August 2011

Use of Biogas Increasing

McIlvaine is reporting on the increased use of biogas to generate electricity. Some recent items from McIlvaine Renewable Energy Update follow.

Raytheon plans to power five of its North Texas facilities, in part, with electricity generated by methane gas produced as a natural by-product of landfill decomposition.

The company is acquiring the renewable energy from Montauk through a contract with Noble Americas Energy Solutions LLC. The green power will fulfill approximately 20 percent of Raytheon’s north Texas energy needs.

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The Dow Chemical Company announced a power purchase agreement with the City of Midland, MI and Consumers Energy where natural gas created by the city’s landfill will be used to generate electricity to power Dow facilities in its hometown.

The gas-to-energy project will initially provide approximately 25 percent of Dow’s energy needs for its corporate center. Dow expects to source around 50 percent of its needs following the startup of a second gas-to-energy facility by the city of Midland in late 2011.

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From Newport Beach, CA, the U.S. energy company FirmGreen, Inc. is making big waves in green technology as the first international shipment of its proprietary biogas cleaning equipment began in June, with more shipments to follow. Bound for the Novo Gramacho Landfill near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this U.S.A.-made equipment and the landfill gas cleanup project it supports is to create hundreds of jobs for American manufacturers and Brazilian workers over the next two decades.

In fact, Petrobras, the largest company in Latin America by market capitalization and revenue, will use the biogas from the project to generate over 10 percent of the thermal energy needed to run its Duque de Caxias Refinery.

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Homeland Renewable Energy an agricultural-waste-to-energy specialist announced that its anaerobic digestion division, Homeland Biogas Energy (“HB Energy”) has signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Achor Anaerobic LLC (“Achor”), a provider of innovative AD technology.

Under the agreement, HB Energy will use Achor’s unique “achorlytic” enzyme and digestion-inoculating technology to significantly enhance the productivity of anaerobic digestion in its projects in the U.S. and elsewhere. HB Energy will also work with Achor to license the technology to third parties.

Achor’s technology uses enzymes to significantly increase the biogas production from digestible materials, including animal and food wastes as used by HB Energy at its facilities. Achor and HB Energy are together carrying out large-scale tests of the Achor technology at AD facilities operated by HB Energy in Wisconsin. The results of the tests are expected to be available during the summer, and preliminary indications show very favorable improvements in productivity.

HB Energy focuses on turning animal agriculture waste and other organic waste streams into usable energy for America. HB Energy develops, owns and operates anaerobic digestion plants capable of producing various forms of renewable energy. HB Energy has a pipeline of over 15 large scale ADAD projects, ranging from 3 MW to 20 MW in size.

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