Newsworthy

Conferences & Events

Inaugural Renewable Energy from Waste Conference Announced
The Recycling Today Media Group, the publisher of Renewable Energy from Waste and Recycling Today magazines, along with Smithers Apex and Gershman, Brickner & Bratton Inc. (GBB) are pleased to announce the dates and location for the inaugural Renewable Energy from Waste Conference and Exhibition, to take place Nov. 18-20, 2013, at the West Palm Beach Marriott, in West Palm Beach, Fla. The event will focus on the production of renewable energy and fuels from waste materials.

Renewable Energy from Waste 2013 will be co-chaired by Harvey W. Gershman, president of GBB, and James R. Keefe, executive vice president and group publisher, Recycling Today Media Group. The conference will include two full days of plenary sessions and leadership roundtables, providing key insights into renewable waste financials, market trends and opportunities and technology developments, plus multiple B2B networking opportunities and exhibition time. The final day of the program will feature tours of innovative facilities in the Palm Beach region focused on creating energy and fuels from waste.

“The industry needs one place where economic, municipal and corporate experts come together to share their successes and struggles with candor and impartiality,” says Andrew Smaha, Smithers Apex conference director. “Our inaugural program will be designed to connect waste generators, the government sector, waste management firms, recycling firms, energy and chemical producers, commercial waste generators and equipment and technology suppliers.”

Smaha adds, “Renewable Energy from Waste 2013 attendees will have the opportunity to discuss formulas to help assess the feasibility of most waste conversation technologies including startup costs, determining processing/tip fees, competition from traditional fuels and financing options. This event provides one-stop shopping to gain critical insights into the technologies and regulations shaping the industry and build relationships with the individuals who drive market perceptions and decisions that affect your company, technology, products and services.”

Recycling Today Media Group’s Keefe says, “Capturing the resource potential of waste streams is the fastest growing sector of the waste and recycling industry. This is the reason we introduced Renewable Energy from Waste magazine in 2012. It’s also the reason we’re taking the follow-up action in 2013 of introducing this event. We’ll be considering the full breadth of possibilities from energy to the production of building block chemicals.”

Abstracts are being accepted for the conference. This year’s program will feature approximately 30 presentations covering topics including:

• The economics of waste conversion;
• Gasification;
• Anaerobic digestion;
• Preparing feedstocks for refuse derived fuel;
• Refuse-derived fuel;
• Plastics to oil;
• End-use applications; and
• Legislative outlook for conversion technologies.

More information about Renewable Energy from Waste 2013 is available at www.REWConference.com.

Mergers & Acquisitions

WM Recycle America Acquires Greenstar
WM Recycle America LLC, a subsidiary of Waste Management Inc. (WM), based in Houston, has acquired Houston-based Greenstar LLC from Ireland-based NTR plc. The deal will provide WM’s customers with what the company says is greater access to recycling solutions by adding the operations of one of the nation’s largest private recyclers to WM’s already extensive recycling network.

Last year, the acquired operations of Greenstar and its subsidiaries managed 1.5 million tons of recyclables for more than 12,000 customers at 12 material recovery facilities (MRFs) in the eastern United States, including seven single-stream plants, and a brokerage business for recovered material. With this acquisition, WM will have the capacity to manage 15 million tons of recyclables per year.

“Acquiring Greenstar advances our growth and transformation strategy to extract more value from the material that we manage,” says William Caesar, president of WM Recycle America. “We have a stated goal of managing 20 million tons of recyclable material by 2020. With these assets, we have the capacity to achieve almost three-quarters of that goal and extend our ability to provide the recycling services that customers want.”

Plastics to Fuel

RES Polyflow Nears Startup of Energy Recovery Facility
RES Polyflow, an Akron, Ohio-based manufacturer of energy recovery systems, has announced it is nearing completion of its first full-scale energy recovery facility in northeast Ohio. The company says it expects the operation to act as a demonstration facility by the spring.

