Enerkem uses a thermochemical fluidized-bed process to gasify municipal solid waste (organics, wood waste, plastics), demolition wood, and agricultural/forest residues. The resulting syngas is cleaned and, using a proven catalyst, can be turned into a variety of end products, including methanol, ethanol and high-value olefins (plastics). The company is in the process of building a waste-to-ethanol facility in Mississippi (75 million litres a year) and an Edmonton plant (36 million litres a year) that will also turn sorted municipal solid waste into ethanol. The Edmonton facility is being done in partnership with Greenfield Ethanol, Canada’s largest independent ethanol producer. Meanwhile, in Westbury, Quebec, the company has a commercial-scale demonstration facility that currently turns old wooden hydro poles into ethanol.

Rho Ventures, Braemar Energy Ventures and BDR Capital, all existing investors, participated in the financing round with Waste Management, along with new investor Cycle Capital. “This financing round validates Enerkem’s business and advances our path towards leadership in the waste and advanced fuels markets,” said Chornet in a release. In an earlier story (July 2008) I wrote for Greentech Media, Chornet said that burning waste or burning the syngas created from waste is, well, a waste. Based on electricity and ethanol prices at the time, a company can make three times more revenue per tonne of processed waste compared to a plant that simply burns its syngas to generate electricity, he said. Chornet also said Enerkem’s process is profitable with oil at $50 a barrel and if the company can get a competitive tipping fee to take the garage.

The problem with this conclusion? Clarens based the life-cycle analysis on data that was mostly 10 years old. For example, some current algae cultivation practices, particularly those based on wastewater or sea water, tackle the fertilizer issue head on. So the age of the data is an important bit of information that should have been made very clear in the study — even the abstract. Ten years in the world of technology, particular cleantech, is a long time. I mean, the big R&D push around algae-based fuels only began three or four years ago, and 10 years ago the “cleantech” sector didn’t exist in name. Ten years ago the world was still wrapping its head around Y2K, George W. Bush was just getting into office, Google was still a start-up years from going public, and the TV show CSI (the original one) had its world premiere. In other words, you can expect data about algae cultivation to be, well, rather useless as a reflection of current practices.

This isn’t to blame Clarens. As he told the New York Times’ Green Inc., the most current data out there is simply unavailable to academia. It’s proprietary. “I’d be happy to model it if somebody produces it,” he said. This, of course, is a general problem with a lot of studies looking into lifecycle analyses. Researchers can only go with the data they can get, and perhaps this explains a lot of the earlier controversy around ethanol from corn. It’s still something we want to move away from, but certainly not as bad as guys like David Pimental of Cornell University like to paint it. I’d argue these studies should do two things: make a greater effort of emphasizing data limitations; and make a clear distinction between technologies/processes already deployed and those in pre-commercial phase.

Look at it this way: Can you imagine a study coming out in 2010 comparing different Internet search engines, but basing it on data available in 2000? Now, the Internet isn’t cleantech, but in certain areas there’s no reason to believe that the pace of innovation is any different.

Life-cycle analysis is hugely important work, but if it can’t keep up with innovation then it can become dated before it’s even published.

It will be interesting to see how Alter NRG’s technology and approach compares with that of Plasco Energy, which is operating a pilot waste-to-energy facility in Ottawa and has had more than its share of problems over the past couple of years. Alter NRG, I should point out, is the company that purchased geoexchange development company Clean Energy Developments two weeks ago.

But Alter NRG decided it was a nice opportunity to diversify its business, considering the plasma gasification market still requires some time to mature. Company president and CEO Mark Montemurro said Alter NRG has the balance sheet and executive team that will help CED or “CleanEnergy” grow its business, which today sits at $6 million in revenues. “From a cash position, the acquisition provides for more stable and near-term revenue and cashflow from geoexchange installations which will be enhanced by the larger but less predictable plasma gasification equipment sales,” the company said.

I wrote about CleanEnergy a few years ago, when the company was just getting started. Back then, its primary focus was to work with homebuilders that wanted to include geoexchange systems as an option for new homebuyers. One of its first projects was in 2006 with Ontario-based Marshall Homes, which offered geothermal and solar thermal as an option in one of its subdivisions. These days, CleanEnergy is busy installing geoexchange systems for hotels, schools, commercial office buildings, and high-end homes. It still works with builders, but will also work directly with large customers.

Alter NRG knew it had to come up with some way of generating cash flow. Selling gasification systems is a risky business and has long sales cycles, while selling geoexchange systems can take place in a rapidly maturing market that is currently supported with generous government subsidies. Sales cycles are shorter, allowing for cash flow. So while it might seem like an odd fit for NRG, it could turn out to be a wise acquisition.

