Bioenergy a Boon for California, If It Works

East Bay Express
Nate Seltenrich — Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 4:42 PM

Waste equals food. At least that’s what we were taught in ecology class. In the eyes of California’s Bioenergy Interagency Working Group, organic waste equals something a bit more 21st-century: low-carbon biofuels, biogas, and renewable electricity. In its 2012 Bioenergy Action Plan, released on Wednesday, the working group lays out a plan to convert more of the state’s considerable wood, forest, agricultural, food, yard, and animal wastes directly into energy through anaerobic digestion, biomass burning, landfill gas capture, and other technologies.

The plan, developed by representatives the California Natural Resources Group, the Department of Food and Agriculture, Cal EPA, the California Public Utilities Commission, the California Energy Commission, and others, lauds bioenergy in all its forms as a win-win-win. Though of course, it’s not that simple.

First, the logic goes, we can divert organic waste from the landfill (by weight, it represents nearly 60 percent of the material trashed each year in California) and move the state toward its new goal of recycling, composting, or source-reducing 75 percent of its solid waste by 2020. Second, we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from landfills and farms caused by decaying organic matter by capturing it and converting it to usable energy. And third, we can increase production of all-important baseload (that is, not intermittent like solar and wind) renewable electricity in the state, continue to wean our buildings and vehicles off fossil fuels, and march ever toward — or beyond — California’s 30-percent-by-2020 Renewable Portfolio Standard.

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Landfill gas ranks Coca-Cola third in EPA green power users

Biomass Magazine
By Anna Simet
August 09, 2012

The U.S. EPA released its top 25 onsite green power generators through its Green Power Partnership program for this quarter, and Coca-Cola has ranked third, mainly because of a 6.5 combined-heat-and-power (CHP) system the company commissioned in April.

The facility was developed by and is owned and operated by Mas Energy. Located at Republic Services’ Hickory Ridge landfill in Atlanta, Ga., it’s located adjacent to Coca-Cola’s syrup plant and supplies it with all of its electricity, steam and chilled water needs.

Methane collected at the plant is cleaned, upgraded and delivered to the CHP plant via a six-mile pipeline owned by Atlanta Gas Light. There, three GE reciprocating engines convert the gas into power, and three Kickham heat-recovery engines use heat from the GE engines to produce steam. A York steam turbine-driven chiller then uses that steam to produce chilled water.

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Report addresses landfill gas pipeline injection issues

Biomass Power & Thermal
By Luke Geiver
May 31, 2012

The Gas Technology Institute (GTI) has issued a report outlining the process of integrating renewable landfill gas into pipelines.

According to Kristine Wiley, senior scientist in the infrastructure sector of GTI, the purpose of the document is to identify criteria that stakeholders should consider when developing a landfill gas recovery facility for introduction of biomethane into a natural gas pipeline. “The document provides a framework and a structured approach that pipelines, developers and landfill operators can use to begin the critical process of technical collaboration necessary to understand each other’s’ requirements and ultimately, to make each landfill gas development project a success story,” she said.

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Finns say: use landfill gas for chemicals, not power

Biofuels Digest
Thomas Saidak December 2, 2011

In Finland, a team has written an article for the forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Sustainable Economy, suggesting that biogas generated in landfills be used as an alternative feedstock for the chemical industry, rather than for generating electricity.

Jouko Arvola of the University of Oulu and colleagues there and at Oulu University of Applied Sciences state that at the local level it would be beneficial to utilize biogas as an industrial feedstock. They examined the viability of such an approach to Finnish industrial sites and demonstrated theoretically that this is a serious alternative to traditional petroleum resources.

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Department of Natural Resources Offers Energize Missouri Renewable Energy Biogas Grants

http://www.infozine.com/ (Kansas City)
Monday, April 05, 2010 :: Staff infoZine

Eligible applicants include Missouri businesses, corporations, not-for-profit organizations, institutions, local governments, and individuals.

Jefferson City, Mo - infoZine - The Missouri Department of Natural Resources is offering Energize Missouri Renewable Energy Biogas Grants for shovel-ready anaerobic digester or landfill gas-to-energy projects.

These grant funds will support agricultural and industrial projects that use anaerobic digestion-to-energy systems and landfill biogas-to-energy projects to produce biopower, bioheat or other forms of bioenergy.

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Landfill gas a win-win for city, ethanol producer

Business Week
The Associated Press
January 25, 2010, 9:43AM ET
By DIRK LAMMERS

CHANCELLOR, S.D.

The tall flame bursting from the flare at the Sioux Falls landfill used to prompt concerned 911 calls from passing drivers.

The flare now sits cold and dark, relegated to a backup role for a system that pipes the landfill gas 11 miles south to help power a biorefinery owned by Poet LLC, the nation's top ethanol producer.

"Poet's a good customer because they're open 24-7," said landfill superintendent Dave McElroy. "They can take all the gas we have. As a matter of fact, if we could produce more, they could take more."

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EPA lauds Sioux Falls, Poet

ArgusLeader.com
Staff Reports • Argus Leader • January 15, 2010

The Environmental Protection Agency has recognized Sioux Falls and Poet, which partnered on a landfill gas project, as one of the top renewable energy projects nationwide.

The 11-mile pipeline connects the landfill with Poet's Chancellor ethanol plant. It displaces 10 percent of the plant's previous natural gas consumption.

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Trash gas proves powerful

Denton Record-Chronicle (Texas)
07:21 AM CST on Monday, December 22, 2008
By Lowell Brown / Staff Writer

New project starts converting city landfill emissions into energy

As Americans search for solutions to the nation’s energy problems — foreign oil dependence, shrinking fossil fuel supplies, global warming — Rick Koch hopes they don’t overlook their garbage cans.

Koch is a construction manager for Moline, Ill.-based Green Construction LLC, which specializes in projects that convert trash into energy. His latest endeavor is at the Denton landfill, where he’s worked since August to see that one man’s trash could be another man’s power supply.

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Landfill gas powers U.S. ethanol plants, residential areas

Biomass Magazine
October 2008
By Susanne Retka Schill

The power of landfill gas is being demonstrated in three U.S. locations. Ethanol plants in Nebraska and Missouri are using landfill gas to replace natural gas, while a North Carolina project plans to generate electricity.

Mid-Missouri Energy Inc., a 40 MMgy ethanol plant in Malta Bend, Mo., plans to displace more than 90 percent of its natural gas usage with landfill gas supplied by Johnson County Landfill in Shawnee Mission, Kan. The deal signed in July requires the landfill to provide the ethanol plant with up to 3,300 million British thermal units per day of pipeline-quality biogas. The gas will be transported from the landfill through the Panhandle Eastern Pipeline to the ethanol plant 150 miles away. U.S. Energy Services Inc. developed the economic use impact analysis, negotiated the offtake agreement that was concluded in August and will provide thermal value management.

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