A new system debuts on Friday that converts onion juice into electricity at Gills Onions, the largest fresh onion processor in the United States.

The Oxnard, California-based company expects its new onion-fueled power to reduce its electric bill by USD 700,000 a year and cut its annual greenhouse gas emissions by up to 30,000 tons.

The happy ending to this green energy tale, however, started with another question: how to get rid of onion waste.

“When we peel an onion, 35 to 40 percent of the onion comes off before we have a usable onion. That’s the top, tail and skin around the onion before you get to the meat,” said Steven Gill, co-owner of the 25-year-old company.

They used to haul the waste to the fields for composting, but that became a problem. Ten years ago, Gill started looking at technology for a solution, including microturbines.

“We ended up shredding the skins as they come out of the plant and extracting all the juice, which is very high in sugars, and bacteria love that stuff,” Gill said.

development In the new system, bacteria produce methane gas from the juice. The gas then goes to two 300 kilowatt fuel cells, creating enough power for 460 homes. The company expects to get 35 to 40 percent of its electricity from the on-site generator.

The company invested USD 9.5 million in the project and will receive USD 2.7 million from Southern California Gas Co., a regulated subsidiary of Sempra Energy, as part of a state program to encourage self-contained generation by businesses. In addition to cutting its electric bill, the company will save USD 400,000 in hauling costs and expects pay-back in six years.

The onion grower now has new goal: to be a zero-waste facility by 2011.

“We wanted to follow it all the way through and make the full circle,” Gill said. Saturday, July 18, 2009

http://refreshingnews9.blogspot.com/2009/07/us-company-converts-onion-juice-to.html

By Joe Davidson Thursday, June 11, 2009 She drives an F-150 cheap 20 inch chrome rims for 1992 f-150

Don’t be fooled by Bunnatine H. Greenhouse’s nickname.

“Bunny” might have a soft and cuddly side, but it’s her watchdog self that got her in trouble.

When Greenhouse blew the whistle on noncompetitive multibillion-dollar contracts to Kellogg Brown & Root, then a Halliburton subsidiary, for work in Iraq’s oil fields, she thought she was following her oath of office.

But instead of being honored for doing her duty, Greenhouse, with two decades of government contracting experience, was drummed out of her position in 2005 as chief procurement officer for the Army Corps of Engineers, pushed from the Senior Executive Service and stripped of her security clearance after she refused to retire with grace.

While Greenhouse, 64, continues to fight for personal vindication, her focus now is on the defense of whistleblowers in general. The vehicle for that is the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee on oversight of government management, the federal workforce and the District of Columbia is to hear testimony on the bill this afternoon. “It’s the only right move to do at this time, because federal employees must be protected,” Greenhouse said in an interview yesterday.

One protection that Greenhouse wants — and a provision that whistleblower advocates consider the litmus test for a meaningful bill — is the ability for whistleblowers to go before a jury with their allegations that they have been retaliated against for raising charges of fraud, waste and abuse in government operations.

A provision allowing jury trials is included in House legislation that Greenhouse testified in favor of last month. But it is not included in the Senate version that will be discussed today.

Whistleblowers need “full access to court to enforce their rights through a jury trial,” said Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project.

But the Obama administration, which is generally sympathetic to whistleblower rights, has not embraced the concept of jury trials to protect those rights. When Rajesh De, a deputy assistant attorney general, testified before the House, his testimony was notable for what it didn’t say about jury trials.

“So far, the administration seems glued to the fence on that issue,” Devine said.

Greenhouse feels certain she would prevail if her case went to court. “If I had not done what was in my oath of office to do as the person who was the procurement executive, I could have been wearing . . . prison stripes,” she said.

The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on her case.

She is not impressed with the administration’s proposal to create a body within the executive branch for employees who want to make classified whistleblower disclosures. She says that’s no better than the avenues already available, which whistleblowers find useless.

It’s her view that current government mechanisms for whistleblowers merely protect those in power. “The people who are telling the truth and trying to make sure that improprieties do not affect the public trust, they are going to be the skunks at the picnic,” she said.

After Greenhouse testified last month, the Army Corps of Engineers’ chief of staff tried to stifle her by ordering that any future testimony would have to be approved in advance, according to her attorneys at the National Whistleblowers Center.

