Environmental Power Corporation has completed a facility to convert manure and other agricultural waste into a methane-rich biogas that will be sold as natural gas. The Huckabay Ridge facility in Stephenville, Texas, will employ anaerobic digesters to convert manure into biogas. Bacteria in the oxygen-free digester vessels feed on the wastes, producing a gas consisting mostly of methane and carbon dioxide. Environmental Power then conditions the biogas to natural gas standards and distributes it via a commercial natural gas pipeline. The company is currently selling the natural gas to the Lower Colorado River Authority, and in October 2008, it will begin selling natural gas to Pacific Gas and Electric Company under a new 10-year contract. The Huckabay Ridge facility has the capacity to produce 635 billion Btu of natural gas per year, enough to provide all the energy needs for more than 6,000 average U.S. homes.
Landfills are another major source of methane, and as North America's leading provider of waste services, Waste Management has a corner on the landfill gas market. The company currently captures and produces energy from enough landfill gas to meet the energy needs of a million homes per year, and in an environmental initiative announced in October, the company committed to doubling its energy production by 2020. But for the sheer elegance of its approach, it's hard to beat the Prometheus Energy Company, which creates liquefied natural gas (LNG) from landfill gas and delivers it to vehicle fleets in Southern California. The elegance comes in with the company's purchase of an LNG-fueled Kenworth tractor, which is now being used to deliver the LNG. So the company is burning its own landfill gas to deliver landfill gas to other users. The first 10,000-gallon shipment was delivered to the Orange County Transit Authority, which operates a fleet of 232 LNG-fueled buses.
New Technology, The Biogas Energy Project The goal of this innovative public-private alliance is to divert organic matter -- stuff made from plants and animals, such as food waste and yard clippings -- away from landfills and into the energy grid. That reduces greenhouse gas emissions from landfills and turns trash into a substantial source of clean energy.
Manure To Methane The farmers generally found the systems useful for manure and odor management, but some struggled with the operation of their systems and most were unable to make the best use of the energy provided by their systems. With net metering laws and demand charges often not working to their advantage, it seems that most farmers would be best served by trying to power their farm with their generators, rather than counting on benefits from feeding the power into the electrical grid.
Termites -- notorious for their voracious appetite for wood, rendering houses to dust and causing billions of dollars in damage per year -- may provide the biochemical means to a greener biofuel future. The bellies of these tiny beasts actually harbor a gold mine of microbes that have now been tapped as a rich source of enzymes for improving the conversion of wood or waste biomass to valuable biofuels.
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a new tool for quantitatively measuring elusive atmospheric chemicals that play a key role in the formation of photochemical smog. Better measurements will improve scientists' understanding of the mechanisms of smog formation and their ability to select and predict the effectiveness of various mitigation strategies. The Brookhaven scientists have been issued a U.S. patent for their apparatus, which is available for licensing.
Honda Soltec Co., Ltd. commemorated the opening of its solar cell production plant with a ceremony attended by approximately 80 dignitaries, guests and Honda officials, including Yoshiko Shiotani, the governor of Kumamoto prefecture; Junichi Mitsuyama, the deputy general manager of Natural Resources, Energy and Environment Department, Kyushu Bureau of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI); and Isao Ieiri, the mayor of Ohzu-machi; as well as Takeo Fukui, the president and CEO of Honda.