Biomass

Environmental Power Corp (EPG) announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Microgy, Inc. has entered into agreement with Applied LNG Technologies USA, Inc. , for the development of biogas-supplied LNG projects in California. The Agreement provides that Microgy and ALT (http://www.altlngusa.com) will cooperate to identify, evaluate and develop projects, principally in California, that combine Microgy's anaerobic digestion technology, which extracts methane-rich biogas from animal waste, and ALT's LNG transport and distribution technology.

by Debra Fiakas CFA This week Darling Ingredients (DAR:  NYSE) reported earnings of $100,000 on net sales of $874.7 million in the first quarter ending March 2015.  Darling is a recycler of sorts, collecting by-products of the food production industry and recycling the left-overs and waste into proteins, fats and leathers.  Nothing goes to waste.  Every last chicken feather, hide, gallon of used cooking grease and cake crumb gets up-cycled to a usable material for feed, food, fuel or clothing.  Its customers include pet food producers, personal care manufacturers and textile users, among others. Darling used...

Colorado House Speaker Lola Spradley, R-Beulah. and U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs, co-chairs of Amendment 37—the Renewable Energy Initiative—kicked-off their statewide campaign Thursday with stops throughout Colorado. Amendment 37 would require 10 percent of Colorado's electricity be generated from renewable energy by 2015. The program is scaled beginning with a 3 percent requirement by 2007, 6 percent by 2011, and 10 percent by 2015.

by Debra Fiakas CFA Solid waste has been one of the business types that has a natural hedge against macroeconomic distress.  No matter how bad things get, as long as our neighbors draw breath there will be trash to handle.  Casella Waste Systems, Inc. (CWST:  Nasdaq) sits in the shadow of larger waste handlers such as Waste Management (WM:  NYSE) and Republic Services (RSG:  NYSE).  Consequently, it is often passed over by investors despite a significantly better profit margin. One of the reasons investors might not take Casella seriously is its history of net losses.  However, the...

Biochar is still mostly a research and cottage industry, yet it has the potential to impact returns for a broad range of investors. Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA Biochar, or amending soil with biomass-derived carbon, shows great potential to improve the productivity of soils, as well as to increase the utilization of fertilizers by plants, while sequestering carbon to reduce the drivers of climate change.  On August 10, I went to the 2009 North American Biochar Conference to look at the potential for investors.  Before I went, I took a look at the publicly traded companies...

"Experts generally agree that our current reliance on fossil fuels is unsustainable. Already oil is near $50 per barrel, and the great millions of Chinese and Indians destined to take to the road in the next decades have not yet gotten behind the wheel." This week Newsweek has written several special reports about alternative energy in all its forms. All of these reports can be found at the following link.

Green Energy Resources, Inc. (GRGR) announced plans for expansion. The company plans to sell upwards of 50 million tons of wood biomass to the utility industry for cofiring. Cofiring is an environmentally friendly application of mixing wood biomass with coal to reduce harmful green house gases. Coal powered generation accounts for 51 % of American electric power. The potential market is in excess of 250 million tons annually and valued over $12 billion dollars. The Federal EPA Air rules effective last month,favor cofiring as the most viable and cost effective option for the utility industry. The company plans to...

Intrepid Technology and Resources, Inc. (IESV) has signed a contract with the Idaho Department of Water Resources Energy Office, whereby a $289,000 U.S. Department of Energy grant will be awarded to ITR. The funds will be used to upgrade ITR's Idaho Falls alternative vehicle fuel Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) station. Upon completion, the modifications will transform the CNG station to a state-of-the-art Liquid Natural Gas/Compressed Natural Gas (LNG/CNG) public fueling facility.

NanoLogix Inc. (NNLX.PK) announced that it has signed an agreement to install a NanoLogix hydrogen generation system using Welch Food's waste organic matter. The NanoLogix methodology for hydrogen production is being developed for the limitless production of hydrogen from organic containing waste waters. The NanoLogix reactor will utilize multiple proprietary methodologies for synergistically creating a hydrogen bioreactor. The hydrogen production method will utilize organic waste from Welch Food's waste stream. NanoLogix is very much a penny stock and has been steadily declining over the last year. It now sits at a low of $0.15. They...

Colorado voters have approved an amendment requiring utilities to get part of their electricity from the sun, wind or plant and animal waste. The amendment requires the state's seven largest utilities to get a portion of their retail electricity sales from renewables, beginning with 3 percent in 2007 and climbing to 10 percent by 2015. Four percent of the renewables should be solar sources.

Veridium Corp. (VRDM.OB) announced its execution of an amended license agreement with Ohio University ("Ohio") for its patented bioreactor process for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil-fuelled combustion processes. Veridium's original license with Ohio provided for non-exclusive rights to the technology for the purpose of processing exhaust gas streams from electrical utility power generation facilities, and exclusive rights to the technology for applications involving all other sources. The amended license agreement increases the scope of Veridium's license to provide for exclusivity in all applications, including electrical utility power generation facilities.

Aarhus United USA Inc. has awarded Northern Power Systems, Inc. a subsidiary of Distributed Energy Systems Corp (DESC), a contract for a $1.7 million turnkey on-site power system that will use the oil distillate and waste byproduct of the company's vegetable oil processing operations as fuel. Northern's system will be designed to deliver 65% of the Port Newark, New Jersey facility's electrical needs and 12% of its thermal consumption. The NJ Clean Energy Program has deemed the fuel a renewable source that is CO2 emissions-free and has therefore committed funds to pay 30% of the project cost.

Intrepid Technology and Resources, Inc. (IESV) announces that its biogas facility at the Whitesides dairy has processed over 500,000 gallons of manure in its initial month of operation. The manure has been rendered into irrigation water and fed back into the dairy's lagoons for use during the upcoming irrigation season. The process has proven reliable with improvements already made to the feed and control system. The hydrogen sulfide removal system, which was designed to meet pipeline gas specifications for the contaminant, has performed flawlessly.

Jim Lane After the bizarre attempted heist detailed in The Great Algae Robbery, Roquette tries the US courts but comes up short, in its quest to get a hold of Solazyme’s (SZYM) algae tech. On a slow news day just before Christmas, those of us on the industrial biotechnology beat have no need to stop by the firehouse to ask if there is a breaking story to report, because we always have the lively docket of Judge Sue Robinson, Federal District Judge for the District of Delaware. This Christmas she did not fail us, for in our Christmas news stocking is a...