Bio Products Opportunity

Every year the National Biodiesel Board conference is “shadowed” by grassroots biodiesel activists, and every year we all end up inspired and wanting to form an organization to keep the inspiration alive.

Last year everyone converged in San Antonio at the Sustainable Biodiesel Summit, where it was pretty much business as usual.  The organizers, Rachel, Sara Hope, Emily et al drew in some major star power and put on a great show.

And at the end, instead of wishing we could actually do something with our message of sustainability, Daryl Hannah and Kelly King announced they were going to launch an effort to come up with a “Sustainable Biodiesel Label.”

We applauded their efforts, and all went home, got immersed in our unsustainable lives, and forgot about it.  One day in the spring I got a call from a reporter with Biodiesel Magazine and did an interview about my take for sustainable biodiesel.  I thought nothing of it.  Biodiesel Magazine is not known for its journalism.  It’s known for glossy advertisements and pass-thru press releases, and I have always thought of it as the “editorial arm” of the National Biodiesel Board.  I did my tired old usual spiel and forgot about it.

Which is why I was somewhat taken aback when I got a call from Heidi Quante, the director of the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance in San Francisco.  She read the article, and was wanting me to “serve” on the “production practices” panel which is tasked with writing up guidelines for what may become a “Sustainable Biodiesel Certification.”

Wow.  They have a working feedstock group, a production practices group, and an eye on marketing—the works.  This is a group that is doing some work, even before it has a website in the world.  Normally it’s the other way around:  nice website, no action in the world.

And they are planning a Hard Rock Café kickoff fundraiser in New York City in the fall.

Remarkable.

Bob King from Pacific Biodiesel fired off a skeleton of what sustainable production practices might look like, his framework in bold, and before vanishing into my new Southampton hideout, I fired this across the bow:

Transportation

Efficient transportation from feedstock source

This could be measured in BTU’s per pound, which would be impacted by transportation type, fuel type, and miles traveled.  When we haul our feedstocks on B100, for instance, we should get a higher score than if we are hauling on petroleum.  Those on water should get more points than those on rail, which should get more points than those on truck—but mileage would also need to play a role.  One plant might be able to truck in feedstock from 100 miles away and use less BTUs per pound than another that is shipping in from the other side of the world.

Those on waste products should score higher than those on virgin. Even though Uncle Sam treats waste chicken as virgin from a tax perspective, it should score higher from a BTU perspective.

I’m seeing a calculator—like those carbon footprint websites—or a scoring system of some kind.

Efficient transportation to end user

This could be BTUs per gallon shipped.  Same thing as incoming.  Presumably the plant selling its product to consumers in the yard would get a higher score than one loading product on trucks to ship to bulk plants for blending.

Environmental

Control of fugitive emissions of methanol from process
Control of methanol emissions in waste products
Emissions from boiler exhaust
Correct transportation and use of glycerin byproduct
Waste water disposal
Absorbent disposal

Plants with methanol recovery should score higher than those without.
Glycerin going to the boiler fuel market (methanol in) should score higher than glycerin going to dust suppression methanol in.  Again it ties back into BTU consumption.  BTU’s consumed should get a higher score than BTUs composted.

Energy
Renewable fuel source for heat
Renewable source for electricity
Overall energy efficiency of process and office

I think we should also look at embodied energy of plants.  Those who “recycle” existing facilities into biodiesel plants should score higher than those plants built on green fields.  Those who built reactors out of existing tanks should fare better than those who fabricate new.

It’s a shame Piedmont might not qualify for a sticker…

Feeling like I had made a contribution, I headed to New York.  Then I noticed John had posted a Green Fuel Index on the Biofuels Interest Group (BIG) list, and it dawned on me that I ought to invite the readers of Energy Blog to jump in on this process.

What would sustainable production practices look like to you?  And as an aside, would it matter if your biodiesel supplier carried a Sustainable Seal of Approval?
I would be delighted to hear your take on these ideas.

Original post by Lyle

Market indicators show that there is significant potential for growth in the US silicones market which is expected to top $3.8bn over the next 3 years. Elsewhere in the world, there have been announcements in setting up new manufacturing facilities or R&D centres in Asia, notably in China.  
One such investment is by Wacker and its […]

Original post by globalconference

We have yet to turn on the air conditioner at the farm, which means our solar array is kicking out about as much energy as the family consumes.

Here in the dog days of summer the conservation strategy is easy:  jump in the swimming hole every night—sometimes twice a day—and leave town for New York for the last few days of June.

Today we loaded the family onto a plane and headed for New York to perform a “Jessalyn extraction.”  She lives in a closet in Greenwich Village while she interns at Kate Spade.   Walks to work each day, and is too poor to live in this city.

Our arrival is like something out of Raid on Entebbe.  We check into the Waldorf Astoria to read books on sustainability and to plan our attack.  The mission is to extract Jess, load the family on the train, and head to Pamela’s place in Southampton.

Along the way I am reading Michael Shuman’s Going Local.  He offers some amazing insights into the redistribution of wealth that would be necessary if we are to attain a sustainable society.

June will be the largest financial month in the history of the project.  Chris and Greg maxed out the plant and delivered continuous 20K weeks.  And we sold every drop.  One day Leif was forced to leave 14K gallons on the table—orders we couldn’t fill—and we suffered a collective heartbreak.