The facility, partly funded by an Advanced Energy Program Grant from the Ohio Third Frontier program, will feature a continuous-feed waste-to-energy conversion process that produces oil from end-of-life plastics and rubber. The project broke ground in the fall of 2012 and is located in the Cleveland area.

Jay Schabel, RES Polyflow CEO, says, “We are now scheduling visits with interested customers who recognize the strong financial returns of our robust technology. RES Polyflow has taken a very disciplined approach to commercialization by first proving the chemistry through our pilot phase, underpinning the uniqueness of the technology with process and equipment patents and now showing the vitality of the process at scale.”

In conjunction with the RES Polyflow facility launch, a fuels analysis laboratory at Youngstown State University’s College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics has been commissioned. Students at the university will test and characterize liquid fuel produced by RES Polyflow’s facilities using the lab equipment. Funding for the lab was achieved through a Wright Capital Grant from the Ohio Development Services Agency.

RES Polyflow’s process targets the possibility of converting end-of-life mixed plastics, rubber scrap, carpeting and electronic scrap into a viable energy product. While traditionally much of this material was landfilled, RES Polyflow says its continuous feed process equipment will be able to convert the material into renewable transportation fuels, octane enhancers and aromatics using a patented waste-to-energy conversion process.

Legal Issues

Clean Green Fuel Owner Gets Prison Time
U.S. District Judge William Quarles Jr. has sentenced Rodney Hailey of Perry Hall, Md., to nearly 12 years and six months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for selling $9 million in renewable fuel credits (RFC), which he falsely claimed were produced by his company, Clean Green Fuel LLC.

Quarles enhanced Hailey’s sentence, handed down in late February, upon finding that he obstructed justice by concealing, selling and spending assets that were protected by court order. Quarles also ordered Hailey to pay restitution of $ 42.2 million to more than 20 companies and to forfeit $9.1 million in proceeds from the fraud.

Hailey was convicted June 25, 2012, of eight counts of wire fraud, 32 counts of money laundering and two counts of violating the Clean Air Act. He has been detained since the guilty verdict.

According to evidence presented at the trial, Hailey owned Clean Green Fuel, in the Baltimore area. He registered the company with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program as a producer of biodiesel fuel, a motor vehicle fuel derived from renewable resources.

To encourage the production of renewable fuel, all oil companies marketing petroleum in the U.S. are required to produce a given quantity of renewable fuel or to purchase credits, called renewable identification numbers (RINs), from producers of renewable fuels to satisfy their renewable fuel requirements.

Between March 2009 and December 2010, Hailey engaged in a scheme to sell more than 35 million RINs (representing 23 million gallons of biodiesel fuel) to brokers and oil companies, when in fact Clean Green Fuel had produced no fuel and Hailey did not have a facility capable of producing biodiesel fuel, according to court records.

Federal law enforcement agents investigated the scheme after a Baltimore County police detective, working with Maryland’s federal financial crimes task force, received a report about the large number of luxury cars parked in front of Hailey’s house. The financial crimes task force contacted EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division and initiated a criminal investigation.

Two civil inspectors from EPA’s Air Enforcement Division visited Clean Green’s headquarters to inspect Hailey’s biodiesel production facility. Hailey was not able to provide an exact location for the biodiesel fuel production facility or provide any records to support claims that Clean Green Fuel had produced biodiesel fuel.

Hailey claimed he paid employees and contractors to recover waste vegetable oil from 2,700 restaurants in the “Delmarva” area region, which includes parts of Delaware, Virginia and Maryland, and bring it to his production facility where he converted it to biodiesel fuel. He claimed that only the drivers who picked up the oil knew the names of the restaurants, and he could not provide the drivers’ names.

The loss to the traders and major energy companies who purchased the RINs is more than $40 million. Additionally, a number of small biodiesel companies were unable to sell their RINs because of Clean Green and were forced out of business.

EPA has proposed a voluntary quality assurance program to verify that RINs generated under the RFS program have been validly generated. EPA says this will promote greater liquidity in the transfer and use of RINs, making the RFS program more efficient and effective.

