ForeverGreen Enterprises and International Power Group have partnered up to launch a venture to build a power plant in Indiana that will convert hazardous waste into energy. 750 tons a day of industrial, chemical and medical garbage will be converted to methanol and hydrogen, plus a little electricity – but we don’t know how much of an output the plant will have.

This is an effort to find a new niche away from cellulosic and municipal waste conversion, which has seen a flood of interest the last couple years. ForeverGreen feels that all this other junk has potential, and no one else is really going after it...yet.

Construction is set to start at the very beginning of 2009, and in about 22 months, the plant will hopefully start turning hazardous materials into useable substances using a combination of International Power’s waste-heat-to-energy process and ForeverGreen’s gasification process. The byproducts will include scrap steel and silicates – among other things?

Details are still vague while the companies work to find financing to cover the full project, but we’ll follow this one as construction time approaches.

Via Cleantech, Photo via andynahman

About 10% of the UK’s fuel needs could come from a new strain of bacteria found in compost heaps.

Researchers at TMO Renewables told scientists at the Society of General Microbiology’s meeting in Dublin this week that the bacteria can convert plant fibers into ethanol. Eventually, that process could fuel 10% of the country’s transport requirements.

The bacteria can break down straw, hedge clippings, garden trimmings, cardboard as well as other biodegradable substances.

“The bioethanol produced in our process can be blended with existing gasoline to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” says Paul Milner, the fermentation development manager of Surrey-based TMO Renewables Ltd. Milner says the new strain is more energy-intensive and cheaper than traditional yeast-based processes.

The company’s scientists searched through thousands of naturally occurring bacteria, looking for those specifically that loved heat and liked feeding off different plant-based materials. It found its bacteria, from the Geobacillus family, and altered its internal metabolism. The bacteria produces lactic acid in its wild form when it breaks down biomass and TMO modified its internal metabolism to produce ethanol instead.

In the UK alone, there is seven million tons of surplus straw each year. Turning garbage and other agricultural waste into ethanol also makes more sense than crop-derived biofuels, the company believes.

Via Science Daily, The Environmental Transport Association; Photo via nakedcharlton