Great News! Electric Utilities Are Lining Up To Use Fuel Made From Chicago Garbage.
This is not good news
for
Fred Barbara and
Tom Volini and their proposed garbage dump backed by mayor Green and
mayoral candidate Nina Epstein. With this announcement, Chicago is joining Lake County, Indiana in using
garbage-to-energy technology for getting rid of their garbage because of the 10s
of millions of dollars these technologies will generate for their communities.
Sadly, the political powers in the Kankakee area refuse to recognize what is
happening all around them with garbage-to-energy technology. None to date have
indicated they have or will take the time to pick up the phone to gain any
information about these technologies and the millions that could be generated
for our community. They all seem to be hanging on to the idea of doing
businesses with Fred Barbara, who was implicated in a federal mob bombing trial
last year, and his pal Tom Volini.
Is in any wonder why we were rated the last place to live in North America?
One has to wonder, why the Journal fails to cover these good news stories
on garbage-to-energy? They do a good job on other issues but seem to drop
the ball on this issue. See the news articles below starting with the
latest and going back to July 24, 2008.
Monday, October 27, 2008
http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2008/10/27/daily14.html?ana=yfcpc
ST. LOUIS Business Journal -- CleanTech Biofuels Inc. acquired a patent from World Waste Technologies to transform pulp and paper products into cellulosic feedstock to create alternative energy.
The patent relates to the proprietary “pressurized steam classification process” that CleanTech uses for cleaning and separating municipal solid waste into its component parts. This process creates a biomass that can be used as a renewable feedstock for the production of alternative energy. CleanTech is implementing its technology at a commercial site in Chicago and is evaluating a number of additional sites for commercial development.
CleanTech Biofuels said it’s now able to file new U.S. and international patents based on the combined technologies described in the patent and those of its subsidiary Biomass North America Licensing.
St. Louis-based CleanTech Biofuels Inc. develops technologies designed to help municipalities reduce the amount of waste dumped in landfills and create a source of locally produced biomass.
Monday, October 20, 2008
CleanTech Biofuels Places
First Equipment Orders
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/081020/aqm121.html?.v=50
ST. LOUIS, Oct. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CleanTech Biofuels, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: CLTH - News) announces that it has placed its initial orders for equipment to be used at its first commercial site located in Chicago, Illinois. CleanTech expects to begin producing biomass from municipal solid waste for the production of renewable energy in the near-term. Initially, the biomass produced in Chicago will be co-fired with coal at existing coal fired power plants operating in the Chicago area.
CleanTech Biofuels, Inc. is a development stage company with technology that the company believes is capable of converting municipal solid waste into cellulosic ethanol and other products. By using the existing infrastructure for municipal solid waste collection and disposal to collect biomass at low or possibly negative feedstock cost, the Company expects to achieve profitability quickly relative to other alternative energy producers who must develop their infrastructure to collect and transport more expensive feedstocks such as sugar cane, corn or even switchgrass, wood waste, or corn stover.
St. Louis Business Journal
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2008/10/13/daily23.html?ana=yfcpc
CleanTech lays out plans for biomass production in Chicago
http://www.biomassmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=1810
St. Louis, Mo.-based CleanTech Biofuels Inc. has signed an agreement with
Biomass North America Licensing Inc. to acquire the company through a merger.
With the acquisition, CleanTech Biofuels will have exclusive rights to use the
proprietary and patent-pending technology developed by the owners of Biomass
North America Licensing, as well as licensed technology for the production of
cellulosic biomass from municipal solid waste (MSW) in the United States and
Canada.
According to CleanTech Biofuels Chief Executive Officer Ed Hennessey, the
technology is expected to
first be implemented in a
commercial project at a transfer station in Chicago,
which will be jointly
operated by Biomass North America Licensing and CleanTech Biofuels. The proposed
site for the commercial development is owned by a principal shareholder of
Biomass North America Licensing.
Biomass North America’s technology is currently being operated at a commercial
plant in Australia where the cellulosic biomass produced from MSW is being
utilized as a soil amendment.
CleanTech initially
intends to use the proprietary biomass conversion technology at the Chicago
site to produce cellulosic biomass as solid fuel which will be co-fired with
coal for electricity production.
Initial tests on the feasibility of the project indicated that the British
Thermal Unit ( Btu) value was approximately 75 percent that of coal in
accordance to a joint test by CleanTech Biofuels and a St. Louis utility
company, according to Hennessey. Moreover, the
biomass generated by the process
has substantially less pollutants in emissions from combustion than coal or
other refuse derived fuels tested.
Hennessey added that CleanTech Biofuels is assessing the potential of generating
internal electricity to power the plant once the project becomes operational.
“We look at the application of biomass co-fired with coal as the low hanging
fruit that can be done commercially right now,” Hennessey said. “What
we’re looking to do is develop a plant there [in Chicago]
using the biomass as solid fuel to produce electricity with traditional debt
and bond financing to fund a significant part of the development costs. When our
cellulosic ethanol conversion technology is ready for commercial implementation,
we hope to use the infrastructure at the existing plant to add a cellulosic
conversion plant to the same site.”
Hennessey said the company is in discussions with an undisclosed electric
utility to possibly purchase the biomass produced at the proposed site for the
project.
“When we get the
Chicago location going commercially and we’re making biomass and selling it
as solid fuel, we can probably lower the cost of the ethanol demonstration plant
dramatically by setting it up right there and simply increasing the amount of
MSW we process daily,” Hennessey said.
The acquisition of Biomass North America’s technology complements CleanTech’s
existing Pressurized Steam Classification (PSC) technology for the production of
cellulosic ethanol from MSW. In Golden, Colo., CleanTech is currently developing
a demonstration-scale facility to produce ethanol from MSW using its proprietary
PSC technology in conjunction with a novel HFTA cellulose conversion reactor
supplied by the Forest Products Laboratory at the University of
California-Berkeley, as well as other improvements to traditional acid
hydrolysis developed by Brelsford Engineering. Hennessey said the project is
progressing well and the company is looking to increase the amount of cellulose
that it processes so it can extrapolate more data relating to feedstock and
process optimization by adding a four ton per day municipal solid waste PSC
vessel at its demonstration plant.
Hennessey
said data drawn from the Golden cellulosic ethanol project will be assessed to
gauge the feasibility of having a similar colocated facility at its Chicago
facility.
CleanTech is also evaluating other cellulosic ethanol conversion technologies.
Hennessey said if they determine that there is a technology currently ready for
commercial implementation, they will seek to partner with the owners of that
technology to expedite the commercialization of the production of cellulosic
ethanol from MSW.
Once its cellulosic
ethanol demonstration project ramps up, CleanTech is hopeful that it could
produce cellulosic ethanol at or around $1 per gallon, according to
Hennessey. However, the production costs could be lower in areas where high
tipping fees are paid to dispose of MSW.
“We’ll have a much better feel of our cost once we’ve run our proof-of-concept
demonstration plant in Golden,” he said.
To learn more about CleanTech Biofuels, visit http://www.cleantechbiofuels.net/.