Although it feels good to have hit our full stride.  We set out to build a plant that could do this, and we are doing it.

And David has taken our design-build work to the moon.  This should be the biggest month in history, including shipping a plant to the Dominican Republic, along with a plant in Virginia.  He’s pushing out 1K reactors from the waste vessel stream, which means some of our customers are getting to be our size.

Which means we are getting drawings stamped, and stepping in on the permitting front.  After considerable pestering from David, we wrote a “Permits Gospel” which he is now selling as a product to his clients.

By day I move gallons into the world.  By night I move words into the book—the manuscript of which is due about now.

I received a fellowship from the Mesa Refuge in Point Reyes, California, where I will vanish for two weeks in September to write in solitude.  I’m not sure what that will be like.  When writing my latest submission to BiodieselSMARTER I had Arlo making a blackberry pie on one end of the kitchen table, Zafer bouncing a ball at the other end, while Tami and Kaitlin watched a chick flick in the next room.  Ideal writing conditions.

Apparently Mesa Refuge is on the edge of a cliff somewhere.  In my past life I traveled to Silicon Valley from time to time, which meant flying into San Francisco and dropping south into sheer ugliness.  Since immersing myself in biodiesel I have not been back to that part of the world.

I have the fantasy of bolting a week of biodiesel tourism on to the trip.  It could be like a pilgrimage to Mecca.  I could visit Kimber at Biofuel Station, and see Kumar’s facility, and then head to Biofuels Oasis to pay homage.

I never got a chance to review Jennifer’s zine “Not A Gas Station” on Energy Blog, but had I the opportunity I would suggest it is an amazing piece of inspirational literature.  I stole Matt’s copy at the Sustainable Biodiesel Summit in San Antonio and read it on the plane ride home.  It made me want to open a business.  I was so inspired by her writing that I almost forgot that I am in the middle of a startup myself.

Our Coop has been selling them ever since.

If I could bolt on a week of biodiesel tourism, I could also stomp around Girl Mark’s turf.  She was invited to apply for Mesa Refuge, and she lateral passed the opportunity to me.

When I described my tourist fantasy to her I noted that since getting involved in biodiesel, my world has gotten much smaller.  I went to Siler City once—but that was to pick her up at the curb.

Tomorrow I intend to leave both writing and biodiesel behind.  Arlo and I are headed into Midtown to a comic book store I know.  He needs one more volume to complete his Bone collection—and I am confident they will have it on the shelf…

Original post by Lyle

University of Aveiro, Portugal
6 and 7 September 2007
“The aim of the SMARTER meeting is to bring together specialists from the different areas of materials science, such as materials chemists and processing engineers, diffraction and spectroscopy scientists, and computational structuralists, that may contribute to the development of a common language for a SMARTER approach to […]

Original post by jmgs

Original post by drnjbmd

Rodrigo Brito is an amateur photographer as well as a PhD student in Chemistry. Take a look at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rodrigobrito/sets/72157594409729904/
to see some very nice (science related) pictures.

Original post by jmgs

From Myolgie complette en couleur et grandeur naturelle, by Jacques Fabian Gautier d’Agoty, 1746. Reproduced with permission from the W. W. Kellogg Health Sciences Library at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
(via a fantastic new blog called Morbid Anatomy)
Related:

Charles Bell brain engraving
Historical neuroanatomy
Rudolph Leuckart Wall Charts

Original post by MC

Scientific American has been given a new “appealingly bright, colorful design and open layout,” and next month’s issue, in which the new look is introduced, is available for download as a PDF. The file can be downloaded for free until June 30th, so get it while you can.
The cover story, by memory researcher Joe Tsien […]

Original post by MC

http://www.spacecoastprogressivealliance.org/phpEventCalendar/eventdisplay.php?id=1561

Brevard Biodiesel will be at the upcoming 3rd Annual Progressive Fest held Sunday July 22nd at the Eau Gallie Civic Center in Melbourne FL.
We plan to have a few biodiesel vehicles and would be happy to chat about biodiesel with any visitors. We’ll also have prizes for people trying to answer an energy based quiz.
Other fun:
Live Entertainment
Book Fair
Rummage Sale
Face Painting
Food including locally roasted Fair Trade Coffee

Original post by BrevardBioDiesel Blog

Original post by mysustainablefuture

Original post by Chris Paton

The journal has just launched a new web project called Nature Precedings:
…a place for researchers to share pre-publication research, unpublished manuscripts, presentations, posters, white papers, technical papers, supplementary findings, and other scientific documents. Submissions are screened by our professional curation team for relevance and quality, but are not subjected to peer review. We welcome high-quality […]

Original post by MC

Original post by mysustainablefuture

The popular delicacy foie gras (which is French for “fat liver”) is produced in a way that animal rights activists insist is barbaric. Ducks and geese are force-fed corn mash twice a day, through a tube that is inserted into the oesophagus. The birds are slaughtered 2-3 weeks later, and their engorged livers are then […]

Original post by MC

Peruvian archaeologists have excavated the remains of what they believe to be the earliest documented gunshot victim in the Americas. 
The well-preserved skeleton was found in an Inca cemetary located in a suburb of Lima. The skull contains two holes, one at the front, and the other at the back.
Guillermo Cock and Elena Goycochea, who led the dig at the Puruchuco […]

Original post by MC