $15 million expansion of its high-Btu processing plant, which began operating at the site in 1986. The expansion increased the processing of landfill gas from 9 million cubic feet per day (mmft3/day) to 15 mmft3/day. According to Rick O’Mahony, vice president of operations of Pittsburgh-based Montauk Energy, which is the developer and owner/operator of the plant, the plant was expanded to take advantage of increasing volumes of landfill gas. “We could either flare the gas at some marginal cost or expand the plant to provide increased gas processing with the associated sales of high-Btu gas to the gas utility,” says O’Mahony, who has helped develop six high-Btu landfill gas projects.

The three key factors that have contributed to the recent growth of high-Btu landfill gas projects are low wholesale electricity prices, high natural gas wholesale prices and improvements in gas separation technologies.

Wholesale prices for electricity and natural gas significantly affect which type of project will be profitable. Over the last several years, national wholesale electricity prices have been relatively steady, as illustrated in Figure 2 on p. 46. Meanwhile, natural gas prices have increased significantly since 2001 (see Figure 3 on p. 46). When natural gas prices rose from 2005 through 2008 — approaching $9 per million Btus — many landfills were able to pursue high-Btu projects.

Improvements in technology also have helped spur the growth of high-Btu landfill gas projects by making these projects feasible at landfills that provide less than 3,000 standard cubic feet per minute (scfm) of landfill gas. For example, manufacturers have reduced the cost to build gas-processing equipment and have reduced pressure requirements, which have decreased operating costs.

David Mauney, an experienced landfill gas project developer and consultant with The Hunter Group, explains how high-Btu projects are not just for larger landfills any more. “Initially, high-Btu projects required at least 3,000 scfm. But with improvements in the technology today, you can go as low as 1,500 to 2,000 scfm.” LMOP has recorded at least 10 high-Btu projects at landfills that provided less than 3,000 scfm of landfill gas to the project.

Meeting the Specifications

Landfill gas must be thoroughly cleaned and upgraded before it can be sold to a natural gas utility. To meet the typical specifications for pipeline-quality landfill gas (see chart on p. 48), several steps are required.

The final step, carbon dioxide removal, is the main component of a high-Btu project. This is because carbon dioxide constitutes approximately half of the raw landfill gas, and its removal requires specialized separation equipment. Removal of NMOCs, hydrocarbons and siloxanes often is achieved concurrently with carbon dioxide removal. To create pipeline quality gas, a combination of technologies may be necessary, depending on the composition of the landfill gas. Here are the four steps to creating pipeline quality gas:

1. Minimize oxygen and nitrogen.To minimize nitrogen and oxygen levels, a landfill may need to upgrade its gas collection system to prevent air intrusion. Landfill gas collection systems operate under a vacuum, and oxygen and nitrogen from the atmosphere can be drawn through the surface of the landfill and into the gas collection system. Air intrusion can be minimized by adjusting well vacuums and repairing leaks in the landfill cover.
2. Remove moisture.To remove moisture, many landfills employ a chiller or desiccant. Compressing and cooling the landfill gas further removes moisture. For high-Btu projects, removing the moisture (measured as water vapor) prevents interference with the subsequent compression and separation processes.
3. Remove hydrogen sulfide.Hydrogen sulfide can be removed using liquid absorption, either with chemical or physical solvents and usually in a continuous process, or through adsorption on a solid reactant product in a batch process.
4. Remove carbon dioxide.Four carbon dioxide removal technologies, described below, have been applied at landfills in the United States: scrubbing, membrane separation, molecular sieve (pressure swing adsorption) and CO2Wash.

Scrubbing uses a solvent that preferentially absorbs carbon dioxide and other gases into the liquid phase (also known as liquid absorption or physical solvent treating). Early high-Btu plants relied primarily on scrubbing technology, including the plants at the Fresh Kills Landfill in New York City and the McCarty Road Landfill in Houston, both of which began operations in the 1980s.

For these projects, large-scale cleanup technology was built on site, modeled after natural gas processing plants. Significant capital was required to build the processing plants and compress the landfill gas to appropriate pressure levels — 600 pounds-force per square inch gauge (psig). Scrubbing technology has therefore been applied historically at high-volume landfills that could generate enough gas (i.e., greater than 6,000 scfm) to ensure long-term returns. Recent technology advancements, however, have lowered the pressure requirements to around 400 psig and made smaller projects (those less than 3,000 scfm) possible.

