City of Gadsden Alabama Partners with the Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts

 

Using a biodiesel reactor from Biodiesel Logic, Inc., an immediate solution to a sticky problem is being provided through a new partnership between the Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts and the City of Gadsden, Alabama.

The problem is that many communities such as Gadsden struggle with ways to dispose of used cooking oil. Larger restaurants can contract with a company to take off the used oil, but residents and smaller mom-and-pop operations tend to put it in the garbage or pour it down the drain.

The result can clog sewage systems and filling up the landfill with the mess.

The technology now exists to turn that used cooking oil into a biodiesel and several Alabama cities are already working on ways to recycle the oil through the city and use the ensuing biodiesel in their city and municipal vehicles.

The Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts is helping Gadsden set up residential collection points for home cooking oil to be easily collected.  Similar efforts are under way in other cities.

“The fleet guys are excited about it, but it is the water treatment folks are the most excited about it because they see the benefit of not having to dig up clogged sewer lines,” says Mark Hall, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System Renewable Energy specialist.  “It’s solving a real environmental problem for the city and giving local residents opportunities to participate in the solution.”

AU’s Participation in Focus the Nation

 

The Natural Resources Management & Development Institute is committed to the promotion of sustainable practices.  The link between sustainable practices and climate change is clear.  Therefore, it is not surprising that many of our initiatives either allow communities to reduce the number and types of activities that contribute to climate change, or assist communities in responding to the effects of climate change.

The Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts is developing technologies designed to produce energy from Alabama’s significant quantities of renewable resources using processes that result in reduced carbon emissions.  Examples of these initiatives include:

• Partnering with the City of Gadsden, Alabama, to convert used cooking oils into biodiesel
• On the AU campus, collecting used cooking oil from dining halls for conversion into biodiesel that can then be used to fuel Tiger Transit buses.
• Partnering with Alabama Power to maintain and operate a mobile biomass gasification unit which can deliver energy generated from on-site renewable feedstocks, such as wood chips, to power and heat poultry houses or saw mills.

The Water Resources Center is engaging in research and outreach activity designed to help Alabamian’s develop improved water management practices in response to growing water scarcity which is only exacerbated by climate change. Examples of this activity include:

• Two integrated watershed studies designed to gather critical flow data which provides a framework for water policy/management protocols intended to insure that municipal, agricultural and environmental water needs are met.
• A study designed to develop a market-based system for allocating groundwater

The Auburn Sustainability Iniative, an AU organization affiliated with the Natural Resources Management & Development Institute, is participating in a national campain concerning climate change called Focus The Nation. 

Focus the Nation is a national global warming educational initiative, coordinating teams of faculty, students and staff at over 1400 colleges, universities and high schools in the United States to participate in a nationwide, non-partisan discussion on the theme of climate stabilization.

As part of the national Focus the Nation campaign, the staff at the Auburn Sustainability Initiative are working to create a campus-wide discussion about:

• the perceived controversy
• what scientists do and don’t know
• what the timeframe for action might need to be
• what the potential impacts and opportunities could be for Alabama
• what are the suggested actions for individuals, and the campus at large

As well, the Auburn Sustainability Initative is hosting a climate change symposium on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at the Auburn University Hotel and Dixon Conference Center.  The symposium features a broad array of speakers including Auburn University President, Dr. Jay Gogue.  Check out the complete schedule at the Sustainability Intiative Website: http://www.auburn.edu/projects/sustainability/AUFocus.php

 

 

AU Water Experts Reaching Out To Community

 

Dr. Bill Deutsch, a member of the AU Water Resources Center’s Water Committee and the director of Alabama Water Watch, was featured today in an article by William White for the Opelika-Auburn News.  Check out the full story below.

 

 Water experts tap into reality

William White  / Opelika-Auburn News

January 25, 2008

PHENIX CITY – “Everyone lives downstream” is a slogan related to water quality and quantity.

“You may not fully understand what that means,” said Dr. Bill Deutsch, director of the Alabama Water Watch Program at Auburn University. “The expression is trying to get across the idea that we all share that water.

“With the people in Mobile, we say to them, when we do our workshops, ‘Every glass of water you drink, we’ve done the study, it has already gone through 17 toilets.”

Ted Gilbert, Russell County’s extension coordinator, said the lack of water has been a real issue in recent years.

“We thought this would be an opportunity to bring the focus in on water in terms of what value it has, how important it is and the things people can do, in general, to protect it, conserve it and make sure we can do all we can to enhance its quality,” Gilbert said.

Deutsch and Dr. Bryan Duncan, with the Auburn University Fisheries Department, talked to Russell County citizens at the extension office about water issues.

The Water Watch director said there are a lot of major issues involving water.