Incineration

Chicago Area Tire Incinerator to Close
According to the Chicago Tribune, a tire incinerator in the Chicago suburb of Ford Heights, Ill., will close permanently as part of a legal settlement announced Feb. 25, 2013. The incinerator was plagued by nearly two decades of pollution and financial problems, and court documents indicate its latest owner, Geneva Energy, hasn’t operated the incinerator since August 2011.

According to the Chicago Tribune, a federal civil rights investigation into why former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration awarded a permit in 2005 to restart the controversial tire burner is ongoing.

In the article, Susan Hedman, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regional administrator, says, “This settlement will eliminate the source of almost 200 tons of air pollutants each year in a community that has historically been disproportionately impacted by environmental contamination.”

Anaerobic digestion

ZWE Introduces Dry AD System in California
The Monterey Regional Waste Management District (MRWMD), Marina, Calif., and Zero Waste Energy LLC (ZWE), Lafayette, Calif., recently held an open house to introduce what the two entities consider to be the first dry anaerobic digester (AD) in the United States using the Smartferm technology for processing organic waste.

The Smartferm technology, developed in Germany, can turn organic waste such as food scraps into electricity and compost for agriculture use. In an announcement, ZWE says, “This state-of-the-art processing system represents the next generation of organic waste management strategies to maximize energy and compost production.”

Smartferm’s 21-day batch process diverts more than 99 percent of organic waste, reduces greenhouse gases, reduces reliance on landfills and produces a clean, green energy, ZWE says. The technology is semimobile, space efficient, prefabricated and scalable up to 30,000 tons of waste per year, the company adds. MRWMD’s Smartferm can process up to 5,000 tons per year, creating 100 kilowatts (kW) of electricity, or as much as 3,200 Btu per ton of biogas with 58 to 60 percent methane content.

The Smartferm technology will be manufactured in the United States by Dover ESG.

Considered a pilot program, the Smartferm installation is designed to help MRWMD determine the role of AD in the future of organics management. The energy created from the dry AD project will be sold to the Monterey Regional Water Pollution Control Agency.

“We are grateful for the MRWMD, which has taken an innovate leadership role and helped bring this valuable, viable technology to the industry and the country,” says ZWE CEO Eric Herbert.

The installation at MRWMD is the first dry AD project in the U.S. for ZWE; the company has three other dry AD projects under construction in California. More than 30 traditional wet AD systems are underway in California.

Landfill Gas

FuelCell Energy to Demonstrate Trigeneration Fuel Cell
FuelCell Energy Inc., Danbury, Conn., has announced a contract to demonstrate a trigeneration stationary fuel cell power plant near Vancouver, British Columbia, using landfill gas as the fuel source. The landfill gas cleanup will be performed by Quadrogen Power Systems Inc., the Vancouver-based prime contractor, and the cleaned landfill gas will be used by the fuel cell power plant to generate multiple revenue streams, including ultra-clean electricity, usable high-quality heat and renewable hydrogen. The heat in the form of hot water will be supplied to Village Farms, a hydroponic greenhouse operator. Hydrogen also will be exported for vehicle fueling or industrial applications.

“Part of our corporate strategy is to be highly sustainable and responsible steward of natural resources,” says Jonathan Bos, development director, Village Farms International Inc. “We are excited to be participants in the fuel cell landfill gas project to ascertain its benefits both to our business by converting harmful waste gas into food-grade carbon dioxide, as well as other business opportunities coming out of other value streams from the landfill waste gas.”

Canadian Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz says, “This technology will help greenhouse operators improve their competitiveness by making their operations more environmentally and economically sustainable through the use of biogas.”

“Partnering with FuelCell Energy combines our gas cleanup expertise with the trigeneration power output of the stationary fuel cells as we convert a harmful byproduct of landfills into multiple revenue streams,” says Alakh Prasad, president and CEO, Quadrogen Power Systems Inc. “Cleaning landfill gas before it is used by the fuel cells represents unique challenges of removing impurities that can impact fuel cell performance as well as removing harmful organic chemicals which do not affect the fuel cells but can’t be released to the atmosphere.”