One of the first applications of a gas treatment system on a smaller scale occurred at the Johnson County Landfill in Shawnee, Kan., in 2001. The landfill installed a modular scrubbing plant on a skid, specifically developed for smaller applications. According to the project developer, South Tex Renewables, the skid-mounted design is less expensive and easier to install and operate than previous technology. Pressure requirements are 400 psig. LMOP’s national database shows that five physical solvent high-Btu landfill gas projects have come on line since 2000 at landfills with gas flow as low as 1,000 scfm.

With membrane separation, different gases pass through porous membranes at different rates based on molecule size, allowing for the separation of compounds. Carbon dioxide passes through the membrane approximately 20 times faster than methane. In the past, a drawback to this technology’s application in the landfill gas industry was that pressure of around 600 psig was required to push the carbon dioxide through the membranes. Recent technology advancements, however, have lowered the pressure requirements to around 200 psig, thereby making smaller project sizes (less than 3,000 scfm) possible.

Membrane separation is relatively easy to operate and maintain. LMOP’s national database shows that nine of the high-Btu projects that started up since 2000 use membrane separation technology to remove carbon dioxide. More than half of those projects use technology that consists of a pre-treatment skid to remove NMOCs and a series of membrane modules to remove carbon dioxide and some oxygen.

Molecular sieve (pressure swing adsorption) uses vapor phase activated carbon for NMOC removal and a molecular sieve for carbon dioxide removal. The molecular sieve media preferentially adsorbs carbon dioxide on the media surface. When the media is loaded with carbon dioxide, the molecular sieve is taken off line, and the media is regenerated through a depressurization and purge cycle. (The process is therefore often referred to as pressure swing adsorption or PSA.) Molecular sieve media that selectively remove nitrogen also are available. PSAs can achieve some incidental oxygen removal. Four projects that started up or expanded in 2007 and 2008 use PSA, including the Rumpke Landfill in Cincinnati.

CO2Wash is a patented process that uses liquid carbon dioxide obtained from landfill gas as a solvent. After moisture removal and compression, landfill gas moves upward through a three-story column. Refrigeration at the top of the column condenses the carbon dioxide into liquid form. A portion of the liquid carbon dioxide washes down the column, cleansing volatile organic contaminants from the gas. The process produces two products: food-grade carbon dioxide (meaning the gas is 99.99 percent carbon dioxide) and medium-Btu gas (70 percent methane) that is virtually free of siloxanes and volatile organic compounds. The medium-Btu gas can be used as fuel, or it can undergo membrane processing to produce high-Btu gas.

Looking Ahead

The price of natural gas will continue to influence the number of new high-Btu projects. For 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts an average annual price of $4.67 per million Btus, and for 2010, $5.87 per million Btus. Beyond 2010, EIA projects a steady increase, nearing $8 per million Btus by 2020.

Two new projects have already come on line in 2009, with six more expected. The upcoming projects employ three different carbon removal technologies: scrubbing, membrane, and molecular sieve. Developers and technology providers will continue to demonstrate and refine the technology, paving the way for even more projects at landfills of all sizes.

What is LMOP?

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Landfill Methane Outreach Program (LMOP) promotes landfill gas as a renewable local energy resource. As of June 2009, LMOP has encouraged and facilitated the development of approximately 410 landfill gas (LFG) energy projects since the voluntary program’s inception in 1994. These projects have prevented the release of more than 33.8 million metric tons of carbon equivalent into the atmosphere over the past 14 years. This reduction has the same environmental benefit as preventing the carbon dioxide emissions that would result from the consumption of nearly 197 million barrels of oil.

As of December 2008, more than 790 LMOP Partners have signed voluntary agreements to work with EPA to help promote and advance LFG energy. Today, approximately 480 LFG energy projects are operating nationwide, and about 130 projects are under construction or development. LMOP estimates that roughly 520 additional landfills present attractive opportunities for project development.

Sources: Waste Age Magazine and WIH Resource Group

Should you have any questions about this news or general questions about our diversified services, please contact Bob Wallace, Principal & VP of Client Solutions at WIH Resource Group and Waste Savings, Inc. at admin@wihrg.com

Feel free to visit our websites for additional information on our services at: http://www.wihrg.com and http://www.wastesavings.net and our daily blog at http://wihresourcegroup.wordpress.com

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Manure Power: Dairies Harness Methane to Create Renewable Energy – WIH Resource Group

The 2,600 cows at Vintage Dairy west of Fresno produce up to 140 tons of manure per day. 

