Tactical Garbage to Energy Refinery (TGER) - Sustainable Biotechnology: Sources of Renewable Energy - page 91

advances have resulted in gasification technologies with reliable and efficient con-
version of waste to energy. Significant recent advances in biocatalytic fermentation
include advances in genetically modified or modified via directed evolution enzymes
and micro-organisms. Using methods developed at the Laboratory of Renewable
Resources Energy at Purdue University, several commercial entities have broken
new thresholds in domestic ethanol production techniques by applying new biocat-
alysts and processes, the result being the economically viable production of ethanol
for fuel [8]. Current advances in enzymatic design and development bode well for
further methods to reduce what would normally be considered unusable biomass
waste (e.g. paper fines from shredded cardboard and other cellulosic wastes) into
usable energy, allowing more energy to be harnessed from the same waste stream.
During the commissioning phase of the TGER, the system was able to deliver
reliable power with very low parasitic costs required to operate the system internally.
The core processes, gasification and fermentation for conversion of waste to energy,
worked very well and the unique hybrid combination of thermochemical and bio-
catalytic technologies proved itself to be of considerable merit. These technologies
could easily scale up to support military installations such as hospitals and major
troop areas by converting waste into power, hot water, and usable fuel while elim-
inating costly waste removal expenses. Installation biorefineries could provide cost
savings for US and overseas bases, reduce dependence on petroleum-based energy
and support environmentally responsible initiatives, highlighting DoD's support of
renewable energy resource technologies.
3.1 TGER Retrofits
The first TGER prototype (Fig. 3) was built as a part of a Phase II STTR (Small busi-
ness Technology Transfer Research) program and demonstrated proof of principle,
Fig. 3 Original TGER prototype before retrofit