Tony Leo, vice president, Application Engineering & Advanced Technology Development, FuelCell Energy Inc., says, “This project provides our first opportunity to demonstrate the application of our Direct FuelCell technology with renewable landfill gas, in addition to advancing our hydrogen coproduction technology. Landfill gas is a large potential market, which presents unique gas cleanup requirements. Our partner in this project, Quadrogen Power Systems, has developed an effective cleanup technology, as demonstrated by the high performance of their equipment at an existing hydrogen coproduction fuel cell installation in California that is providing ultraclean electricity and hydrogen for vehicle fueling from renewable biogas generated by a wastewater treatment plant.”

The Vancouver landfill has gas collection system in which some of the gas is flared, wasting a potential fuel source and generating pollutants such as smog-producing nitrogen oxide. Power production is expected to commence in early 2014. A successful project demonstration could potentially lead to additional projects at this landfill as well as at other landfills.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is investing in this project by providing a repayable contribution through the government of Canada’s Canadian Agricultural Adaptation Program, which aims to help the Canadian agricultural sector adapt and remain competitive. In British Columbia, this program is delivered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation.

Project partners also include Sustainable Development Technology Canada, National Research Council of Canada and BC Bioenergy Network.

Direct FuelCell (DFC) power plants are designed to generate continuous baseload power in a highly efficient and environmentally friendly process, according FuelCell Energy.

Legislation and Regulations

EPA Proposes 2013 Renewable Fuel Standards
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed 2013 percentage standards for four fuel categories that are part of the agency’s Renewable Fuel Standard program (RFS2).

The proposal, announced Jan. 31, was open for a 45-day public comment period, with EPA considering feedback from stakeholders before the proposal is finalized.

The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007 established the RFS2 program and the annual renewable fuel volume targets, which steadily increase to 36 billion gallons in 2022. Based on the standard, each refiner and importer determines the minimum volume of renewable fuel that it must ensure is used in its transportation fuel.

The proposed 2013 overall volumes and standards are:

• Biomass-based diesel, 1.28 billion gallons, or 1.12 percent;
• Advanced biofuels, 2.75 billion gallons, or 1.60 percent;
• Cellulosic biofuels, 14 million gallons, or 0.008 percent; and
• Total renewable fuels, 16.55 billion gallons, or 9.63 percent.

EPA’s RFS2 program encourages the use of renewable fuels. For 2013, the program proposes implementing EISA’s requirement to blend more than 1.35 billion gallons of renewable fuels relative to the 2012 mandated amount.

International

Shanks Signs Long-Term Contract to Produce RDF
The U.K.-based firm Shanks Group has signed a 25-year contract with the Wakefield, U.K., Council estimated to be worth $1.2 billion.

Under the contract, Shanks will build a residual waste treatment facility at South Kirkby, U.K., which will employ processes to treat and recycle waste from the Wakefield District. The facility will process up to 230,000 metric tons per year of municipal solid waste. Shanks says that under the project, the Wakefield authority could realize a landfill diversion rate of close to 90 percent.

The contract has been funded by the UK Green Investment Bank, Barclays, Bavern LB and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.

Through the Shanks project, materials delivered to the facility will be converted into a refuse derived fuel, which will be processed at a multifuel plant being built at the Ferrybridge Power Station for energy recovery. A separate material recovery facility will separate and process recyclables.

The remaining organic waste will be treated in an autoclave. The process will sterilize the remaining material before it is fed into a 65,000-metric-tons-per-year anaerobic digestion plant, where it will be converted into biogas for renewable energy generation.

The contract also will allow Shanks to take over a network of household waste recycling centers and transfer stations in the Wakefield District.