 

Four times a day, 5,000 gallons of water flush manure down the rows of the open-stall barns at Vintage Dairy – collecting about 90 percent of the waste. Photo by Jennifer Baldwin

 

David Albers is a third-generation dairy farmer, and environmental lawyer, and founder and CEO of BioEnergy Solutions. Photo by Jennifer Baldwin

 

Albers demonstrates the thickness of the polyurethane liner covering the anaerobic digestion lagoon at Vintage Dairy. His guests are students from Independence High School’s energy academy in Bakersfield. Photo by Jennifer Baldwin

 

 The “scrubbing plant” at Vintage Dairy upgrades the biogas to high-quality methane that matches the purity of natural gas. The black tower on the left is the desulfurization tower and the white tower on the right burns off the carbon dioxide. Photo by Jennifer Baldwin

 

 A red valve marks the spot where Pacific Gas & Electric Company takes title to the biomethane produced at Vintage Dairy. Photo by Jennifer Baldwin

 David Albers knows the power of poop. Cow manure, that is. The third generation dairy farmer from Bakersfield has 2,600 cows producing about 130 tons of manure each day.  But he prefers to count it differently.

 “The way we’ve broken it down is, two cows can power one home each day. So our cows power about 1,300 homes.”

 Just how does he make the leap from poop to power? Albers’ Vintage Dairy, located west of Fresno, is the first in the state of California – and one of the first in the nation – to capture the gas released from the decomposing manure, turn it into high-quality methane, and sell it directly to a power company as natural gas.

 In his case, he injects the gas into a Pacific Gas & Electric Company line that runs through his property. The utility company pays Albers for the gas, then pipes it to an energy plant, where it is burned to produce electricity.

 So not only does Albers make a profit as a dairy farmer, he also brings in income for creating and selling renewable energy. Furthermore, he’s helping to lessen the affects of global warming by reducing his dairy farm’s greenhouse gas emissions.

 It’s a practice he believes in so wholeheartedly, he has launched an entire business devoted to it. As founder and CEO of BioEnergy Solutions, based in Bakersfield, Albers offers to fund and install biogas systems at other dairies and split the gas revenue and emission credits with the farmers. So far, his is the only dairy with the system, which went online in 2008. He reports he has contracts with 39 dairies and letters of intent from 150 more.   His project is certainly gaining attention.

 In September, the California Environmental Protection Agency and other state agencies honored BioEnergy Solutions with a Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award in the “climate change” category.

 Albers’ project “is at the top of our list for uses for methane,” said Dave Warner, director of permit services for the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. “It gets fed directly into a pipeline, so it’s a perfect solution.”

 What to do with all that gas

There are about 1.8 million diary cows in California producing methane – one of the main greenhouse gasses that cause global warming, and also one of the main sources of energy in this state. With a little “scrubbing,” all that methane can be purified and used to heat homes, generate electricity and even fuel cars.

 So why aren’t more dairies capturing and selling their methane? It comes down to money.

 “Financing is the big obstacle,” said Allen Dusault, program director for sustainable agriculture with the San Francisco-based nonprofit, Sustainable Conservation. He works with dairies that want to capture their methane and put it to use. But these systems are very expensive, and until recent law mandated power companies to use more renewable energy, dairies had a hard time selling either the natural gas or electricity generated on-site. For most dairies, the cost benefit of installing the methane digesters and scrubbing plants does not outweigh the savings from generating their own power. The systems can cost into the millions. 

Even so, there are about 30 dairies in California that digest manure and generate power on-site, according to Cindy Pollard, spokeswoman with PG&E. Of the dairies that use internal combustion engines to burn the gas and generate power, some have recently shut down, according to Dusault, after new regulations required the dairies to cut down on the nitrogen oxides released from those engines.Nitrogen oxides are one of the main culprits for ground-level air pollution, including summertime smog, said Warner of the air pollution control district. This is why the district prefers other uses for purified methane, called biomethane, such as injecting it into natural gas lines – or compressing it to fuel vehicles.

One large dairy in Lindsey is doing just that. Hilarides Dairy has converted its fleet to run on natural gas and compresses its biomethane to fuel their trucks. According to an article by Dairy Herd Management, the 9,000-cow dairy is capable of producing an equivalent of 700 to 800 gallons of diesel fuel each day.Could California’s dairies effectively fuel natural gas-powered vehicles? A 25 report, researched by Ken Krich of Sustainable Conservation, posed this fact:“Manure from about half the cows in California could provide enough biomethane to power all the natural gas vehicles currently operating in the state,” according to the report, Biomethane From Dairy Waste.Other industries that also produce a lot of methane, such as swine farms, landfills, waste water treatment sites and food processing plants, are also prime for biomethane production. California may want to look to Europe, particularly Sweden and Germany, where biomethane has become an industry standard over the past 10 years, according to Dusault.Warner says some waste water treatment plants in California are already capturing their methane and using it to produce their own electricity. And earlier this month, the world’s largest landfill gas to liquefied natural gas facility opened in Livermore. The gas can fuel up to 300 garbage trucks operated by Waste Management, according to the company’s website.

