Food Watch: Waste

Garbage and Recycling

363.728 2011 GARBA

Kroger Unveils A Clean Energy Production System Powered By Food Waste
PRNewswire: 5.15.2013

The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) today unveiled a clean energy production system that will convert food that can't be sold or donated into clean energy to help power its Ralphs/Food 4 Less Compton distribution center.

The anaerobic conversion system will process more than 55,000 tons of organic food waste into renewable energy annually and provide power for the over 650,000 square foot distribution center. By diverting that food waste – the equivalent of 150 tons per day – the system will also reduce area truck trips by more than 500,000 miles each year. The Kroger Recovery System uses a sophisticated process to convert the carbon in organic material into a renewable source of methane.

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The Kroger Recovery System utilizes anaerobic digestion, a naturally occurring process, to transform unsold organics and onsite food-processing effluent into renewable biogas. This biogas is then turned into power for onsite operations. The process is carried out in an enclosed, oxygen-free environment, which means the process takes up less space and generates no odors. The system will provide enough renewable biogas to offset more than 20% of the energy demand of the Ralphs/Food 4 Less distribution center. Combining the use of renewable energy power with more than 150 zero emission fuel cell fork lifts, the Ralphs/Food4Less distribution center is now one of the greenest and most efficient, advancing the City of Compton as a leading sustainable community.

About FEED Resource Recovery Inc.

The Kroger Recovery System is designed and operated by FEED Resource Recovery Inc., a clean technology company founded in Boston, Mass in 2007. FEED Resource Recovery (FEED) has designed and implemented a groundbreaking Zero Waste solution (called R2S) for the food industry. FEED's innovative and proprietary approach leverages customers' existing transportation and distribution systems to generate clean, sustainable power for onsite operations, reduce emissions and save millions of dollars on waste removal costs.  READ MORE !

 

Library Burbank Green Blog

COB: Big Bill - Renewable Energy

Big bill for green power
Burbank will pay $17.8M next year for renewable energy it doesn't need.
Burbank Leader: 11.02.2012 by Alene Tchekmedyian

A state law that requires 20% of the city's average energy sales to come from renewable energy is projected to cost the city $17.8 million this fiscal year, officials reported on Tuesday.

The financial burden of complying with the state mandate — which ups the ante every few years — outraged Councilman David Gordon, particularly because Burbank was generating enough energy before the state bill was passed to meet its power needs. “Any renewables we bring in basically results in a situation where we back off our own generation in order to bring renewables in,” said Power Resources Manager Bruno Jeider.

The 20% average must be met for power output between 2011 and 2013.

This fiscal year, the city will pay $85 a megawatt for 303,579 megawatts of renewable energy, nearly three times as much as the $30 a megawatt it pays for its other energy resources, officials said.  READ MORE !

California Renewable Energy Overview and Programs
California Energy Commission

California Watch: Governor's Conference Renewable Energy

The Governor’s Conference on Local Renewable Energy Resources
California's Path towards the Future
July 25 - 26

Governor Brown has called for 12,000 MW of renewable power generated within the local power distribution grid. Implementing this effort will provide important advantages in California’s drive for clean power – development of local resources, avoided costs of new intercity transmission or remote generation, and additional consumer autonomy.

Achieving this goal calls for new approaches and coalitions between consumers, community leaders, utilities and power providers. Promising innovations:
-Financing tools that help build new power sources, but also keep costs as low as possible.
-Improvements to existing wires and transformers, and new policies to speed connections.
-Policies and techniques to measure and manage power demand and variable power sources
-New efforts in local land use, building and fire codes to speed up deployment.

This two-day conference will explore these challenges in detail by catalyzing discussions between experts, regulators and other stakeholder groups. The invitation-only conference will be highly participatory and requires extensive facilitation and advance work. Some participants will take roles as participants or facilitators. All participants will review, in advance, conference materials including discussion papers set for each panel.

