Recycling

August 20, 2008

From Dump to Pump: Company Aims to Produce High-Ocane Gasoline From Waste

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

Then: "Fill 'er up with premium."

Now: "Let's see. I've got $50, so guess I'll get 12 gallons of regular unleaded."

Someday: "Gimme 10 gallons of that sewage sludge distillate please."

Sounds yucky, but sewage sludge and garbage and plant waste that used to go to the dumps may someday be part of the nation's transportation fuels supply.

A two-year-old California startup, Byogy Renewables Inc., said today that it has licensed a process developed by researchers at Texas A&M University that turns waste into high octane gasoline.

Production of the alternative fuel could begin within two years (could being the operative wiggle word), said Daniel Rudnick, chief executive of the Bakersfield-based company.

The beauty of the biofuel Byogy hopes to produce is that it doesn't need to be blended with other fuels, he said.

And it can be shipped through existing gasoline pipelines and pumped from existing gasoline pumps, unlike biodiesel or alcohol fuels such as ethanol that are corrosive and need to be blended and, in some cases require a separate delivery and pumping infrastructure.

"This technology is important because it addresses many issues -- eliminating waste, producing economical fuel quickly and being friendly to our environment," said Kenneth Hall, associate director of the Texas Engineering Experiment Station at Texas A&M University, which developed the waste conversion process.

"Furthermore, this technology is ready to be commercialized now and does not require any new scientific or technological breakthroughs to become a reality," Hall said in an interview with Greenwire, a subscription-only environmental news service.

Byogy uses a multi-step process that begins with fermenting the waste and then treating it hith heat and chemicals to produce intermediate materials that are subjected to heat and pressure to produce 95-octane gasoline, Rudnick said in an interview with Green Car Advisor.

Posted by: Permalink | Comments (1); John O'Dell August 20, 2008, 7:18 AM
Categories:: Alternative Fuels, Biofuels, Fuels & Technologies, Recycling
Technorati Tags:: Alternative Fuel

August 7, 2008

Bridgestone Looking at Dandelion Rubber as Possible Replacement for Tree-Based

Long the bane of lawn owners everywhere, the sunny-faced dandelion could revolutionize the rubber industry.

Scientists from Ohio State University and the Ohio BioProducts Innovation Center recently received a $3 million grant to design and build a processing plant that would turn sticky white dandelion root sap into quality rubber, according to a Discovery News article published this week.

"We still haven't been able to find an artificial substitute for natural rubber," said William Ravlin, a researcher involved in the project. "We're still harvesting [rubber] the same way they did 1,000 years ago -- by cutting into the tree and letting the sap drip into containers. It's not a very efficient system."

Efficiency, the Ohio scientists say, would be Midwestern farmers in air-conditioned tractors harvesting acres of dandelions with the same machines used to pull tulip bulbs.

Ten to 20 percent of the plant's carrot-like root is rubber-ready. "And that's without modifying them with biotechnology or breeding," Ravlin told Discovery News.

Researchers expect that within a few years the processing plant in Ohio could produce about 20 million tons of rubber annually.

Synthetic rubber doesn't perform as well as natural rubber. Car tires can contain as little as 10 percent natural rubber, but the more demanding the job, the more natural rubber is needed: Airplane tires are 100 percent natural rubber.

Some of the dandelion rubber will eventually go to Bridgestone, a leading tire manufacturer.

"I think this has some real potential," Bridgestone's Jason Poulton told Discovery News.

Posted by: Permalink | Comments (0); Scott Doggett August 7, 2008, 3:35 PM
Categories:: Biofuels, Fuel Economy, Recycling, Tires
Technorati Tags:: Bridgestone Tires

June 9, 2008

Hydrogen From Sewage to Power Fuel-Cell Vehicles

Sanitation facility will extract hydrogen from methane gas in sewage tanks.

Some Southern California drivers may be able to tool around in "poop-powered" vehicles as early as next year, according to a Bloomberg report.

The motorists would have to be among those driving the limited number of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles that automakers including General Motors Corp. and Honda Motor Co. are beginning to make available.

Those who've got one will be able to fill up at a sewage treatment facility run by the Orange County Sanitation District, which plans to turn the inflow of excrement and other waste into hydrogen for electric vehicles that run on fuel-cell systems.

"Poop is actually a relatively minor portion of the material coming down the pipes,'' said Ed Torres, the district's director of technical services. "It's mostly food wastes and other organic materials washed down the drain, and all the paper that's flushed down the toilet."

Posted by: Permalink | Comments (0); John O'Dell June 9, 2008, 3:01 AM
Categories:: Alternative Fuels, Biofuels, Fuel Cell, General Motors, Honda, Hydrogen, Plug-ins and Electric, Recycling

June 3, 2008

The End: Recycling Old Clunkers a Good Green Move

By Robert E. Calem, Contributor

Automakers may be touting gee-whiz technologies to power their eco-friendly cars of the future, but respectful treatment of that old clunker that's in your garage today when its useful life is over could be equally helpful in the overall effort to save the environment.

There's lots of metal and plastic there and, as it does for soda bottles and newspapers, recycling can mean redemption for even the biggest gas guzzler.

According to the Automotive Recyclers Association (ARA) – a Fairfax, Virginia, based group comprising nearly 3,000 automotive recycling businesses worldwide – automobiles are the most recycled consumer product on the globe.

In the U.S. alone, auto recycling yields enough steel to produce almost 13 million new cars annually. It's the 16th largest industry in the U.S., generating about $10 billion annually and employing approximately 100,000 people.

Posted by: Permalink | Comments (0); John O'Dell June 3, 2008, 3:04 AM
Categories:: Recycling