How it works

A tour of David Albers’ Vintage Dairy shows just how big of an operation it is to capture, clean and sell natural gas-quality methane. The tour starts in one of the long, open-stall barns that houses row after row of cows. Each row has a feeding station along one side and a sandy spot for the cows to lay down on the other. All manure is aimed into the center of the row.

The first step in the process is effective manure collection, Albers explains, and this type of housing – unlike an open feed lot – allows his dairy to collect about 90 percent of the manure.“Four times a day, 5,000 gallons of water is pushed through here,” washing the manure down the row into a canal, Albers says.

The canal transports the sludge to a processing pit, where it is then pumped about 200 yards away to a mechanical separator. Solids are dumped into a composting pile to be turned into fertilizer for the dairy’s feed crops.The liquid remainder flows by gravity into a 5-acre, 38-feet-deep pit covered with a thick liner made of high-density polyurethane. This is the anaerobic digester.

In the absence of oxygen, bacteria break down the sludge and release biogas, which is composed of mostly methane and carbon dioxide, with a little hydrogen sulfide as well.The gas enters a perforated pipe that runs the perimeter of the covered lagoon and is delivered to an on-site “scrubbing plant” that first desulfurizes the gas, and then removes the carbon dioxide.

The carbon dioxide is “flared,” or burned off (the effects of which are not harmful to the air, Warner of the air pollution control district said). What is left is high-quality methane that matches the purity of natural gas.The gas runs to a station 1,500 feet away where a compressor brings it up to the same level as the natural gas flowing through PG&E’s line running through the dairy’s property.

Then, at a red valve, PG&E takes title to the gas.And, what happens to all of that water? Albers points to a crystal clear pond on the other side of PG&E’s right of way.“There’s nothing floating in it. It’s all been broken down in the digester,” Albers says. The water will be used to irrigate the dairy’s crops of alfalfa, wheat and sorghum when the economy lets up and it becomes feasible to grow their own feed again, he says. For now, their crop farming operations are shut down.

Affects of the economy

The economic recession has also slowed Albers’ plans for expansion. Once he’s able to secure the financing, his first step will be to build digesters at four neighboring dairies and pipe their biogas to his plant for processing.Next up will be to build a similar system in Shafter, starting with Tjaarda Dairy and expanding to its neighbors.

That 3,000-cow dairy also has a PG&E natural gas pipeline running through it. By clustering the digesters, Albers can invest in one scrubbing station to be shared by several dairies.Perry Tjaarda has been in the dairy business for 45 years, starting in Corona, then Bakersfield and now, for the past 10 years, in Shafter. He’s experienced ever-tightening regulations and knows he has to do something to get ahead of future greenhouse gas emission rules.

“Over the last few years a lot of focus has been put on dairies and the possible pollutants they produce. Are we polluting or are we not? And if we are, what are we doing about it?” he said.Regardless of the “science behind the rhetoric,” Tjaarda says he sees an economic benefit to capturing and utilizing the methane from his dairy’s manure – especially if Albers’ BioEnergy Solutions is willing to front the cost of the system.“By pumping into PG&E’s gas line, we get paid a little, David gets paid a little, and we get (emission) credits. It’s a win-win. It makes sense,” he said.

All this wouldn’t be possible if a new law hadn’t been passed in 2006 that mandated utility companies in California to get at least 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2010. It also helps that Albers has 10 years under his belt as an environmental lawyer and knows his way around the legal issues and permitting processes for dairies.

Every time a project he represented was up for environmental review, “at least one person would say, ‘Why not build an anaerobic digester?’” he said. “Under California law, I would have to respond with an analysis showing we researched the economic feasibility.”And in every case it would not be economically feasible to build a digester only to produce an excessive amount of power that utilities would be unwilling to pay for.

But when Senate Bill 107 passed in 2006, utilities changed their tunes. And, in November 2008, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order that utilities obtain at least 33 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020.Furthermore, dairies face possible mandatory greenhouse gas emission reductions under Assembly Bill 32.

That bill, called the “California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006,” mandated the California Air Resources Board to develop a scoping plan to reduce statewide greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.That plan points out that 6 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in California come from agriculture, and they are “largely methane emissions from livestock, both from animals and their waste.”