Peter Dilnot, Shanks CEO, says, “We are delighted to have signed this contract with Wakefield Council and look forward to working with the authority and local residents to increase their diversion from landfill. Our solution will help them make more from the waste they produce by increasing recycling, generating green energy and producing compost for land remediation and use by residents.

“We are excited that the Green Investment Bank has chosen this project as one of its first major investments, which will see Shanks draw on experience from across our group to deliver a genuinely sustainable solution,” Dilnot adds.

Shanks Group is a waste management firm with operations in the Netherlands, Belgium, the U.K. and Canada. It provides recycling and energy recovery solutions to customers in the public and private sector.

Municipal WTE

GBB to Assist in Evaluating Cleveland’s Waste-to-Energy Options
Gershman, Brickner & Bratton Inc. (GBB), Fairfax, Va., is continuing its evaluation of development options for the City of Cleveland Recycling and Energy Generation (CREG) Center. Cleveland hired GBB to review options for the CREG Center project, which seeks to better manage the city’s municipal solid waste and potentially use waste as a source for locally produced energy.

Joining GBB for this assignment are five firms that will bring their local understanding and experience in key areas of expertise for the project, according to the company. NTH Consultants Ltd., McGuiness Unlimited Inc. and Whelan Communications Inc., are based in Cleveland, while GT Environmental Inc. is based in Akron, Ohio, and RMF Engineering Inc. is headquartered in Baltimore.

“Cleveland has been investigating the use of municipal solid waste (MSW) for the production of energy since at least 2007,” says Ken Silliman, chief of staff for Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson. “Our goals, in part, are to reduce Cleveland’s dependence on fossil fuels, develop local energy generation capacity and recover marketable byproducts such as recyclables from MSW (municipal solid waste).

He adds, “We anticipate this process will result in a short listing of qualified companies and a request for proposals by the fall of 2013.”

In September 2011, Cleveland Public Power (CPP) began a procurement process to develop the project and issued a request for information and qualifications (RFIQ), followed by a supplemental request for information and qualification (SRIQ), which targeted a variety of waste conversion and management approaches, including thermal conversion, pyrolysis, gasification, recycling and fuel production as well as consulting and financial firms to assist in project development.

The GBB project team will review, analyze and evaluate the responses; evaluate gasification-to-energy development efforts; evaluate the cogeneration opportunity; and provide a shortlist and comparison of the three best overall options, along with a life-cycle analysis of each; and make overall recommendations on how to develop the CREG Center.

CPP is required to diversify its energy supply and purchase at least 15 percent of its base load power from advanced and renewable sources by 2015, 20 percent by 2020 and 25 percent by 2025. It has agreements for several renewable and advance energy projects and is expected to meet the 2015 goal.

Mass Burn

Covanta Reports 2012 Financial Results, Signs $2.5 Billion in Contracts
Covanta Holding Corp., Morristown, N.J., a global owner and operator of energy-from-waste (EfW) projects, has reported financial results for the fourth quarter of 2012 and the full fiscal year, which ended Dec. 31, 2012.

Covanta lists the following highlights for the year, which it says was a record year in terms of EfW boiler availability:

• Signing $2.5 billion in waste and energy contracts with an average term of 12 years, securing 2 million tons of waste and 750,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of generation per year;
• Acquiring the Delaware Valley EfW facility, which gives Covanta an additional 2,700 tons per year, which will be immediately accretive to key metrics;
• Successfully refinancing $1.9 billion in debt, creating substantial financial flexibility; and
• Completing its Honolulu EfW expansion.

Commenting on Covanta’s 2012 results, Anthony Orlando, president and CEO, states, “I’m pleased with both our 2012 operating performance and the execution of organic growth initiatives. This good work enabled us to offset the drop in energy and metals markets as well as the impact of Hurricane Sandy. We also had a great year extending long-term waste and energy contracts. Our contracted revenue base, combined with our continued investment in organic growth initiatives, positions us to grow in the coming year.”

For the fourth quarter, the company reports that its operating revenue stood at $430 million, flat with the prior year.