It’s that time again. Sustainable Development Technology Canada has awarded grants to another round of companies eager to demonstrate their respective clean technologies. This time around 18 projects are being funded to the tune of $54 million. To date SDTC has invested $425 million in 171 clean technology projects. Of the 18, here are a few that caught my attention:

* Duropar Technologies Inc. of Brampton, Ontario, has partnered with Canadian Pacific Railway on a project that seeks to replace the use of creosote-covered railway ties with ones that are made of 100 per cent waste-based composite material. By waste, I mean plastic that is difficult to recycle through municipal programs and old asphalt, which is a pain in the butt to dispose of. Now, no secret that the old creosote ties have toxic chemicals in them that leech into the soil and ground-water along train tracks. Here’s a fact I didn’t know: the railway industry goes through more than 20 million ties a year in North America alone. “Each tie leaches up to 15 kilograms of creosote over its lifetime,” according to SDTC. Duropar has no apparent Web site, but I did find this link to one of their patents. Its composite ties don’t leech, so are considered a much “greener” alternative.

* Saltworks Technologies Inc. of Vancouver, B.C., has developed a desalination system “that reduces electrical energy requirements by up to 80 per cent, thereby improving the affordability and accessibility of clean water,” according to SDTC. The key to this is an inexpensive, low-temperature thermal energy conversion system that uses solar energy or industrial waste heat (process heat) to reduce electricity consumption. For the SDTC project, Saltworks will build a commercial-scale 5,000-litre/day “transportable” pilot plant that can be used for ocean water. The process doesn’t rely on chemicals. The company, as you can see by its Web site, is still pretty much in stealth mode. If its process and technology are as efficient as promised, this could be huge for the Middle East, Australia, and shoreline areas of the U.S. southwest that have scarce fresh-water resources. The Middle East alone, certainly an area with terrific solar exposure, wants to build several massive oil-fired generating stations that will be used to power desalination plants. The potential market is massive.

* And then there’s StormFisher Biogas of Toronto, a company I’ve written about several times before. Seems StormFisher is moving ahead with plans to produce biogas in anaerobic digesters that can be injected into Ontario’s natural gas pipeline — specifically, the pipeline owned and operated by Union Gas. It will be a Canadian-first if they can do it, though “Canadian first” means little when we know it’s being done all the time in Europe. Still, nice to see us getting into the game. StormFisher’s system will take methane produced from manure and food processing by-products (i.e grape skins from wine-making, waste from cheese and milk production, etc.) and will convert it into pipeline-grade natural gas. At the same time, StormFisher’s own process by-product — i.e. the digestate — will be turned into a quality organic fertilizer that can be sold back to farmers to displace the use of chemical fertilizers. “The project aims to validate next generation biogas technologies which, although commercially available in Europe, are not in use in North America,” according to SDTC.

I’m more and more appreciating the potential role that biogas production will play as our economy moves away from fossil fuels. I have a story today on Toronto Hydro’s efforts to build a 10-megawatt generation facility in the city’s east end that would burn biogas pumped in from a neighbouring wastewater treatment facility. In return, the byproduct thermal energy from the generation process will be sent back to the treatment facility, which relies on heat for a variety of applications. This kind of co-generation setup makes oodles of sense and can — and should — be replicated across other municipalities. The Ashbridge’s Bay treatment facility in Toronto’s east end is ideal because of its size. As the largest facility of its kind in the country, it treats the wastewater that’s flushed from 1.3 million residents.

The opportunities to tap energy from decaying biomass are seemingly endless. Cavendish Farms, a maker of potato products in Prince Edward Island, recently announced the commissioning of a facility that turns potato waste into biogas, which is then used in the boilers of the potato processing plant. The company points out that not only is biogas displacing the use of oil, but oil no longer needs to be trucked into the plant, nor are trucks required to haul away the potato waste to a landfill. The on-site anaerobic digester that produces the biogas also produces a byproduct that can be used as a natural, organic fertilizer on the fields that grow the potatos. A true win-win-win. The company expects to reduce its carbon footprint by 30 to 35 per cent.

Toronto Hydro, meanwhile, has a bunch of other biogas projects in the hopper, including one landfill gas project and two projects that will involve the capture of biogas from the city’s green-bin waste (i.e. household organics). The utility is also in early talks with the Toronto Zoo about a project that would covert the dung from elephants, giraffes and other animals into biogas. As for the Ashbridge’s Bay project, it’s expected to get the final rubber stamp from city council next month, with construction beginning in the fall and full operation planned for the end of 2010.