While the plan currently calls for voluntary reductions among dairies, it also recommends revisiting the issue in 2013 to possibly make the reductions mandatory.If that becomes the case, manure digesters could become the industry standard for large dairies in California and Albers’s BioEnergy Solutions could very well be the state’s leader in the effort.

PG&E spokeswoman Pollard said the utility does have contracts with other companies to buy biomethane. One of those is Microgy, a subsidiary of New York-based Environmental Power Corporation, which has plans to build three scrubbing stations near dairy clusters in Kerman, Riverdale and Hanford. But those projects are not yet online.

Albers’ Vintage Dairy is the only one injecting biomethane from dairy manure into existing pipeline in California today.“I love what we’re doing,” Albers said. “With this kind of thing, we have to pinch ourselves. How cool is it to come up with something that’s good all the way around? We are doing an environmental project on a dairy, we are providing renewable energy to PG&E, the dairyman gets a new revenue stream, and all of us get cleaner air because there are less emissions in the atmosphere.

”David Albers will be one of the featured speakers at the third annual Kern County Energy Summit presented by the Kern Economic Development Corporation. “Kern County’s Emerging Energy Technologies” is from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12, at Bakersfield Marriott at the Convention Center, 801 Truxtun Ave. Registration is $50. For a registration form, go to www.kedc.com or call 862-5150.

Sources: Bakersfield Express & WIH Resource Group

Should you have any questions about this news or general questions about our diversified services, please contact Bob Wallace, Principal & VP of Client Solutions at WIH Resource Group and Waste Savings, Inc. at admin@wihrg.com

Feel free to visit our websites for additional information on our services at: http://www.wihrg.com and http://www.wastesavings.net and our daily blog at http://wihresourcegroup.wordpress.com

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World’s Largest Landfill Natural Gas Plant Opens in Livermore, California – WIH Resource Group

Cutting the ribbon at the new landfill gas to liquefied natural gas plant at the Waste Management Altamont Landfill and Resource Recovery Facility in Livermore took a lot of hands. Holding the big scissors were representatives from Waste Management, The Linde Group, the Gas Technology Institute (GTI), the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the California Energy Commission, and the California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB), all of whom played a role in making the plant a reality. “This is something I’ve dreamed about for eight years, the concept of taking gas from waste in the ground and turning it into clean fuel that we use in our trucks,” said Waste Management senior vice president Duane Woods. He noted that during the two-hour opening event, the landfill gas (LFG)-to-liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant would produce about 700 gallons of ultra-low-carbon LNG for Waste Management’s truck fleet. When the plant reaches its full capacity, it will produce 13,000 gallons a day. The Altamont LFG-to-LNG plant, the largest such facility in the world, is a partnership between Waste Management and Linde, a world-leading gases and engineering company. Four California agencies contributed to the $15.5 million project: CIWMB, CARB, the California Energy Commission, and the South Coast Air Quality Management District. GTI managed several of the state grants and licensed elements of the LNG production technology used at the facility. “We love this project and there is really nothing not to love about it,” said CARB chair Mary Nichols, who represented Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at the event. “It’s taking material that would otherwise go into the atmosphere and be a contributor to global warming and turning it into a useful product that is cutting emissions.” As organic matter within the Altamont Landfill decomposes, it produces “landfill gas,” a mixture of mostly methane and carbon dioxide, both greenhouse gases. An elaborate network of wells and a vacuum extraction system capture the landfill gases, which are then run through an extensive filtration system and converted into LNG. The energy to power the plant also comes from LFG pumped through solar gas turbines connected to generators, a system that has been in place for 10 years.  When LNG vehicles from Waste Management’s fleet arrive at the Altamont Landfill to drop off trash, they can refuel right at the LFG-to-LNG plant. The LNG will also be used in Waste Management vehicles in 20 California communities. “With this new plant, we can reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and drastically reduce the carbon emissions from our natural gas fleet by creating a clean fuel from thousands of tons of garbage that have been disposed of in this facility,” said Woods. He added that the LNG produced at the Altamont Landfill has 85% less carbon intensity than gasoline or diesel and even has lower carbon emissions than electric vehicles, when considering everything it takes to charge such vehicles. “This is exactly the kind of win-win situation we are looking for in trying to transform our whole energy economy away from having to extract, process, and import fuels from other parts of the world,” said Nichols. The Altamont LFG-to-LNG facility meets two of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s environmental directives: the Bioenergy Action Plan, which seeks to advance the use and market development of biomass as a transportation fuel, and Executive Order S-3-05, which aims to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2020. “To meet our State’s goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we need to take advantage of biofuels such as these being created here. They are in very short supply right now. Although there are inventions out there on the horizon, this is really the only full-size producing plant in existence today,” Nichols added. With the commissioning of the Altamont Landfill LFG-to-LNG facility, Waste Management and Linde are already turning their sights to new projects. “There is a lot of landfill gas still being flared, so there is a lot of potential out there,” said Kent Stoddard, a Waste Management vice president. “Biogas is an important domestic source of renewable energy.” The two companies are scouting locations for another LFG-to-LNG plant, which could be another of Waste Management’s 227 landfills nationwide. Once a site is chosen, construction of a plant would take about 12 to 15 months. Steve Eckhardt, who heads alternative energy business development for Linde, said he’s been fielding constant requests from around the world for information about the LFG-to-LNG plant. “It took a lot of time and energy to get here, but we’ve shown it can be done cost-effectively and efficiently,” he said.