Never the shy one, Greenhouse responded with an open letter to Americans. “I am shocked by this blatant violation of the First Amendment,” she wrote. “I said nothing improper during my testimony, I simply told the truth. I was testifying on my own time while I was on unpaid leave.”

Her attorneys also jumped into action and released a letter to President Obama. The attempt to silence Greenhouse “constitutes illegal harassment of a witness,” they told him. “We expect that you will take prompt corrective action.”

The Pentagon backed down. A few days later, Greenhouse was told the directive did not refer to testimony in her personal capacity.
Sick Days in Limbo

Legislation eagerly awaited by federal employees, including one provision that would allow workers to count unused sick days toward retirement, has gone up in smoke, at least for the time being. The amendments will not be attached to a tobacco bill that the Senate is expected to vote on today, as employee lobbyists and advocates had hoped.

“The provision establishing an unused-sick-leave benefit for federal employees enrolled in FERS [the Federal Employee Retirement System] is the one that I am most upset about not being included in the Senate legislation,” said Randy Erwin, legislative director of the National Federation of Federal Employees. “I get calls every day from federal employees that are close to retirement but are putting it off until they know what will happen with the FERS sick-leave issue. . . . But now we just have more uncertainty about it.”

Contact Joe Davidson at federaldiary@washpost.com.

* Shopping

This is the time of life when people may come home with sports cars, computers and painful shoes they can’t afford.

That’s fine. After a few days, if reason returns, these things can usually be brought back and the financial damage undone.

Unless, of course, you make an extravagant, emotion-based purchase on the other side of the planet. You can’t rush back to the showroom to return that thousand -dollar piece of art you got from that old man in the stall in that little Hungarian village. At the time, you were sure it would look amazing in the living room. But now that it’s actually in there, you realize it doesn’t work at all.

Oops.

Maybe you can re-gift it for somebody’s wedding.

* Kids

For some folks, mid-life angst is simply a reaction to the routine needs of being a father or mother, breadwinner, housekeeper, amateur psycho-therapist, coach, financial planner, taxi driver, health care provider and all the other roles they – and they alone – must play. May I suggest getting away without the children? Yes, they are wonderful and you love them,but they may also be driving you nuts. A week or weekend away with your spouse, your friends or just by yourself, may be just what you need to get things back in perspective.

Well, that’s it for this week, group. Thanks again for reading, and please keep those comments, complaints and questions coming in.

* Middle-aged travel debt

The urge to do something new and different – immediately – can turn normally thrifty adults into spendthrifts. Do NOT take on debt to take a vacation.

Debt is for capital investments like home improvements and repairs, appliances or automobiles. It’s for your kids college education or a financial crisis that gives you no other choice.

Vacations are something you save for, or something you blow a bonus or a big income tax rebate on. Use a credit card for convenience, but make sure you don’t max it out or charge more than you can pay off in a few months.

* Sailing by your moral compass

For some people, this metaphorical device starts wobbling, even spinning, for a time during middle age.

Places like Las Vegas, with the marketing slogan, “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”, can be enticing for mid- lifers in crisis, but keep in mind one thing: The slogan is wrong.

Doing something wild and crazy that you wouldn’t normally do is fine. If you normally wouldn’t go hang-gliding, sing karaoke or eat dead animals you don’t recognize, but do so on vacation – more power to you.

But if you cheat on your spouse, use illegal substances or do anything else that could ruin the life you’ve built up to this point, don’t do it. Sexually transmitted diseases don’t “stay” anywhere once you come home. Criminal records don’t remain a secret from your employer.

The thing about a mid-life crisis is, eventually, it will pass. Maybe you’ll change your lifestyle or reconcile your- self with the life you’ve got. Either way, you will always carry the guilt of having done something you feel is morally wrong. And that sucks.

I’m 44 now and, much to my own surprise, I’m still around.

I’ve got a steady job with good health benefits that almost pays all the bills. I’ve got a wonderful wife, three magnificent children, a house in the suburbs and about a billion channels of cable television.

Still, like so many of my peers, I stand at this halfway point and wonder, “Is this it?”

From there, dear readers, it’s a slippery slope into irrational, mid-life thought.

Here’s my prophecy for all middle-aged male and female readers of this news: There will come a time when you will look at your spouse over your morning cup of coffee and say, in all seriousness, “Honey, let’s go to Fiji…tonight.”

You will be lightly dismissed. Hopefully, you’ll come to realize that’s a good thing.

