BioEnergy Producers Association

Conversion Technologies enable the co-production of advanced biofuels, green power and other biobased products from organic wastes and hydrocarbons, taking the world beyond the use of food resources in the production of biofuels.  The production of low-cost electricity and ethanol (and in the future, butanol or hydrogen) from America's waste streams will supplement or replace gasoline, convert vast quantities of waste to energy and significantly reduce greenhouse gases, communities' costs of waste disposal, the need for landfills and the nation's dependence on foreign oil.

Ethanol, when 10% blended with gasoline, will reduce California's carbon dioxide emissions by 7 million tons per year, also providing 50% of the goal of AB 2076 for 20% non-petroleum fuel use by 2020.

Just from the 35.5 million tons of post-recycled waste that California placed in landfills during 2008, conversion technologies could co-produce an estimated 1.6 billion gallons of ethanol and 1250 MW of green power. 

When AB 939, the landmark legislation creating the California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB) and the attendant system of tracking and reducing waste passed the Legislature in 1989, conversion technologies (also referred to as CT's) had never been contemplated, and were essentially just beginning development.  In 1989, the state landfilled 40 million tons of municipal waste.  Today, with a recycling rate of 58% (12% of which, by the way, is green waste that is being placed in landfills for use as alternate daily cover), if it were not for the recession, the state would still be landfilling 40 million tons of MSW per year.

For example, Los Angeles County, with over 10 million residents, is the most populated County in America.  Despite recycling 60% of the trash it generates (one of the highest recycling rates in the nation), it still disposes 38,000 tons of trash each day‚ enough to fill the Rose Bowl every 10 days.  This number is expected to increase to nearly 50,000 tons per day by 2020.

The state's population is expected to grow by some 10 million people over the next 25 years.  Unless more flexible legislative and regulatory policies are put in place, enabling the use of its waste resources for energy production, the state will landfill more than one billion tons (that's one billion tons) of post-recycled municipal solid waste during that time--and a major opportunity to achieve energy independence, AB 32 GHG reduction goals and a Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) will be lost.  It is folly to believe that this volume of post-recycled material (and the state's reliance on landfills) can be meaningfully reduced or eliminated through source reduction, traditional means of recycling and composting alone, on which California's waste disposal hierarchy now relies.

In 2002, AB 2770 gave recognition to conversion technologies, but established definitions and regulatory pathways to their development that have prevented them from reaching their potential as a source of alternative energy for California.  Current legislative statute essentially defines these technologies as incineration and requires them to adhere to the same permitting procedures as are required for a major solid waste landfill, a process that could require several years before the construction of an advanced biofuels could begin.  These technologies are currently classified generically, rather than being regulated on the basis of standards of performance.  Their operation is prohibited unless they achieve zero emissions for the entire energy production process, an impossible standard and one not required of any other manufacturing process in the state.

These rigid prohibitions exist even though, after extensive study, the California Integrated Waste Management Board has passed resolutions advocating their development.  Studies commissioned by the CIWMB, and by the City and County of Los Angeles, among others, cite these technologies as an environmentally preferable method of waste disposal.  300 thermal conversion facilities are operating throughout the world, meeting the environmental standards of the jurisdictions in which they are operating.  More than 100 of these are treating (disposing of) urban wastes in the process of producing energy.