Sources: The Independent & WIH Resource Group

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QinetiQ To Deliver Its Pyrolysis Waste Disposal System To US Army

With military forces increasingly having to consider their environmental impact, QinetiQ has been awarded a 1.5 million pounds Sterling, three year Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to develop and deliver PyTEC(TM) – an ISO containerised Pyrolysis Waste Disposal System – to the US Army.

Able to operate 24/7 and process up to 100kg of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) per hour, the PyTEC system also reclaims up to 500 kW of the thermal energy from the waste per hour, a proportion of which will be used to sustain the process for electricity generation. The self sustaining thermal pyrolysis process is designed to meet today’s environmental challenges and delivers a significant reduction in operating costs when compared to incineration or contracting for other methods of waste management and disposal. MSW is effectively all general domestic waste that might be produced in an army base and includes food, medical and sanitary, paper, plastics, tin, oil and glass.

Being tested to Technology Readiness Level (TRL 9) this programme for the US Army is currently in the system design, demonstration and testing phase. Plant commissioning and testing is due to commence next spring with delivery expected by mid year, followed by an extended US Army conducted testing and evaluation trial period, continuing through to early 2012. The programme is jointly funded by US Office of the Secretary of Defence (OSD) through the Foreign Comparative Testing (FCT) Programme and is expected to result in more than 10 systems eventually being acquired.

“The US Army’s introduction of the PyTEC Pyrolysis Waste Disposal System solution should provide a dramatic increase in sustainability and force protection,” stated Lt Col Daryl “Rick” Harger, Product Manager Force Sustainment Systems, part of Program Executive Office Combat Support and Combat Service Support (PEO CS&CSS). “The PEO’s mission is to focus on equipping and supporting the joint war fighter through the development and fielding of systems with increased capability which support DoD objectives and enable a more expeditionary force.”

“PyTEC reduces the need for outside contractors to access the secure base camp to dispose of solid waste, dramatically reducing potential threats,” added Pat McGlead, QinetiQ’s Business Development Manager for the PyTEC solution. “Not having to rely on local contractors for solid waste disposal gives commanders the flexibility to operate in terrain which would be otherwise unsupportable plus means they can proactively manage their environmental impact. The energy recovery aspect will also significantly reduce the amount of fuel needed to support the base camp and provide associated cost savings while reducing the number of trucks on the road and freeing logistics assets for more critical mission requirements. PyTEC will enable the US Army forward operating bases to move towards being more self sufficient in the management of their waste management requirements.”

QinetiQ’s PyTEC Pyrolysis Waste Disposal System is housed in two standard free standing interconnected 8ft x 8ft x 20ft skeleton ISO containers that are fitted with hinged opening sides. Based on the latest COTS technology PyTEC requires minimal operator training or involvement to operate by allowing unsorted waste to be continually fed into automated the closed loop system and super heated, with just 25 litres of inert ‘char’ being produced per 100kg or raw waste processed, subject to the proportion of organic waste mix.

Source: QinetiQ, Solidwaste.com & WIH Resource Group

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California Accelerates its Pursuit of Clean Energy

California’s commitment to renewable energy and energy efficiency got two major boosts recently. For renewable energy, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order on September 15, requiring the state’s utilities to get a third of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020.

The state currently has a 20% renewable power requirement by 2010 for investor-owned utilities only, but the executive order extends and increases that mandate, while also expanding it to include public power utilities and other electricity providers. The governor’s directive calls for the California Air Resources Board to adopt new regulations to implement the renewable mandate by July 31, 2010.

Three years ago, Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill to achieve a 25% cut in statewide greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and the new renewable energy requirement will help to meet that goal.