There are hundreds of these projects just waiting to be developed across the province, and thousands across the continents. They represent the true spirit of decentralized energy production. And, while we don’t talk about this as much, they help solve a growing waste management problem.

I had a feature this weekend in the Toronto Star about the cap-and-trade system coming to Ontario and the likelihood an offsets market will be created a year or more before the 2012 launch of the program. The government here is working hard to align our own provincial system with the Western Climate Initiative, in which it is a member, as well as the Waxman-Markey bill under consideration in the United States (which will likely set the North American standard). The idea of allowing a carbon offsets market to emerge in advance of the cap-and-trade launch is a smart one, as it gives industry a way to prepare and it stimulates offset project development before the final cap-and-trade rules go into effect.

But here’s the problem: A good portion of offset projects are also electricity generation projects, such as wind, solar, biogas and hydroelectric. But in Ontario, if you want to sell your electricity to the power authority you sign a 20-year deal under a new feed-in tariff program. The tariffs are generous, but most developers are also hoping to keep the carbon credits they would qualify for so they can be sold as offsets.

Unfortunately for them, the Ontario Power Authority’s contract for power purchases stipulates that it — and by “it” I mean the Ontario government, which is ultimately the Ontario ratepayer — gets to keep all environmental attributes. This raises a number of issues:

First, by keeping the credits will this discourage green-energy development, which would be ironic given that the government’s new Green Energy and Economy Act was created — and highly touted, I should add — for the sole purpose of stimulating such development and the jobs that come with? It’s certainly possible, since it’s tough these days for developers — particularly smaller local developers — to raise capital for projects.

Second, what does the government plan to do with these credits? Will it sell them on carbon markets and throw the cash in the general treasury? Will it sell them and dedicate the revenues to a special clean energy fund aimed at stimulating further green power development? Or, will it simply retired the credits?

Personally, I think it has no choice but to retire the credits. The whole justification for having Ontario electricity consumers pay a premium for their power over the coming years is based on the idea that we must do our part to tackle climate change, and we must set an example for other jurisdictions to follow. But if the government, say, sells the credits to Ohio or Michigan so those states can go on burning coal, how is that fair to Ontario ratepayers — i.e. How can you explain to Ontario ratepayers that they’re paying a green premium so that other jurisdictions can go on polluting? Sure, the money from the sold credits would come back to ratepayers (maybe), but then what would be the sense in the end of pursuing green energy in the first place?

Finally, what carbon credits are the Ontario Power Authority justified in keeping? I can understand — and generally support — the reasoning behind keeping carbon credits related to indirect electricity displacement. That is, the amount of carbon that’s avoided when solar or wind power or any other renewable displaces fossil-fuel-based power generation. It’s here where Ontario ratepayers have the right to keep those credits and see them properly retired. But some renewable power developers, such as those collecting biogas from anaerobic digesters and landfills, have a strong argument for keeping at least a portion of the credits.

Here’s why: Biogas-based power generation both displaces fossil-fuel-based electricity and it destroys methane, a greenhouse gas that’s 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. You can earn carbon credits from methane destruction, even if you just flare the biogas instead of burn it to produce electricity. Given this, why should the power authority have the right to those credits? The agency’s reach, one could argue, should be limited to the portion of a project that deals directly with electricity generation.

Biogas projects are important to Ontario. They can supply dispatchable renewable power that displaces fossil fuels. Anaerobic digesters can kill bad microbes from livestock manure that can contaminate water systems (remember Walkerton?). And they keep methane from slowly creeping into the atmosphere.

They should be encouraged, not discouraged. This means flexibility of policy, and a recognition that not all projects and technologies are created equal.

NOTE: If you want to keep up to date as the Ontario government develops its cap-and-trade program, visit www.carbonomics.ca (the URL is mine, which I forwarded to the government site because it had an insanely long URL. I’ll likely keep the link in tact for at least a few months)

NOTE II: I’m not a fan of cap-and-trade, because it’s complex to set up and it adds another thick layer of bureacracy to government. It also creates a new class of lawyers, accountants, etc… who take their cut of the action, and it’s so complex that there’s room for abuse — not unlike the abuses that set off the derivatives crisis that helped plunge the global economy into recession and almost led to a collapse of Wall Street. I’d much prefer to see a carbon tax, which is more efficient and transparent and less open to abuse. But cap-and-trade seems to be the way the world is going, so who am I to question it?

