Waste No More | Green Energy News

May 1, 2005 – Vol.10 No.6

WASTE NO MORE.

Someday much of what is considered waste today may get a another definition. Fuel.

Just about any biomatter - manure, tree trimmings, fruit rinds, grass clippings, cooking oils, (the list goes on) - can be made into some kind of liquid, gaseous, or solid fuel. To make a transportable, storable, marketable fuel out of an endless range of bio-feedstocks is just a matter of technology. Fortunately much of the technology is here today. It’s just a matter of time, and investment in more technology, before all bio-sources can be turned into saleable fuel. Of course time might mean decades.

The interest in bio, renewable, fuels is wide and varied.

Central Vermont Public Service(CVPS) now claims it has more than 1500 customers in that state for its Cow Power (tm) renewable energy product and the company is looking to expand those numbers. As you may have guessed already, Cow Power is electricity generated by using cow manure as a source of fuel.

Those 1500 customers, currently about 1 percent of CVPS’s rate payers, pay a premium for all, or a portion, of their electricity to be generated at local farms that use the methane from decaying cow manure to generate electricity.

Customers can have 25, 50 or 100 percent power generated from manure. For participants in Cow Power the premium is 4 cents per kilowatt hour on top of their regular electric bill.

Farmers, who generate electricity in the program, receive that 4 cents plus 95 percent of the market price for the power they produce.

At those farms manure is stored in large tanks where bacteria is added to eat the waste and expel methane. Methane is then captured and used to run a generator which, in turn, pumps power into the local grid. The process kills all the pathogens and reduces the odor. Remaining solids can be composted, sold or used for cow bedding. Visit Cow Power and CVPS at http://www.cvps.com/ .

Waste cooking oil from restaurants has long been a feed stock for biodiesel fuel. (Some drivers too - willing to accept some risks - use waste cooking oil directly in diesel-engined vehicles.)

New entrants in the biodiesel business are frequent (This is good! Greater supply will, eventually, drive costs down.) Here’s another entrant in the cooking-oil-to-fuel business.

American Biofuels (ABF) has announced it has begun producing biodiesel from restaurant oils at its Bakersfield Plant in Bakersfield, California. The company collects used oils from local Kentucky Fried Chicken, Arby’s and other restaurants who gladly donate the oil.

Donation means they won’t have to dispose of it, typically at a cost. However the restaurants can also say that they are helping clean up the environment by adding to the supply of a cleaner alternative to conventional diesel. It is that message ABF would like to send to other restaurant owners in California and beyond.

ABF, partially owned by Green Star Products, has been making biodiesel from soybean oil at the Bakersfield facility since 2003, and will soon begin collecting waste cooking oil from nearby Fresno, which is twice the size of Bakersfield. Visit Green Star Products at http://www.greenstarusa.com/ .

Waste from a food processing plant in Kyotango City, Japan will be used as fuel to generate electricity and heat, in an Eco-Energy community now being developed. To aid in the overall efficiency of the project, a 250-kilowatt fuel cell from FuelCell Energy will be used to supply the heat and power.

The fuel cell will become part of a 850-kilowatt mini-grid that includes power generated from a solar array and a small wind turbine. A combustion engine generator is included as well. The fuel cell will be used to balance the power from the intermittent sources, the solar and wind power. Heat generated from the fuel cell is used to warm water used in the food waste digestion process. Productive use of the heat adds to the overall efficiency of the fuel cell.

The fuel cells’ electricity will be used to help power a school, a hospital and city hall in the planned renewable community on Japan’s west coast. Marubeni Corporation, FuelCell Energy’s Japanese distributor, has handled the sale of the fuel cell power plant. Visit FuelCell Energy at http://www.fuelcellenergy.com/