While making a substantial commitment to renewable energy, the state has also launched the largest investment in energy efficiency ever made by a state., On September 24, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved a $3.1 billion slate of ratepayer-supported energy efficiency programs for 2010-2012.

The effort will be administered by California’s investor-owned utilities, including Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, San Diego Gas and Electric Company, and the Southern California Gas Company. One benefit cited by CPUC is the launching of the nation’s largest home retrofit program. Under the California Statewide Program for Residential Energy Efficiency, the state aims to achieve a 20% energy savings for up to 130,000 homes over a three-year span.

The CPUC will also provide $175 million to encourage the construction of net zero energy homes and commercial buildings. That portion of the funding will help with design assistance, incentives for new buildings that exceed the state’s energy code, and research and demonstration of new energy technologies. In addition, the CPUC program sets aside $260 million in funds for 64 cities, counties, and regional agencies, targeting retrofits of public buildings as well as leading-edge energy efficiency opportunities. 

Source:  DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) & WIH Resource Group

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Natural Gas Fuel for Refuse Trucks – The Right Choice

NGVAmerica has strengthened the argument for take-up of natural gas vehicles in the US, holding their annual summit in conjunction with WasteCon 2009, on this week at Long Beach, California.

NGVAmerica’s President Rich Kolodziej told Fleets and Fuels (F&F)- “It is an area of special potential. They use a lot of fuel,” he says, “but don’t clock long distances. They do a lot of idling, and draw a lot of engine power to run compactors.” Kolodziej notes that many carters work under franchise deals and are vulnerable to fuel price increases, such as that which occurred in 2008. “Natural gas has all the benefits they’re looking for,” he says, with price stability at the top of the list.

Tighter environmental regulations are also making natural gas more economical. In an advertising supplement – Natural Gas Trucks – Proven, Reliable Performance, Using Our Abundant, Economical Resource for a Cleaner, Stronger America the organization declares its theme of waste management transportation — “Natural gas-powered refuse and recycling trucks are on the job every day in more than 100 communities all across North America with nearly 3500 in service as of January 2009 and over a thousand more expected to hit the streets in the coming year.

The waste industry is just one of several sectors that are embracing natural gas as a motor fuel.” Kolodziej also pointed to the current practice of flaring biomethane erupting from decomposing landfills as a wasted resource that could be harnessed for vehicle fuel. Although conceding that biomethane remains expensive because of purification costs, Kolodziej observes costs are dropping, and the little-known renewable fuel will likely benefit many vehicle operators in the years to come. “At the head of that line are the trash truck operators,” Kolodziej says.

Source: Fleets and Fuels (F&F)

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When It Comes to Pollution, Less (Kids) May Be More

To heck with carbon dioxide. A new study performed by the London School of Economics suggests that, to fight climate change, governments should focus on another pollutant: us.

As in babies. New people.

Every new life, the report says, is a guarantee of new greenhouse gases, spewed out over decades of driving and electricity use. Seen in that light, we might be our own worst emissions.

The activist group that sponsored the report says birth control could be one of the world’s best tools for fighting climate change. By preventing the creation of new polluters, the group says, contraceptives are a far cheaper solution than windmills and solar plants.

It is an unorthodox — and, for now, unpopular — way to approach the problem, which can seem so vast and close that it is driving many thinkers toward gizmos and oddball ideas.

“There is no possibility of drastically reducing total carbon emissions, while at the same time paying no attention whatever to the drastic increase in the number of carbon emitters,” said Roger Martin, chairman of the Optimum Population Trust, a British nonprofit that sponsored the report and whose goal is to rein in population growth in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. “For reasons of an irrational taboo on the subject, [family planning] has never made it onto the agenda, and this is extremely damaging to the planet.”

The Cost of Each Life

It is nothing unusual, of course, to think that the Earth could really use fewer of us.

In the 1700s, Thomas Malthus worried that population growth would outstrip the food supply. And a decade ago, writer Bill McKibben connected environmental concerns to his decision to have one child in a book called “Maybe One.”

What is new, in the British study and in a separate report from Oregon State University, are statistics that show exactly how much each life — and especially each American life — adds to the world’s emissions.

In the United States, each baby results in 1,644 tons of carbon dioxide, five times more than a baby in China and 91 times more than an infant in Bangladesh, according to the Oregon State study. That is because Americans live relatively long, and live in a country whose long car commutes, coal-burning power plants and cathedral ceilings give it some of the highest per-capita emissions in the world.

Seen from that angle, the Oregon State researchers concluded that child-bearing was one of the most fateful environmental decisions in anyone’s life.

