Our partners at Unison Solutions have helped install the first regional CNG station using landfill gas to fuel gas for $.20/gallon.  This will be a huge product in the coming years.

Dane County: New technology helps Dane County power trucks with trash
4/8/2011

Contact: Joshua Wescott, Office of the County Executive (608) 267-8823 or cell (608) 669-5606

Dane County First in State to Fill up County Vehicles with Landfill Gas

While prices at the pump continue to climb, Dane County is using new technology to fill-up some of its vehicles for around 20-cents a gallon.

County Executive Kathleen Falk announced today the county is the first place in the state that’s running vehicles on landfill gas.

The county, in partnership with several private companies that specialize in turning trash into bio-gas, have installed technology at the Dane County landfill that turns landfill gas into compressed natural gas (CNG). Over the next several weeks, a number of Dane County parks and public works trucks will be converting over to using this cleaner burning, less expensive bio-fuel.

At Thursday’s event, Falk demonstrated how the new filling station works.

“Filling up has never been this cheap in my lifetime,” Falk said as she noted gas hasn’t been as low as 20 cents a gallon since the 1930s. “Through innovation, we’re saving tax dollars, cleaning up our air and turning an environmental problem into a green energy opportunity,” Falk said.

Falk added the pursuit of these alternative fuels is especially important given continued volatility of prices at the pumps (gas is currently $3.75 at many area filling stations).

A few years ago, the county started converting methane gas given off by decomposing landfill trash into electricity that now earns taxpayers over $4.3-million a year. Turning a percentage of landfill methane into compressed natural gas for county cars and trucks won’t affect the amount of electricity generated.

While the methane gas given off by the landfill is essentially free, it does cost around the equivalent of 20-cents a gallon of gasoline to convert that methane into fuel that can be used by vehicles. This new compressed natural gas gets the same fuel efficiency (miles per gallon) as the regular unleaded gas that people buy at gas stations.

This new landfill gas station makes about 100 gallons of CNG each day and was developed through a partnership between Dane County, Cornerstone Environmental Group LLC, Unison Solutions Inc., Madison College, Alliant Energy, and ANGI Energy Systems, a Milton-based manufacturer and global supplier of natural gas compression equipment.

In addition to the new technology at the landfill, Falk today also announced the county will be installing a new CNG filling station at the Robertson Road offices of the Dane County Parks Department. This station was purchased through a more than $400,000 Clean Transportation federal stimulus grant the county secured through the Wisconsin Clean Transportation Program (WCTP). That same grant also helped the county purchase a number of trucks that run on CNG.

The WCTP is administered jointly by the Wisconsin Department of Administration – Office of Energy Independence and Wisconsin Clean Cities-Southeast Area. Wisconsin Clean Cities is part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Clean Cities initiative. Clean Cities supports local decisions to reduce petroleum consumption in the transportation sector through the use of alternative fuels, advanced technology vehicles, and fuel economy measures.

A number of major U.S. corporations including AT&T, FedEx, and UPS are converting their vehicle fleets to compressed natural gas to save on fuel costs.

In addition, increased use of CNG as a transportation fuel has substantial benefits for the environment. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, CNG reduces carbon monoxide by 90%, ground-level ozone emissions by 75%, and greenhouse gas emissions by 25%. It produces little or no fine particle pollution – - the pollutant that’s triggered several Clear Air Action Days and Air Quality Watches in Dane County in the past year.

Because CNG burns so cleanly, natural gas vehicles cost less to maintain. They show significantly less engine wear, spark plugs last longer, and oil changes are needed less frequently.

The latest Turbine Talk is available on the Capstone website.   It is all about the exciting new market sector of HEVs.  These boats, cars, trucks use a Capstone C30 or C65 to extend the range of the battery packs on board.  The microturbine runs on regular diesel or LNG and is CARB certified making it one of the cleanest vehicles on the road (or in the water).  A must read for anyone interested in clean technology.

NewLoop Energy is proud to be featured on the MCA Company Spotlight.

http://www.cogeneration.org/news/2010/100503_NewLoopEnergy.pdf

Measures Would Cut Costs for American Manufacturers and Businesses, Create Up to One Million Jobs and Slash Greenhouse Gas Emissions

WASHINGTON, Apr 15, 2010 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) –Capstone Turbine Corporation (www.capstoneturbine.com ) (Nasdaq:CPST), the world’s leading clean technology manufacturer of microturbine energy systems, joined more than 80 business, labor, environmental and government organizations this week urging Congress to adopt a new tax policy to significantly enhance industrial energy efficiency. If adopted, the United States can expect increased manufacturing competitiveness, creation of new jobs and reduced pollution.