For the full year ended Dec. 31, 2012, total operating revenue declined slightly to $1.64 billion from $1.65 billion in 2011. Covanta says the decline was largely because of negative impacts of lower revenues earned explicitly to service project debt; lower pricing for energy at EfW facilities and recycled metals; and the impact of Hurricane Sandy, as certain facilities briefly were forced offline.

The negative impacts were offset by what Covanta says are organic growth initiatives in special waste and scrap metal; the escalation in service fee contracts; and new units coming online.

Landfill gas

EPA Recognizes Landfill Projects
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recognized two regional landfills for generating renewable energy from a local source while protecting the climate, providing energy savings and strengthening the economy.

In the Coca-Cola and Hickory Ridge Landfill combined-heat-and-power (CHP) project, Conley, Ga., Mas Energy, the Coca-Cola Co. and Republic Services developed a project that provides Coca-Cola’s Atlanta syrup plant with a continuous supply of green electricity, steam and chilled water. This project, the first landfill-gas-energy project for Coca-Cola, supplies nearly all of the plant’s energy needs and results in real energy savings for the company, the EPA says.

In Boone, N.C., Watauga County developed a model 186-kilowatt (kW) project at a small, unlined landfill closed for 18 years by employing modified automotive engines and the assistance of the Appalachian State University (ASU) Energy Center. The project provides economic benefits for the county and one-of-a-kind research opportunities for ASU students and faculty, EPA says.

Eight landfill methane utilization projects and partners from across the U.S. were recognized at the 16th Annual Landfill Methane Outreach Program Conference in Baltimore Jan. 30, 2013.

The remaining awardees include Gundersen Health System and La Crosse County Landfill combined-heat-and-power project (Wisconsin), Landfill Energy Systems (Michigan), Lycoming County Landfill dual cogeneration and electricity project (Pennsylvania), Millersville Landfill electricity project (Maryland), Olinda Alpha Landfill combined-cycle project (California) and St. Landry Parish Landfill compressed natural gas project (Louisiana).

EPA’s Landfill Methane Outreach Program is a voluntary assistance and partnership program that supports landfill gas energy project development. The program has helped with more than 560 landfill gas energy projects in the past 18 years.

Installations and startups

Ener-G to Open Second Landfill Gas Facility in Mexico
Ener-G, a U.K.-based provider of renewable energy solutions, will begin construction on its second landfill gas management facility in Mexico following its appointment by the municipality of Durango to generate renewable energy from waste at the Durango city landfill.

Ener-G, working in partnership with its sister company Biogas Technology, will design, finance, build and operate the $3.63 million biogas power generation facility. According to Ener-G, the facility will capture the methane gas emitted from 1 million tons of waste and convert it into 1.5 megawatts of clean energy in its initial power generation stage. This is sufficient to provide the municipal government with half of its street lighting, Ener-G says.

The facility is expected to begin power generation this summer and to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 64,000 tons per year, helping Mexico to deliver on targets set by the country’s Climate Change Act.

The two-phase landfill gas generation project started in 2008 when Biogas Technology was appointed by Durango to collect and destroy the biogas emissions by flaring.

Hugh Richmond, managing director of Ener-G Natural Power, says, “The project will be funded entirely by Ener-G and we will pay royalties to the municipality. We have ambitions to build more of these plants in Mexico to match the strong desire and commitment by the Mexico Government for investment in renewables.”

Municipal WTE

Gemini Synergy Center Project is Topic of Discussion
Team Gemini, a sustainable project design and development company based in Orlando, Fla., presented the Gemini Synergy Project to members of the Columbus, Ohio, Metropolitan Club and its guests Feb. 6, 2013. The project is the company’s flagship project to convert Central Ohio’s municipal solid waste (MSW) into energy and recycled waste stream for commercial and industrial applications.

Matt McCollister from Columbus 2020 moderated a panel that included Doug Haughn from Team Gemini; Ronald Mills from the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio (SWACO); and Dennis Hall from the Ohio BioProducts Innovation Center (OBIC) at The Ohio State University (OSU).