Recycle, shorten your commute, drive a hybrid vehicle, and buy energy-efficient light bulbs, appliances and windows — all of that would cut out about one-fortieth of the emissions caused by bringing two children, and their children’s children, into the world.

“People always consider the financial costs, and they consider the time cost,” said Paul Murtaugh, one of the Oregon State researchers, who said that he does not have children but that he is open to the idea despite his research. “We’re just attempting to put on the table the ballpark estimate of the environmental cost.”

So what, exactly, is the world supposed to do with this information?

The researchers behind both studies are emphatic that they do not want people to be forced not to have children. But Martin, whose group sponsored the British study, said governments could help stop unwanted pregnancies by offering contraception and, in rare cases, abortion.

The British study found that $220 billion, spent over the next 40 years, might prevent half a billion births and prevent 34 billion tons of carbon dioxide. The cost, measured in 2020, would be about $7 for each ton reduced, the report said — far cheaper than solar power at $51, or wind power at $24.

Long-Shot Odds

But, for now, the world does not seem very interested.

“I don’t know how to say ‘No comment’ emphatically enough,” said David Hamilton of the Sierra Club. “I don’t want to rain on anybody’s parade, but the primary solutions to climate change have to deal with what we do with the people who are here,” such as pushing for more renewable energy and a limit on U.S. greenhouse gases.

The idea of using condoms to fight climate change still has the same long-shot odds as the idea to make the world’s clouds more reflective, or to seed the ocean with iron to supercharge its carbon-capturing plankton.

The Obama administration declined to comment when asked about the family-planning idea. At the United Nations, which is overseeing global negotiations on reducing emissions, an official wrote in response to a query that “to bring the issue up . . . would be an insult to developing countries,” where per-capita emissions are still so low compared with those in the United States.

So the idea is not for everyone. But it made sense to climate activist Mike Tidwell of Takoma Park. He said that worries about climate change were part of his decision not to have more children after his son was born 12 years ago.

“There are moments when I say, ‘Wow, it would be nice to have a second one,’ so parenthood didn’t pass so quickly,” he said. “I see some of the consequences of this choice that involved, for me, climate change.”

Sources: Washington Post, Green & WIH Resource Group

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Resource Recycling Sponsors New Recycling Conference for 2010, Oct 26-27 in Texas – WIH Resource Group

A leading recycling trade magazine publisher has announced it will hold the inaugural Resource Recycling Conference on October 26th and 27th, 2010 at the Marriott Hotel on the Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas.

The conference will be the only major conference in North America focusing solely on municipal waste recycling. The event is sponsored by Resource Recycling, Inc., the publisher of Resource Recycling, Plastics Recycling Update and E-Scrap news.

In addition, the company presents the annual Plastics Recycling Conference and the E-Scrap Conference. Both events are the largest conferences in the world in their respective fields.

The Resource Recycling Conference will offer in-depth, comprehensive assessments of MRF technologies, recycling market developments, collection innovations and new public policy and legislative initiatives.

A large exhibit hall will feature the latest recycling equipment and services. The conference organizers have already secured a number of corporate and trade association conference sponsors. For details Jerry Powell, President Resource Recycling: 503.233.1305 x 111 jpowell@resource-recycling.com

Sources: Resource Recycling & WIH Resource Group

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Major U.S. Companies to Senate: Pass Climate Legislation

Twelve major U.S. companies delivered an open letter to the U.S. Senate urging legislators to pass comprehensive climate change legislation that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, drive investment in technological innovation and solutions, and jumpstart a clean energy economy.

In the letter, Bumble Bee Foods, Dell, DuPont, FPL Group, Google, HP, Johnson Johnson, Johnson Diversey, Levi Strauss Co., Nike, PG Corporation and Xanterra Parks and Resorts noted that they have all reformed their business practices in order to curb emissions, which has been good for the climate and business. They are urging Congress to do the same.

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) president and CEO Carter Roberts also urges the Senate to pass meaningful climate legislation this year. According to the conservation organization, every region in the U.S. is experiencing significant, adverse impacts from climate change including more severe droughts, floods, heat waves and wildfires. WWF believes these impacts will worsen during the course of the century if action is not taken to slow climate change.

WWF also said passage of U.S. legislation is a key step towards gaining agreement from all nations to reduce global emissions during international climate negotiations set for December in Copenhagen. The organization recently launched a national public awareness campaign to urge voters to contact their Senators in support of the climate legislation.

The campaign officially kicked-off with TV ads debuting in five states that will be key to passage of a climate bill in the U.S. Senate: Alaska, Indiana, Maine, Montana and North Dakota.

Sources: Environmental Leader & WIH Resource Group

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