“It’s hard to pick up a newspaper today without seeing something about water,” Deutsch said. “There are a lot of issues related (to) the two major divisions: water quality or the water quantity side.”

He said water quality involves things like drinking water safety, the suitability of a river for fisheries or any aquatic life, pollution spills or permitting of discharges. The water quantity side is volume of water moving down a stream or lake.

“In the recent drought, the water quantity became an issue real fast,” he said. “Water has strong economic, social, political impacts as well as the ecological.”

Using pages in Volume 3 of four volumes of the “Citizens Guide To Alabama Rivers” titled, “Chattahoochee and Coastal Plain Streams,” Deutsch talked about water quality and quantity, the local river basins and the Chattahoochee River. The guide also includes a history of life along the rivers, special plants and animals along the rivers, water policy and laws, the economy and environment and citizen involvement.

For copies of the guide, dates of workshops and information about Alabama Water Watch, visit https://aww.auburn.edu/, or call toll free, 888-844-4785.

Alabama Energy Day Photo and Video Gallery

On January 22, 2008, the Natural Resources Management & Development Institute and its Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts participated in Alabama Energy Day, a public and media event held on the steps of the Alabama State House.  The event was presented by the State of Alabama Permanent Joint Legislative Committee on Energy– Senator Wendell Mitchell, chair; Representative Greg Wren, Vice Chair.

Alabama Energy Day featured renewable and alternative energy exhibitions and displays from around the state.  Presenters included, but were not limited to:

• Auburn University and Alabama Power
• The  Alabama Department of Agriculture & Industries with Alabama A&M University
• BP America
• Alabama Clean Fuels Coalition
• The University of Alabama
• Southeast Toyota

Interested in images from Alabama Energy Day?  Check out the photo gallery created by the Montgomery Advertiser at: Photo Gallery

For video footage courtesy of the Montgomery Advertiser, check out: Video of Dr. Steve Taylor 

Power Through Partnerships

 

Auburn University’s Natural Resources Management & Development Institute unveils its new mobile gasification unit (sponsored by Alabama Power) at the Alabama State House as part of Alabama Energy Day. 

Alabama Power’s sponsorship of the AU Mobile Biomass Gasification Unit will provide generous support for these outreach efforts, as well as funding for the operation and maintenance of the unit as it travels throughout Alabama. 

“We are deeply grateful to Alabama Power for their willingness to partner with Auburn University in pioneering research related to energy production from Alabama’s renewable sources. It is our hope that with the mobile gasification unit, we can demonstrate various processes and biofuel sources by which a variety of businesses and entrepreneurs can draw on a wealth of natural resources to create economic growth,” said Larry Fillmer, executive director of the Natural Resources Management & Development Institute at Auburn University.

Auburn University’s Renewable Energy Message Goes Mobile

Auburn University’s Natural Resources Management & Development Institute is taking its renewable energy and technology message on the road beginning Jan. 22.

 

As part of its ongoing effort to educate Alabamians about bioenergy as well as emerging renewable energy technologies pioneered by Auburn University, the Natural Resources Management & Development Institute (NRMDI), in partnership with Alabama Power, has equipped a mobile gasification power generation unit to travel the highways and byways of the state.

 

This self-contained unit, designed and built by Community Power Corporation of Littleton, Colorado to AU specifications, will be used to demonstrate how electrical power and heat can be generated cost-efficiently from carbon-neutral biomass feed stocks widely available throughout the state. Many of these biomass feed stocks are generated by Alabama’s multibillion-dollar row-crop, forestry and poultry industries as well as from byproducts created from the management of municipal green wastes.

Through its Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts, NRMDI debuted this new technology, Tuesday, Jan. 22, on Union Street adjacent to the Alabama State House in Montgomery as part of a press and public event sponsored through the Alabama Permanent Joint Legislative Committee on Energy to commemorate Alabama Energy Day.

Showing how this gasification technique can be used cost-effectively was only one goal of the Jan. 22 demonstration and others that will follow. Organizers also hope to identify additional improvements in this technology as a cost-effective way to supplement traditional energy sources. They also plan to develop a cadre of engineers trained in these techniques and equipped to assume leading roles in this critical area of renewable energy, according to Dr. Steven Taylor, who heads NRMDI’s Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts.

NRMDI Executive Director Larry Fillmer credits Alabama Power with playing a key role in these demonstration efforts.

“We are deeply grateful to Alabama Power for helping Auburn University pioneer this renewable energy effort,” says Fillmer. “We believe the mobile gasification unit will help us take a giant leap in our efforts to show Alabama businesses and entrepreneurs how they can begin tapping into our state’s treasure trove of biomass products.”