Another company that’s overlooked by U.S. media is Ottawa-based Cyrium Technologies, which just announced record performance from its commercially manufactured multi-junction solar cells, which are based on quantum dot technology. “Cyrium’s first generation solar cells offer efficiencies of 40 per cent or higher together with a nearly constant conversion efficiency for solar concentrations from 200 to greater than 1,000 suns,” the company said. This is a big deal, given that the other “records” touted to date, which range from 40.8 to 42.8 conversion efficiency (these claims are in dispute — see Wikipedia entry), have been limited to the lab. Cyrium, on the other hand, is actually manufacturing limited quantities of its cells for testing by potential customers. And the company isn’t resting on its laurels, either. “Cyrium anticipates its second generation product will reach 43 per cent efficiency within one year and third generation products are targeted to be at 45 per cent within two years,” the company said.

Meanwhile, Montreal-based Enerkem has been granted a permit to commence construction of what it’s calling the “world’s first commercial municipal waste-to-biofuels facility.” The $70 million facility, located in Edmonton, Alberta, will take municipal solid waste that’s left over after recycling and composting and will convert that waste into ethanol using Enerkem’s process. The project is a joint-venture between Enerkem (technology supplier) and Greenfield Ethanol (ethanol producer). “This unprecedented project is set to change the dynamics of the waste and fuel industries by making waste — that would otherwise be landfilled — a resource for transportation fuels,” said Enerkem CEO Vincent Chornet. I know I won’t be the only one following this project closely.

Finally, honorable mention goes to Toronto-based WhalePower, which has just made it as a finalist at the prestigious INDEX international design competition in Copehagen, Denmark. You may recall WhalePower’s new wind-turbine blade design, which is inspired by the humpback whale’s tubercle-line flipper. This bumpy leading edge gives the whale more agility in water. WhalePower has adapted the design to turbine blades, allowing for more efficient capture of wind energy and access to this energy at lower speeds. There are five categories in the Copenhagen competition, and the winner of each category gets 100,000 Euros. Winners will be selected in August and the winning designs will also become part of a touring show through Asia and Europe. WhalePower is competing in the “community” category against some tough competition, including Shai Agassi’s Better Place.

But enough with the bragging Canuck — let’s end on a more negative note. First Ballard Power’s stock-market bubble burst, then it sold off its stake in the automobile fuel-cell portion of its business, and now it’s leaving the residential micro-CHP market. Vancouver-based Ballard announced today it was dissolving its joint-venture with Japan’s EBARA Corporation, which through EBARA Ballard Corp. manufactured, sold, and serviced residential cogeneration systems based on Ballard’s fuel-cell technology. The business case just wasn’t there, said Ballard CEO John Sheridan. With the micro-CHP market now dumped, that leaves forklifts and backup power for telecom towers. You’ve got to credit Sheridan for keeping it focused and realistic, but it’s difficult not to contrast the humbled company of today with the overhyped, overvalued Ballard of 10 to 15 years ago.

It’s a match made in renewable heaven. After two years of collaboration Vancouver-based Nexterra Energy, developer of biomass gasification systems, has partnered with GE Energy to create modular biomass combined heat and power (CHP) plants of between 2 and 10 megawatts in size. Nexterra has optimized its system to work with GE’s Jenbacher high-efficiency gas engines. Specifically, it has upgraded the syngas that comes out of its system so that it meets the fuel specifications of the Jenbacher engine.

“We believe the combination of biomass gasification and internal combustion engines is a breakthrough for biomass power generation,” said Prady Iyyanki, CEO of GE’s Jenbacher division.

The biomass CHP system is ideal for on-site heat and power applications at universities, hospitals, and other government facilities, as well as food and beverage plants, waste management facilities and forest product mills. Independent power producers — perhaps part of community co-ops — could also use the systems as standalone power generators for their communities.

The companies said they will take the next 24 months to test and demonstrate the modular system, at a cost of about $30 million. It will start this year as a 250-kilowatt test system at Nexterra’s development centre, followed by a 2-megawatt commercial-scale system demonstrated at a customer site. “Our objective is to exploit this opportunity by creating a new standard of small-scale biomass power solution that has widespread application as a distributed generation solution,” said Nexterra president Jonathan Rhone. “We believe this approach has significant advantages over large-scale, centralized combustion-based biomass power plants in terms of higher efficiency, lower fuel risk and reduced emissions.”

This is an excellent product offering, particularly in places — such as B.C. (read: pine beetle waste) and Northern Ontario — where woody biomass is plentiful. In Ontario, where Ontario Power Generation is exploring setting up a massive biomass supply chain to support a coal-to-biomass plant conversion, it would make sense to plug these biomass systems into the supply network that develops.