Ohio University Research Center Awarded $1.9 Million to Address Alternative Energy
The Institute for Sustainable Energy and the Environment, a research center at Ohio University’s Russ College of Engineering and Technology, Athens, Ohio, was recently awarded a $1.9 million, four-year grant by the National Science Foundation to address alternative energy needs for future development of sustainable buildings.
The project, “Sustainable Housing through Holistic Waste Stream Management and Algal Cultivation,” aims to develop the fundamental information needed for designing, constructing, optimizing and scaling up an algae-based power system to support the energy requirements and waste stream management of houses or residential communities.
Ben Stuart, ISEE director, associate professor of civil engineering and principal investigator of the project, explains that currently, “off-grid” housing is often limited to using solar photovoltaic arrays and wind power for meeting electricity demands and solar thermal or ground-source geothermal for heating and cooling. He adds that much of the current biofuels research is targeted toward transportation.
“In contrast, this project seeks to extend biofuels applications to residential housing by utilizing water and solid waste streams and applying carbon and nutrient recycling in the production of feedstocks for fuels, feed and food,” Stuart says.
“This will promote sustainable, off-grid housing, including holistic management of natural resources with minimal environmental impact,” he adds.
The project is being supported by the NSF’s Sustainable Energy Pathways (SEP) Program, part of a larger NSF initiative, “Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability.”
The SEP calls for innovative, interdisciplinary basic research in science, engineering and education by teams of researchers developing systems approaches to sustainable energy based on a comprehensive view of the scientific, technical, environmental, economic and societal issues.
According to Stuart, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering Guy Riefler and Assistant Professor of Economics Ariaster Chimeli will combine lab studies with advanced process modeling software to assess public acceptance and determine economic risks.
“Our partners at Georgia Tech, led by Dr. Daniel Castro, will then use this information to develop scenarios for architectural design and construction in single residences, neighborhoods and extended communities,” says Stuart.
Stuart has a long history of alternative fuels research, including work with ECO2Capture, a local company currently housed at Ohio’s Innovation Center that is developing and demonstrating a polymer membrane system that can increase algal growth for use in the CO2 capture and biofuel markets.
WM, Renmatix Sign Research Deal
Houston-based Waste Management Inc. (WM) and Renmatix, King of Prussia, Pa., a manufacturer of bio-based sugar intermediates for chemical and fuel markets, have entered into a joint development agreement (JDA) to explore the possibility of converting post-consumer waste into sugars for manufacturing bio-based materials.
The investment and alliance aims to expand the feedstock flexibility of Renmatix’ Plantrose process beyond rural biomass to include materials derived from urban waste material such as that managed by WM.
“This collaboration is a continuation of our commitment to extract the value we see in waste and convert it into valuable resources,” says William Caesar, president of WM Recycle America. “We are working with Renmatix to further scale its technology, which has quickly emerged as the lowest-cost conversion method for producing the bio-based sugar intermediates demanded by global markets.”
Under the agreement, Renmatix will explore multiple waste streams currently collected and processed by WM and its service subsidiaries, including: source-separated recyclables, food scraps, construction and demolition debris and pulp and paper waste. The JDA aims to determine how the materials can be reduced to sugar and leveraged for production of renewable chemicals and fuels.
GTI Receives $3.5 Million to Develop CHP Technologies
The California Energy Commission (CEC) recently awarded the research and development organization Gas Technology Institute (GTI), Des Plaines, Ill., two contracts totaling $3.5 million. Under the contracts, GTI will develop new combined heat and power (CHP) and waste heat recovery technologies at industrial facilities in California.
To support these and other initiatives, GTI has established an office in Davis, Calif., which will focus on growing the organization’s efforts with local utilities, the CEC and other regional players.
“A stronger presence in this important region will help us continue our high level of customer service and technology developments that are helping the state of California—and the country—meet today’s complex energy and environmental challenges,” says David Carroll, GTI’s president and CEO.
GTI has received a grant of $1.8 million in PIER (Public Interest Energy Research) natural gas funding from CEC to develop and demonstrate a fuel-flexible hybrid-generation CHP system that can use natural gas and biogas produced by anaerobic digesters at wastewater treatment plants and landfills. The system will be designed to produce thermal and electric energy for use on site, while also enabling cost-effective compliance with California Air Resources Board (CARB) 2007 emission standards for distributed generation.
GTI and its partners will work on developing an advanced, fuel-flexible hybrid CHP system that integrates a partial oxidation gas turbine with a reciprocating internal combustion engine for improved overall system performance, reduced cost per kilowatt and emissions that meet CARB 2007s emission standards, GTI says. The system will be demonstrated at the San Bernardino Water Reclamation Plant to assess its technical and economic viability.
“What we hope to accomplish with our project is to enable technically viable and cost-competitive integration of renewable resources for hybrid cycle applications,” says John Pratapas, senior engineer, GTI, who will lead the project. “Performance targets of the technology we develop include improving efficiency and reducing the cost of a fuel-flexible, near-term commercial CHP system powered by a novel gas turbine staged with a reciprocating engine in a hybrid generation system.”
The city of San Bernardino and other GTI partners including Southern California Gas (SoCalGas) will provide $887,000 in matching funds to support the project. The targeted completion date for the demonstration is March 2015.