Complete Agenda with links to Overviews of Issues and Recommended Reading.

SB 2X: 33% Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard

What Stands in the Way of California's 33 Percent Renewables Goal?
Renewable Energy World: 4.13.11 by Lindsay Morris

On April 12, California Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 2X into law, requiring that 33 percent of the state’s electric generation come from renewable sources by 2020.

Under S.B. 2X, all load-serving entities must meet a 20 percent renewables target by Dec. 31, 2013, a 25 percent target by the end of 2016, and achieve the 33 percent criterion by the end of 2020.

S.B. 2X applies to all electricity retailers in the state – investor-owned utilities, municipal utilities and independent sellers. The current 20 percent renewable energy requirement applies only to investor-owned utilities and independent power producers.

One municipal utility, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, has already reached the 2013 goal of generating 20 percent of its power from renewables. Smaller municipal utilities like Glendale, Anaheim, Pasadena and Burbank, are behind at this stage in terms of how much renewable power they have in their portfolios, said Dario Frommer, partner at Mayer Brown law firm.

Most investor-owned utilities in California are hovering just under 20 percent renewables now. While it may seem that investor-owned utilities are close to meeting the 2013 goal, many of these projects are in litigation over siting issues and may not be completed in time to meet the 2013 target, Frommer said.

“It’s incumbent on the political leaders to address the siting issues that are creating problems for financing,” Frommer said. “Those issues are an impediment to realizing the 33 percent goal.”

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Since it was passed during a special legislative session, S.B. 2X is not expected to take effect until early July. READ MORE !

Third Industrial Revolution

The Third Industrial Revolution

"We have the science and technology to do it, but it will mean nothing unless there is a change in will." — Jeremy Rifkin

We are on the cusp of a Third Industrial Revolution that could give us a door open to a new post-fossil fuel era. It was the first Industrial Revolution that brought together print and literacy with coal steam and rail. The second combined the telegraph and telephone with the internal combustion engine and oil. What we now have now is the possibility of a distributed energy revolution. We can all create our own energy, store it, and then distribute it to each other. Twenty five years from now millions of buildings will become power plants that will load renewable energy. We will load solar power from the sun, wind from turbines and even ocean waves on each coast. We can also make the power grid of the world smart and intelligent; we call it inter-grid. Not far from now, millions and millions of people will load power to buildings, store it in the form of hydrogen and distribute energy peer-to-peer; just like digital media and the internet. The first inter-grids are going up in the United States this year in Houston, Boulder Colorado, and Southern California. The "Third Industrial Revolution" is an economic game plan. We have the science and technology to do it, but it will mean nothing unless there is a change in will.

Four Pillars
Renewable Energy
Buildings as Positive Powerplants
Hydrogen and Other Storage
Smart Grids and Plug-in Vehicles

European Dream – Jeremy Rifkin
Tarcher/Penguin, 2004
306.3094 RIFKI

California Watch: 244 Renewable Energy Projects

Office of the Governor

Governor Schwarzenegger Announces 244 Proposed Renewable Energy Projects Throughout StateState-Federal Partnership Expediting Hundreds of Projects Proposed to meet Governor’s 2020 Renewable Energy Goal.

Press Release: December 29, 2009

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced the first comprehensive list of 244 proposed renewable energy projects that could produce up to almost 70,000 megawatts (MW) of clean energy annually, building on California’s aggressive renewable energy goals. These proposed projects throughout the state include solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and small hydro facilities and will help move California towards achieving the Governor’s renewable energy goal of 33 percent by 2020. Currently California facilities produce just over 8,000 MW of renewable energy annually.

A list of the 244 proposed projects that are currently in review or have been approved is available at California Energy Commission. The projects are separated by those seeking Recovery Act funding. The project list is subject to change since some may lack financing, fail to meet strict environmental standards, or adequately address land use issues as part of the project approval process. READ MORE !