Turning sunflowers into energy

Steven Taylor, Ph.D. heads Auburn’s Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts, which is part of the Natural Resources Management & Development Institute. He is a professional engineer, a professor and head of the Department of Biosystems Engineering at Auburn University. His post on sunflowers and biodiesel originally appeared in The Birmingham News blog. You can read his full post at The News or read an excerpt below.

Like countless other farmers, Annie and Mike Dee had seen their farm profits steadily eroded by rising energy costs. And like most other farmers, they were fed up.

For this brother-and-sister farming duo, the energy spike following Hurricane Katrina turned out to be the last straw. They were determined to do something about it. And with equipment and technical assistance provided by Auburn University’s Natural Resources Management & Development Institute, they did just that.

In a manner of speaking, they learned how to turn their combine into an oil rig by developing a way to grow and consume their own fuel. Sunflowers and soybeans grown on their sprawling west Alabama farm first are pressed into oil and then converted into biodiesel to power their farm equipment. But the Dees didn’t stop there. In conservation language, they have developed a way to close the loop by converting the waste co-products generated by this oil refinement process into a feed for their cattle.

The Dees are onto something, and so are other Alabama farmers who are adopting their own distinctive approaches to energy self-sufficiency. And there is a lesson here for all of us — farmer and nonfarmer alike — namely, that the path to energy efficiency will be winding and broad rather than straight and narrow. And just as the path will be wide, so will the array of technologies required to complete the journey.

In fact, no approach constitutes the final word on alternative energy production. Quenching our state’s and nation’s growing thirst for renewable energy calls for a multifaceted approach that not only encompasses biodiesel but also a host of other cost-effective technologies for converting biomass from plants, trees, crop residue and other byproducts into viable energy resources.

Corn-derived ethanol has and will continue to play a vital, albeit limited, role in powering our nation down the road to energy self-sufficiency. However, relying only on ethanol from corn will not enable us to achieve our energy security goals. That is why the Natural Resources Management & Development Institute’s bioenergy and bioproducts initiative is looking farther down the road toward the biomass-derived energy sources — wood, switchgrass and agricultural residues, to name only a few — that offer even greater potential as renewable fuels. It is also why the initiative is working with farmers and entrepreneurs to develop cost-effective strategies and technologies to capitalize on these sources.

Alabama constitutes a potential treasure trove of biomass-derived fuels — the reason why it and other Southern states often are described as this nation’s Middle East in terms of renewable energy. But the challenge remains of finding a way to break down this biomass into a form that can be readily and cost-effectively converted into renewable fuels. Much remains to be done, though much already has been done at Auburn and other major research universities.

In fact, Auburn researchers already are tantalizingly close to pay dirt. They have the ability to gasify biomass and to use it to power electrical generating plants. A big focus of Auburn’s bioenergy and bioproducts initiative’s efforts also is on refining thermochemical research already under way at Auburn and developing a cost-effective way to convert biomass into gas so it then can be turned into biofuels such as synthetic diesel fuel, gasoline or aviation fuel.

It’s a start to the debate

I was curious to see the big double debate in New Hampshire — 1 night, 2 parties. What would the candidates say about alternative energy? Well, the issue did get a mention. With oil near the century mark, it was predictable that the questions would focus on oil prices.

Thankfully, some candidates,both Republicans and Democrats, seized the opportunity to link alternative energy research and development to their answers. Who said what? The best recap that I have read thus far comes from Dot Earth. Check it out for yourself and see.

NRMDI in the spotlight

In case you missed any of the terrific coverage of NRMDI in news, here are two articles that you should read.
First check out the Montgomery Advertiser for a great overview piece on Auburn’s role in alternative energy. The guest column was written by an Auburn student, Justin Saia.

Auburn has dedicated a considerable amount of resources to studying alternative renewable energy sources. “Auburn’s leadership on alternative sources of energy starts on campus,” said AU President Jay Gogue. There are several initiatives under way, from switchgrass as an alternative energy source to water conservation in Auburn’s Natural Resources Management and Development Institute.

Next, check out the Mobile Press-Register’s story on the coal-switchgrass mixture that is helping to power customers homes in Gadsden. NRMDI’s researchers are leading the fight to find innovative ways to make the process effective and efficient.

The process, however, needs refinement, in part because coal plants weren’t built to process wood and other organic materials.

“The equipment used to pulverize coal — it was designed to take a rocky piece of coal and break it into small particles,” said Steve Taylor, director of Auburn University’s Center for Bioenergy and Bioproducts. “Obviously coal behaves differently than a piece of wood, so there are different processes to get woody biomass broken into smaller pieces.”

Researchers are exploring the possibility of gasifying biomass, which would get around the issue.