NEW TECHNOLOGY TO CREATE RENEWABLE ENERGY

In Business, May/June, 2004, Vol. 26, No. 3, p. 24

Two California cities - Los Angeles and Lancaster - finalize contracts to build anaerobic systems for power generation which will be financed by a private company called BioConverter LLC.

Lyn Corum

THREE YEARS of negotiations appear to have paid off for BioConverter LLC when the Los Angeles City Council approved the company's power purchase contract with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). That Department has agreed to a 20-year, $320 million contract to buy 40 MW/day of electricity - enough to power 40,000 homes - produced by BioConverter's 2,700 ton/day biogas power plant once it is built in five years.
In contrast, it took the company just ten weeks to finalize a project with the California city of Lancaster for a 200 ton/day facility. The project will produce compressed natural gas for a public fast-fill (natural) gas station. It should be operational within 24 months. Lancaster's city manager, Jim Gilley, said the plant “fits well” with the community's passion for clean air and its Clean Cities designation in the U.S. Department of Energy program that supports public-private partnerships deploying alternative fuel vehicles and building infrastructure.
The two plants will be second-generation versions of two commercial prototypes built by James McElvaney, an engineer with 22 years experience in the field, over the past two decades in Hawaii. He refined a biofilm anaerobic digestion system in which bacteria live on a geotextile surface within the vessel and become acclimated to the feed stock. In this technology, solids are purged at the bottom of the vessel while retaining a large amount of the biological population to which new solids are added. The lack of moving parts is another design innovation. Recycled gas is used as a force to mix the organic waste. McElvaney holds the patent on the current process.
The Los Angeles plant will take five years to design and build at a cost of about $375 million and will process source-separated urban green waste in the high-efficiency patented anaerobic digestion system to produce biogas power for the city's residents. Solids from the anaerobic process will be turned into organic fertilizers and animal feed.

PARTNERSHIP FORMED
Gary Petersen, Chairman of the Board of Directors of BioConverter Los Angeles's parent company, BioConverter LLC, first met Jim McElvaney in 1997 when Petersen walked through the second prototype, a two-ton/day BioConverter facility on Maui. A “Green Team” from Amory Lovin's Rocky Mountain Institute had visited the facility during an environmental conference earlier and had recommended that Petersen check it out. This meeting led to the partnership that has produced the BioConverter projects in Southern California.
Petersen and McElvaney, as chief operating officer, cofounded BioConverter LLC when they submitted their proposal for a BioConverter facility in Los Angeles in response to LADWP's request for renewable power proposals in Dec. 2000. The company won rights to negotiate the LADWP power purchase contract in 2001. BioConverter LLC will finance both the Los Angeles and Lancaster plants.

VERTICAL BIOFILM SYSTEM
The processing of source-separated green materials in BioConverter's system will be the same in both the Los Angeles and Lancaster facilities. The green organic wastes (yard clippings, tree and shrub clippings, food waste) are delivered to an enclosed building, processed to remove contaminants and transferred to covered conveyors. The material is moved on the conveyors into pulping tanks where blending and size reduction occurs.
Material is then pumped in batches into sealed, steel cylindrical vessels which contain a heating coil for temperature maintenance, sparging (bubbling) tubes for gas transfer and a draft tube for slurry recirculation. A fiberglass reinforced plastic cap acts as a gas holder to maintain the produced biogas at a slight positive pressure, preserving the anaerobic environment. A differential pressure sensor is used to measure liquid level and a device similar to a thermocoupler measures the liquid temperature.

THREE PRODUCTS GENERATED
Bacteria convert the organic material into a medium BTU gas, which passes through scrubbers to remove hydrogen sulfide, then is routed to a combustion turbine or fuel cell to generate electricity for sale and for system operations. The waste heat from the combustion turbines is captured in the form of steam to maintain the condition of the anaerobic process and to refine the organic fertilizer, liquid plant food, organic by-products and recycled water.
Residuals not converted to biogas in the anaerobic process are fibrous, nondigested and nondigestible solids. They are screened, pressed and placed into a dryer for pasteurization and conditioning. With additional drying and extrusion, the product is converted into a poultry and aquaculture feed additive.
The screened effluent also produces Bio-Green, a low analysis liquid fertilizer and plant food. With filtration and distillation, several additional organic plant foods will be produced to be shipped in bulk to buyers.