On April 12, Capstone and other supporters sent letters to the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee asking for tax credits to expand use of combined heat and power (CHP) and waste-energy recovery. Both technologies are capable of roughly doubling the energy efficiency of an industrial plant or other energy user. The result is significantly lowered energy costs and a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

“Capstone’s American-made, ultra clean microturbine products have helped customers worldwide reduce energy consumption and lower pollution for more than a decade,” said Darren Jamison, President and CEO. “An increased tax credit will enable future customers to purchase the cleanest and most efficient technologies available and receive shorter paybacks.”

Supporters of industrial and commercial energy efficiency are asking for passage of the bipartisan S. 1639, which is sponsored by Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). The supporters are also requesting passage of H.R. 4144, which is sponsored by Representative Jay Inslee (D-WA), and H.R. 4751, which is sponsored by Representative Paul Tonko (D-NY). The legislation encourages near-term, shovel-ready projects that will create and maintain thousands of jobs within the industrial and commercial sectors. In addition, the bills support the manufacture, installation and operation of CHP and waste-energy recovery equipment.

According to Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a large-scale expansion of CHP could provide 20 percent of U.S. generating capacity by 2030, generate $234 billion in new investment and create nearly 1 million highly-skilled, technical jobs in America. Such an expansion would reduce CO2 emissions by more than 800 million tons per year, the equivalent of taking more than half the current U.S. passenger vehicles off the road.

Waste-energy recovery, which captures waste energy from industrial facilities, now receives no tax benefits. Combined heat and power (CHP), a process by which manufacturers and businesses generate electricity and heat on site, obtains only a 10 percent investment tax credit for the first 15 megawatts of a project limited to 50 megawatts in size. The bills now in the House and Senate would remove the limitation to small projects and apply the tax credit to a project’s first 25 megawatts (S. 1639 and H.R. 4144), and provide a 30 percent tax credit for recycled energy and CHP with efficiencies above 70 percent (H.R. 4751).

Supporters of the legislation include:

Business

Capstone Turbine Corporation
Caterpillar
Cummins Power Generation
Dow Chemical
Fluor
GE Energy
Ingersoll Rand
Libbey Glass Inc.
LS Power
Mosaic Company
Ormat
PPG Industries
Primary Energy
Saint-Gobain Containers
Solar Turbines
United Technologies Corporation
Veolia Energy North America Holdings
ACCO Engineered Systems (California,Washington, Idaho, Nevada)
ACR Sheet Metal Company
Avalon Consulting, Inc. (Illinois)
BHP Energy (Ohio)
Calnetix Power Solutions, Inc. (Florida)
Charles P. Blouin Inc. (New Hampshire)
Circle “R” Mechanical, Inc. (Indiana)
Climate Energy (Massachusetts)
DCO Energy (New Jersey)
Dresser-Rand/Aircogen (Massachusetts)
ECR International (New York)
Endurant Energy LLC (Illinois)
Energenic LLC (New Jersey)
Energy Solutions Center (Washington,D.C.)
Ernest D. Menold, Inc (Pennsylvania)
GEM Inc. (Ohio and Georgia)
KGRA Energy Corporation (Illinois)
Lewis and Lambert Industries, Inc.(Texas)
National Heating & Ventilating (New Mexico)
NV Energy (Nevada)
NewLoop Energy (Illinois)
Melrose Metal Products (California)
Midwest Fabricators, LLC
Recycled Energy Development (Illinois)
RHP Mechanical Systems (Nevada)
RSP Systems (New York)
Rudolph Libbe Companies (Ohio and Michigan)
Sheet Metal Engineering, Inc. (Iowa)
Tal-Mar Custom Metal (Illinois)
Turbine Air Systems (Texas)
Turbosteam (Massachusetts)
Tweet/Garot (Wisconsin)
Zeledyne (Michigan, Oklahoma, Tennessee)

Contractor and Industry Associations

American Chemistry Council
American Forest and Paper Association
The Association of Union Constructors
Electricity Consumers Resource Council
Glass Manufacturing Industry Council
International District Energy Association
Mechanical Contractors Association of America
National Council for Advanced Manufacturing
National Electrical Contractors Association
Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association
Steel Founders’ Society of America
U.S. Clean Heat and Power Association

Labor

International Brotherhood of Boilermakers
Sheet Metal Workers International Association

Environmental/Government/Non-Profit

Alliance to Save Energy
Association of State Energy Research & Technology Transfer Institutions
Business Council for Sustainable Energy Center for American Progress Action Fund
Energy Future Coalition
National Association of State Energy Officials
Northeast-Midwest Institute
Sierra Club
World Alliance for Decentralized Energy

NewLoop Energy, LLC is proud to announce the company has secured office space in the One South Dearborn building in downtown Chicago.  The building was built in 2005 and is the second downtown building to be LEED silver certified.

The building uses a low-temperature (48ºF) HVAC system that contributes to energy savings.  The owners Hines and architects DeStefano Keating Partners Ltd. also included a mix of low-VOC and recycled-content materials and used a total of 41% regionally assembled materials.