The event started with McCollister saying, “This is more than just trash to cash. The project is expected to produce hundreds of jobs, millions of dollars in capital investment and a unique opportunity to create a product that can set us apart globally.”

Mills, SWACO executive director, said the project would allow his vision of finding a viable alternative to landfilling to become a reality.

“Historically, we always considered trash something that costs money to get rid of—a cost center,” said Mills. “We would be turning trash management from a cost center to a true profit center, by extracting the value that is intrinsically contained within that trash stream.”

Haughn said,“Team Gemini set out to develop several clusters of technology in an industrial park setting that are fueled synergistically with renewable energy of different types—from solar to anaerobic digestion, biogas, biomass and others—in order to create a synergy within the park so that the industry can share off each other’s waste stream. Team Gemini’s approach, however, is unique by bringing all the technology together into one sustainable development park.”

Panelists also discussed the different technologies to be featured at the Gemini Synergy Center, which includes anaerobic digestion, a process that converts waste into methane gas and steam heat to generate electricity.

The panelists noted that creating energy—and an additional source of revenue—from a constant supply of solid waste at the Gemini Synergy Center allows SWACO and Team Gemini to jointly venture to create realistic solutions that ease the burden of operating landfills in the community.

Haughn added that the uniqueness of the project comes from having multiple sustainable waste management and renewable energy technologies working together in a single site at an industrial scale—such as a having a materials recovery facility that feeds anaerobic digesters that power greenhouses that produce organic foods and feedstock.

Hall, interim director of OSU’s Ohio Bioproducts Innovation Center, lauded the project, saying, “This new enterprise will be ‘transformative’ because America has always been good at managing trash—but this brings a new model where trash creates jobs and fuels.”

The Gemini Synergy Center will be developed in Grove City, Ohio. The company says the impact of the project will be felt throughout the country, as the combination of renewable energy and sustainable agriculture technologies work with other efforts to make sustainability viable and profitable.

Legislation and regulations

EPA Proposes Measures to Validate Renewable Fuel Standard RIN Numbers
To make the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program more efficient and effective, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing a structured process for buyers of renewable identification numbers (RINs) to verify their validity.

Under the proposal, RINs would be verified through a new voluntary quality assurance program that includes alternative compliance options that leverage existing industry practices and market forces, according to EPA.

The proposal will be available for a 30-day public comment period. EPA will consider feedback from stakeholders before finalizing the proposal.

Quality Assurance Plans (QAPs) would provide a recognized means for independent third parties to audit the production of renewable fuel and verify that RINs have been validly generated.

For RINs that have been verified according to an approved QAP, the program would provide protection against liability for civil violations resulting from the transfer or use of invalidly generated RINs under certain conditions. The rule also would specify both the conditions under which invalid RINs must be replaced with valid RINs and by whom. The proposed rule allows verification of RINs to begin this year.

The RFS program, which was established under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and later modified through the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, requires that specified volumes of renewable fuel be used as transportation fuel, home heating oil or jet fuel yearly.

Renewable fuel producers and importers generate RINs based on the volume of compliant renewable fuel they make available. RINs can be traded and used by petroleum refiners and importers to comply with their volume obligations.

Following a number of high-profile RIN fraud cases, EPA says it expects its rulemaking to improve the overall liquidity in the RIN market and, in particular, to make it easier for smaller renewable fuel producers to sell their RINs. EPA says it worked closely with stakeholders in developing the proposal.

More information on the proposed rule and the RFS program is available from EPA at http://epa.gov/otaq/fuels/renewablefuels/regulations.htm.

Refuse-Derived Fuel

Green USA Pellets Proposal Includes GDT Tek
GDT Tek, Inc., Largo, Fla., a company focused on renewable and sustainable energy technologies, has announced that Green USA Recycling (GUSAR), Westfield, Ind., has scheduled test burns of its refuse-derived fuel (RDF) pellets at three coal-fired power plants in the Midwest.

