INDUSTRY I ANALYSIS
In Denver, the 18-story Byron G. Rogers Federal Office Building is undergoing a similarly deep retrofit. Spearheaded in part by RMI efficiency experts, the project is expected to result in a 70 percent reduction in energy use. A historical facade and disadvantageous orientation present unique challenges to retrofitting the nearly 50-year-old building.
To work around these factors, insulation and window work is being done entirely from within the building and engineers from Denver-based engineering consultancy RMH Group have designed a thermal storage system that will capture heat from the sun-facing side of the building to warm the cooler side during winter. Additional energysaving features include a full transition to LED lighting and solar thermal water heating.
Deep retrofits like these provide a roadmap for building owners elsewhere to pursue their own financially sound renovations. But significant roadblocks stand in the way of a full- fledged retrofit revolution. Most building owners are still put off by upfront costs of retrofits, even if efficiency improvements save money over the near- to mid-term. And while government-led funding efforts can help spur renovation activity, addressing the underlying financing barriers will be the most important step to unleashing the true potential of extensive commercial building retrofits.
Waste-to-Resource Breakthroughs Attract Attention – and Investment
The practice of turning municipal waste into a valuable resource like electricity is nothing new. The city of Amsterdam, for example, began using steam from waste incinerators to supplement operation of an adjacent power plant all the way back in 1917. Early waste-to-energy facilities were anything but clean, spewing toxic fumes from unchecked garbage incineration. Decades of technology advancements, however, have enabled the capture of harmful gases and increasingly higher conversion efficiencies, making the latest waste recovery methods a more climate-friendly way to generate power than the burning of fossil fuels.
But an army of emerging companies, promising to turn our trash into needed low-carbon fuels, electricity, and specialty chemicals, is proving that there is still much room for improvement and innovation in this space. With municipal waste totalling 435 million metric tons each year in the U.S. alone, and at least two-thirds of the developed world’s garbage ending up in landfills and incinerators, the vast opportunity for waste recovery technology has waste-to-resource startups increasingly garnering notable financing rounds, strategic partnerships, and project development support.
A common strategy of many leading technology developers is the gasification of waste – using thermal or chemical methods to convert garbage into synthesis gas, or syngas. This gas can then be combusted to generate electricity or used to produce transportation fuel or specialty chemicals. Plasma gasification, converting trash to gas using extremely high temperatures, is beginning to show particular promise. In collaboration with the U.S. Air Force, Montreal-based PyroGenesis developed a plasma waste-to-energy system that is now in operation at Hurlburt Field on Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, turning onsite waste into electricity.
And in Oregon, the Columbia Ridge Landfill is the site of a plasma gasification demonstration plant designed with technology from Bend, Oregon-based InEnTec. At temperatures of about 4,000 to 7,000 0C, plasma gasification allows for the breaking down of materials into elemental gases, with only a small amount of nonhazardous “slag” leftover – a much- preferred end result compared to ash residue from today’s waste-to-energy incinerators.
Recognizing the potential for plasma syngas technology, North America’s largest recycler and trash handler, Waste Management, recently took an equity stake in InEnTec valued at $22.5 million. Waste Management is placing bets elsewhere as well, and in the process has become arguably the most important investor in the waste-to-energy sector.
Other startups partnering with and receiving investment capital from Waste Management include Agylix, developing technology to turn waste plastic into synthetic crude oil; Harvest Power, working to improve the benefits of composting by accelerating decomposition; and Fulcrum Bioenergy and Enerkem, each developing methods to convert garbage into biofuels; both recently filed to go public. “We don’t want to play just in the picking up and delivering,” said Waste Management CEO David Steiner in a Forbes profile. “We want to own conversion, too. We want to own the technology.”
Ultimately, not all emerging waste-to-resource technologies – or the companies behind them – will find success. Some will fail to scale at a commercial level, others will prove prohibitively expensive, and more will stumble in the organizational process.
One particularly unique challenge for waste recovery startups is finding the right product to sell. While renewable transportation fuels made from waste offer the largest potential target market, fuels are often the most difficult to produce at an economical price point, as can be seen with high-profile biofuels startups Solazyme and Amyris recently shifting focus away from fuels to more expensive specialty chemicals and cosmetics.
But for those companies that can develop a cost-effective technology, establish fruitful partnerships, and find the right products to market, the waste-to-resource business is flush with lucrative opportunities for growth.
© 2012 Angel Business Communications. Permission required.
Issue III 2012 I
www.solar-international.net 23
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40