STARTING UP COLLECTING RECYCLABLES IN A VW BUS
IN 1972, 24-year-old Gary Petersen - now chairman of the BioConverter anaerobic digestion company - founded Ecolo-Haul to collect cans, bottles and newspapers along the streets of Los Angeles in a VW bus. His customers paid him to pick up recyclables which were then manually processed for transport to mills or secondary materials brokers. He operated dropoffs, buyback centers and commercial programs.
Steadily, his operation became more sophisticated, and the number of cities and residences serviced grew. In his native Santa Monica, he created the nation's first “Reverse Retail” center where someone could drive up, unload cans, glass, etc. into a cart, then take the cart to a computerized scale for payment. Explained Petersen in the late 1980s: “I'm from the 60s. I wanted to do something really positive in the environmental area and make a business out of it. I had to find a vehicle, and recycling was it. ... I also decided that I've got to make money doing it or nobody is going to listen to me.”
And that's what happened when he sold Ecolo-Haul in 1990 for a reported $2 million to RecycleAmerica, then a division of Waste Management. “I knew the world was going to wake up to what we were doing, and it was time to institutionalize this business. By 1988, we were zooming and three Fortune 500 companies plus one foreign corporation had contacted us about buying Ecolo-Haul. I named the price. It felt strange indeed that after all those years of knocking my head against a wall searching for financing there was all this money available.” (This information was reported in a 1990 article in In Business.)
In 2004, with his transition into the anaerobic digestion industry, Petersen hopes to see a similar repeat of a technology widely adopted. - J.G.

LANCASTER GOES GREEN WITH ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
TERRY Tamminen, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, applauded the partnership among the city of Lancaster, BioConverter and the Antelope Valley Air Quality Management District, whose efforts are expected to reap benefits by early 2006. The $44 million anaerobic digestion facility is set to be constructed on the northwest corner of Avenue H and Division Street - on property previously marked for a power plant. “This has been a work in process for a number of years,” noted Jim McElvaney, chief operating officer of BioConverter.
The facility will produce compressed natural gas (CNG) to be used as renewable fuel for some city vehicles, school buses, industry fleets and privately-owned vehicles. Operators will have access to CNG at a fast fill station that the air quality district is contributing grant funds to construct. Coproducts of the operation will include organic liquid plant food that “will equate to Miracle-Gro” and certified protein feed supplements for use in agriculture. Lancaster produces about 75 tons of green waste per day, and the plant will be capable of processing 200 tpd.
Tamminen lauded Lancaster for being the first to embrace cutting edge technology that is exactly what Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is looking for - recognition that environment and economy go hand in hand. “We want to see these kinds of projects all up and down our state,” concluded Tamminen. Antelope Valley' (CA) Press, March 23, 2004.

FROM THE GARDEN TO THE GRID
IN PRODUCING renewable energy, the biogas facility will process 2,700 tons daily of garden clippings and other green materials through an anaerobic digestion system. The project will boost the city's recycling program by providing a local market for processing green materials, which now must be transported to the Bakersfield area, 150 miles north of Los Angeles, for composting.
“Today, Los Angeles is flexing its power - green power. The biogas project is a win-win. It will create a new source of power, eliminate 2,700 tons of organic waste each day, and create 54 new jobs to operate this facility, and an additional 200 construction jobs for two and one-half years,” Council President Alex Padilla said.
The project received support from 10 environmental organizations. “Turning the yard waste from your green bin into electricity for your home is the kind of solution that renewable energy offers,” said Martin Schlageter, energy program director for the Coalition for Clean Air. “The Coalition for Clean Air applauds the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power for making this project possible by purchasing new renewable energy from the proposed BioConverter facility.”
Under the purchase agreement, BloConverter LLC assumes responsibility for developing and constructing the biogas anaerobic digestion facility. The company will obtain all necessary permits and required environmental approvals, as well as reimburse LADWP for constructing a substation and transmission lines to connect the plant to the city's power grid. LADWP will operate the facility's electric generating units, while BioConverter LLC will manage the anaerobic process,
“This is a great project. The new biogas facility fits perfectly with the city's goals for renewable energy, as well as its recycling goals,” said Gary Petersen, board chairman of BioConverter LLC. Petersen designed the city's first recycling program in the 1970s, and described the BioConverter facility as “closing the loop.”
“The city is creating local self-reliance.We will be using the green material that comes from the communities and recycling it by turning it into green power,” Petersen said. He described the technology for the anaerobic digestion process as 30 to 50 percent more efficient than that used in previously developed anaerobic digestion facilities. Additionally, the plant will produce enough energy to operate off of its own power.

Copyright 2007, The JG Press, Inc.