According to GDT Tek, RDF pellets have proven to be a viable alternative or supplement to coal, with significantly lower sulfur and nitric oxide emissions. GDT Tek’s heat-capture technology also is recommended to GUSAR’s power plant customers to increase the kilowatt hour output of every pound of fuel.

Bo Linton, president of GDT Tek, says, “This is a fantastic opportunity for GDT Tek and Green USA to establish our companies as the best environmental and economical landfill systems. GDT Tek’s patented Phoenix waste-heat-to-electricity technology can incorporate efficiently into its process a method to use its excess heat to help produce these RDF Pellets, so it’s a perfect fit for us.”

Don Willis, president of GUSAR, says, “As the energy industry begins to move toward renewable fuels such as RDF pellets, gaining efficiencies in the fuel-to-energy-conversion process becomes more important than ever. The ultimate goal is 100 percent conversion of fuel to energy.”

He continues, “Coal fired boilers from the 1950s may be as low as 30 percent efficient in their ability to convert that heat to energy. With modern boilers surpassing 50 percent, we still have a long way to go. The remainder is waste heat.”

Willis adds, “Until the day arrives that we can convert 100 percent [of fuel] to usable energy, it is imperative that we capture as much of that waste heat as possible and convert it to usable energy. Our relationship with GDT Tek allows us the opportunity to add that capability to our portfolio as we speak with our power plant customers.”

Anaerobic digestion

Anaergia Commissions Agreement using Renewable Biogas and Fuel Cells
Anaergia Inc., a Burlington, Ontario, company involved in generating renewable energy from organic waste, has announced the full commission and operation of what it says is the largest power purchase agreement using a fuel cell system powered by renewable biogas in North America. The agreement between Anaergia and the Inland Empire Utilities Agency (IEUA) relates to operations at the RPS1 water recycling facility in Ontario, Calif.

Anaergia designed, built, financed, owns and operates the 2.8-megawatt renewable energy facility under a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with IEUA. RPS1, which can treat up to 44 million gallons per day of wastewater, purchases base load power from Anaergia to offset about 60 percent of the grid power previously used by the facility to treat wastewater. This provides a reliable power source at predefined and competitively priced rates that generate long-term cost savings, Anaergia says.

In addition to reducing long-term energy costs and contributing to the energy self-sufficiency of RPS1, Anaergia says its operations significantly contribute to improving the air quality for residents of Ontario and California’s South Coast Air Quality Management District by using one of the most environmentally sustainable options available.

The biogas created through the anaerobic digestion of wastewater biosolids is cleaned and conditioned prior to sending the biogas to the fuel cell system. The fuel cell system converts the biogas into renewable electricity through an electrochemical process similar to the process used in batteries. Anaergia says its system eliminates the need to combust biogas, which reduces nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxide and particulate matter emissions from the installed fuel cell system by 70 percent to 90 percent compared with typical internal combustion engine systems.

“IEUA is proud to expand its already successful renewable energy program with the addition of a biogas powered fuel cell system,” says Terry Catlin, president of the IEUA board. “The fuel cell allows IEUA to move closer to its strategic energy plan goal to go ‘gridless by 2020’ with almost no capital outlay by the agency. Our plan is to minimize IEUA’s dependency on energy purchased from the grid, and to be able to operate completely off the grid during peak energy usage periods.”

Steve Watzeck, CEO of Anaergia Inc., adds, “The RPS1 fuel cell project with the Inland Empire Utilities Agency is a world-class example of how energy self-sufficiency can be achieved by generating renewable and cost effective electricity on-site under a power purchase agreement. This project will have a lasting and positive impact on the area by reducing greenhouse gas emissions in California’s South Coast Air Quality Management District and providing long-term electricity cost savings to the district.”

IEUA is a municipal water district in western San Bernardino County, Calif. Its mission is to supply drinking water, collect and treat wastewater, produce compost and high-quality recycled water to county residents.