GTI also received a $1.73 million grant to demonstrate technology that converts waste heat in high-temperature (above 900 degrees Fahrenheit) exhaust gases into electricity on an average-sized industrial furnace. According to GTI, the technology would fill the gap in the market for a cost-effective heat recovery system that converts waste heat in high-temperature exhaust gases into electricity by generating heated water that is used to drive an organic Rankine cycle engine (ORCE) generator.
Water Environment Research Foundation Report Identifies Barriers to Biogas Use
Research recently completed by the Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF), Alexandria, Va., addresses why more U.S. wastewater treatment facilities do not harvest the biogas generated during wastewater treatment to power the plant’s operations or return power to the grid. Most often the answers are related to simple risk aversion or incomplete economic consideration rather than technical feasibility, the research report says.
“Barriers to Biogas Use for Renewable Energy” (project number OWSO11C10) is available at www.werf.org.
According to the research report, an increasingly large number of wastewater facilities further treat solids under conditions that produce biogas, or methane. Not employing that biogas for heat or energy recovery is a lost opportunity for cost savings and environmental benefits. Although a significant percent of wastewater treatment facilities generate biogas, less than 10 percent have the proper equipment to generate electrical or thermal energy using that biogas. WERF’s researchers found that decision makers perceive that the payback period on investment in the proper equipment is too long. Needed capital investment is funneled toward other higher priority items.
“The largest, most widespread barriers are economic, related to higher priority demands on limited capital resources or to perceptions that the economics do not justify the investment,” states WERF Director of Research Daniel Woltering.
The WERF research report also explains how other policies regarding air permitting and energy incentives further impact use. To help inform decision makers on the return on investment from use of biogas for energy recovery, WERF says it will publish a comparison of well-accepted financial methods for evaluating the business case for investing in combined heat and power as a companion to this research.
Canadian University Tests Plastics-to-Fuel Machine
Cold Climate Innovation (CCI), a part of the Yukon Research Centre at Canada’s Yukon College in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, is testing a machine at nearby P & M Recycling that aims to convert scrap plastics into a diesel fuel.
The machine was developed by the Japanese company Blest. The distributor of the system in North America is E.N.Ergy, based in Washington state.
“We are incredibly pleased to have the first continuous-feed plastics-to-oil machine in North America here in Yukon,” says Stephen Mooney, CCI director.
CCI says the machine can process 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of plastic per hour to create 10 liters (2.64 gallons) of synthetic diesel.
Pat McInroy, owner of P & M Recycling, says plans call for the diesel produced by the machine to be used to heat the company’s facility during the summer.
“We will definitely create way more fuel than we need, so the next job is to find customers that are willing to try something new.”
McInroy estimates the synthetic diesel will save $18,000 per year in heating oil in addition to savings of labor costs to sort and bale the plastic, and the cost of trucking it south.
“The vast majority of this plastic has zero value. It can be recycled, but not here, only by trucking it 1,500 miles south, and that costs me money every time,” says McInroy. “This machine is creating a value-added product right here. It’s a win/win for the Yukon.”
In preparation for the arrival of the machine, McInroy has been seeking out additional sources of plastic from the businesses located in the area.
“The goal of the project is to determine the true cost of one liter of oil from this machine, including manpower and electricity. Then we need to see if the machine can survive transportation on Yukon’s roads to benefit other communities,” says Mooney.
The $175,000 cost of the plastic-to-oil machine has been jointly supported by Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (CanNor) and CCI, with P & M Recycling contributing new equipment and power upgrades to support the machine’s operation as well as staff, power and space for the year-long project.
Pike Research Report Assesses Waste-to-Energy Markets
A recent report from Pike Research indicates there will be a significant increase in the number of systems built to convert waste into energy.
The report, “Waste-to-Energy Technology Markets,” analyzes the global market opportunity for WTE (waste to energy) across three key technology segments: combustion, gasification and anaerobic digestion. The report provides a comprehensive assessment of the demand drivers, business models, policy factors, and technology issues associated with the rapidly growing market for WTE. Key industry players are profiled in depth, and worldwide revenue and capacity forecasts, segmented by application and region, extend through 2022.
The report says that currently there are more than 800 thermal WTE plants operating in nearly 40 countries around the world; that number is expected to increase significantly over the next decade. By 2022, Pike Research forecasts that at least 261 million tons of municipal solid waste will be converted to base load power and heat. Pushing the growth even further, Pike’s research report says under a more optimistic scenario, that figure could reach 396 million tons per year.
“Ten years from now the world’s rapidly increasing urban population will generate nearly 3 billion tons of MSW (municipal solid waste) per year, representing an estimated 240 gigawatts of untapped energy potential,” says Mackinnon Lawrence, Pike senior research analyst. “The escalation in waste generation presents policy makers with a difficult choice: either expand existing landfill capacity or invest in new waste-to-energy capacity, which can reduce the overall volume of waste that must be dumped.”
The report notes that waste management policies and the growth potential for the WTE sector vary dramatically by world region. By 2022, Pike Research’s analysis shows, the Asia Pacific region will account for 54 percent of the electricity generated from waste-to-energy systems worldwide.