US Senators Weigh Plan to Offer a National Clean Energy Standard
Several US Senators plan to offer a measure for a national clean energy portfolio standard. It would be an alternative to the renewable portfolio standard, or RPS, that Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the energy committee plans to offer as an amendment to an energy package scheduled for floor debate next week. The RPS would require that 15% of the nation's power come from renewable energy sources by 2020. Sen. Domenici said his clean energy portfolio standard would encourage the use of a variety of clean energy resources such as nuclear power, biomass, fuel cells, solar energy, wind power, ocean power, geothermal energy, hydropower, landfill gas and clean coal. Nearly half of all U.S. states already have RPS policies, but many include a broader set of technologies than would be required under Bingaman's RPS. What remains to be seen is whether either measure will be stringent enough to affect change...Read More »
Former Waterbury Mayor Charged in Corruption Probe
The ongoing federal probe of mob influence over the waste business in Connecticut and New York seems to have no bounds. This time another colorful character, former Waterbury, CT mayor Joseph Santopietro has been sentenced to home confinement and five years probation for racketeering conspiracy in his role as a consultant to Diversified Waste Disposal. He was accused of helping the company, run by James Galante, to secure exclusive collection rights to certain areas and influencing a competing hauler from honoring contracts with a former customer of Galante. Galante and others participated in a so-called "property rights scheme" wherein haulers carved out routes for each other and agreed not to compete or poach customers...Read More »
EPA Proposes to Expand Comparable Fuels Exclusion
The US EPA is proposing to allow previously excluded manufacturing wastes to be burned for energy recovery in industrial boilers. The action would expand the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act's Hazardous Waste Comparable Fuels Exclusion to encompass a new category of liquid hazardous waste-derived fuel known as emission-comparable fuel (ECF). ECF is produced from a hazardous waste but generates emissions that are comparable to those from burning fuel oil. ECF would be subject to the same regulations that currently apply but exempt from the specifications for certain hydrocarbons and oxygenates...Read More »
Airbus and Boeing Compete to Recycle Old Jetliners
Airbus and Boeing compete to recycle obsolete jetliners. Discarded and gutted old airplanes used to rot in airfield graveyards or airplane dumps in the Mohave Desert. Recently, under anticipated pressure from the EU, recycling efforts have produced competing ventures affiliated with Boeing and Airbus. Bartlin Recycling Group is affiliated with Boeing and claims to recycle up to 90% of an old airliner. Airbus doubts this claim and claims to use state of the art techniques to reclaim 60% of a jetliner. Airbus hopes to increase this figure to 95% by 2015. It is estimated that 7,000 airliners will become obsolete in the next 20 years...Read More »
Veolia Environmental Acquires TMT, Italy's Largest Thermal Waste Treatment Co.
Veolia Environmental Services has acquired a 75% controlling interest in TMT, the waste management and treatment subsidiary of Termomeccanica Ecologia in Italy for €338 million. TMT is the largest private operator in Italy's thermal waste treatment market. It specializes in the design, construction and operation of waste-to-energy and mechanical and biological treatment waste-to-fuel facilities. TMT reported €97 million in revenues for 2006. Based on its existing pipeline of projects, revenues are anticipated to reach €200 million by 2011. According to Veolia CEO Denis Gasquet, "The thermal waste treatment market is particularly dynamic and attractive because of the stated objective of reducing volumes of waste going to landfill, coupled with public incentives for production of green energy."...Read More »
EarthFirst Enters Agreement to Establish First US Bio-Refinery
EarthFirst Technologies has entered an agreement with Ultra Green Energy to develop what it claims will be the first bio-refinery in the US. The facility, to be located in Channahon, Illinois, would produce biodiesel from palm oil based feedstocks in a process that would also yield other high-value products (methyl esters). EarthFirst has secured its feedstock by entering a 15-year agreement with Loders Croklaan USA, a supplier of specialty fats to the food industry. Loders is a wholly owned subsidiary of the IOI Group which is one of Malaysia's leading palm oil producers. The leased facility at Channahon has river access and rail sidings and will need only minor retrofitting to produce 45 million gallons per year of biodiesel, with a production goal of 60 millions gallons per year. The Illinois location puts it in the center of seven Midwestern states that consume almost 90% of the biodiesel currently produced in the US. Moreover, Illinois offers significant financial incentives for the production and sale of biodiesel in the state...Read More »
Perma-Fix Sells Industrial Segment to EQ for $11 Million
Atlanta-based Perma-Fix is selling its industrial services segment to Wayne, Mich.-based EQ - The Environmental Quality Co. for $11 million. According to the deal, EQ will acquire five of Perma-Fix's six industrial facilities for $9 million while having the option to buy the sixth for another $2 million. "EQ brings the scale and expertise to maximize the return on these facilities," said Louis F. Centofanti, chairman and CEO of Perma-Fix. EQ runs 17 treatment, disposal and recycling facilities in the eastern US and manages a line of remediation, industrial cleaning and total waste management services across the nation...Read More »
Waste Industries USA Makes Two Acquisitions; $8 Million in Revenues
Waste Industries USA, Inc. has purchased two companies: a residential company in Georgia, and a commercial and industrial hauling company in South Carolina that collectively represent $8 million in annual revenues. The acquisition of W.A.D.E., Inc. in Dallas, GA dovetails with the Company's west Atlanta expansion and enhances volumes going to their Grady Road landfill. The acquisition of Grand Strand Disposal in Conway, SC fits with existing operations there and in the Greater Myrtle Beach market...Read More »
Allied Waste Adds a Numbers Cruncher to its Board
Allied Waste has elected the former CFO of Computer Sciences Corporation Leon (Lee) J. Level to its Board of Directors. Level has had a distinguished career in various financial management and executive positions with major companies including Unisys Corp., Bendix, and Deloitte, LLP. He is a CPA and holds both B.B.A. and M.B.A. degrees from the University of Michigan. Level should be a good fit for Allied which has been emerging from a myriad of financial portfolio challenges over the years...Read More »
Alliance Raises $20 Million for its Showcase Waste-to-Energy Facility
Alliance Recovery Corp. has raised $20 million that it plans to use in constructing its first "showcase" waste-to-energy processing facility. The facility which is to be the first of many, will utilize alternative fuels to make clean energy. The technology employs a thermal/chemical reaction to reduce rubber to a fuel oil for use in conventional reciprocating engines driving alternators to make electricity. Putting up the money is the Dutchess Private Equities Fund Ltd. of Boston, MA...Read More »
AIG Global Investment Group to Invest in Sindicatum Carbon Capital
AIG Capital Partners, a part of AIG Global Investment Group, will become a significant investor in London-based Sindicatum Carbon Capital Ltd. which is a global financier and developer of green house gas (GHG) abatement projects. The company's current projects cover the coal mining, chemical and process industries, waste management and power generation sectors. There has been an "explosive growth over the past two years" in projects adapted to the carbon credit markets, according to Scott Foushee, Managing Director, AIG Capital Partners. "[The] management team is uniquely positioned to capitalize on this opportunity."...Read More »
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