If you don’t, here is some advice to help you avoid the pitfalls associated with the mid-life crisis travel bug:

* Plan for spontaneity

Last-minute travelers usually get the worst airline, hotel, car rental – you name it – deals. Business travelers with sudden, inflexible needs and leisure travelers who don’t plan ahead are the customers the travel industry makes its money on.

If you forge ahead anyway, use one of the Websites specializing in last-minute deals for airfare or hotels. Airlines are getting a lot better at minimizing the number of unsold seats on their flights, but you may be able to find something through a consolidator.

If there’s someplace that you’ve always wanted to visit – Easter Island, Egypt’s Great Pyramids, your grandmother’s old village in Europe – make a decision to do it, set a rough date, etch it in stone, and begin to prepare for it. Make it a great adventure.

* Maui or Milwaukee?

You might have to modify your crises destination to fit your budget.

Always dreamed of a South Pacific Island or a romantic Parisian cafe, but can’t afford the air fare? Maybe you should look for a similar destination closer to home.

Some of the Caribbean Islands offer a comparable tropical paradise. Cities like Montreal offer the flavor of Europe without the trans-Atlantic flight or the punishing exchange rate.

On Thursday, the Bay Area’s largest airport unveiled three Climate Passport kiosks with touch screens that determine how many pounds of carbon dioxide a trip will produce, calculate the sum an environmentally conscious traveler should contribute to projects in San Francisco and California that help reduce greenhouse gases, then allow fliers to purchase certified carbon offsets.

“We realize people are going to fly,” said Steve McDougal, executive vice president of 3Degrees, a San Francisco company that helped SFO develop the program. “This gives them something they can do to reduce their impact. This is just one of many small things people need to do.”

The kiosks are located near the entrances to Terminal 3 and international terminals A and G – behind security checkpoints and perched in front of large signs reading, “Keep our skies blue. Purchase your air travel carbon offset here.”

Setting up the Climate Passport program cost $190,000 in airport funds, said Kandace Bender, deputy airport director.

Judging from the reaction of the first two travelers to take a test spin of the touch screens, it’s not clear whether the program will fly.

Soon after a press conference to unveil the kiosk in Terminal 3 concluded, Shane Johnson, 39, a traveling salesman from Vancouver, B.C., strolled up to take a look.

“What is it?” he asked.

Johnson punched in his starting airport and his destination – Vancouver to SFO and back – entered the number of passengers in his party – one – and hit the “add flight” button and the “calculate my flights” button.

His round trip would produce 1,186 pounds of carbon dioxide, which could be offset with a contribution of $7.26, the computer said. Johnson chose not to tap the “purchase now” button and slide his credit card into the kiosk.

“I don’t live here, so I prefer to make my donations at home,” he said.

A few minutes later, Bostonian Ari Peskoe, catching a flight home after a job interview, stopped by the machine and became the first person to purchase a carbon offset at SFO.

“My flight was free, so I thought buying some greenhouse gas reduction was the least I could do,” he said.

His one-way trip home, the computer concluded, would produce 1,999 pounds of carbon dioxide, which could be offset for $12.24.

Despite his purchase, Peskoe said he’s a bit skeptical about the concept of carbon offsets. Some critics question whether some of the programs that receive money are effective in reducing carbon dioxide.

McDougal said he understands such doubts, but that the projects funded by SFO fliers have been approved by an independent third party.

Climate Passport contributions fund the Garcia River Forest, a reforestation project in Mendocino County where redwood and Douglas fir trees are being added to a forest that had been heavily logged. They also go to the SFCarbon Fund, which is steering the money to Dogpatch Biofuels, a bio-diesel fueling station in southeastern San Francisco.

E-mail Michael Cabanatuan at mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A – 118 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Provincial French bistro fare is served at this café in a large, renovated warehouse in Milwaukee’s trendy Third Ward district, just south of downtown. The beer is specially brewed to complement the menu, which is filled with such dishes as roasted mussels and thin-crust Niçoise and Alsatian pizzas. AE, D, DC, MC, V.
Closed Sun.

Address: 316 N. Milwaukee St., Milwaukee, WI, USA
Phone: 414/291-2655

On a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, this bistro is renowned for its New Orleans-style Sunday brunch. The daily menu includes roast monkfish and Wisconsin trout, with rich and buttery sauces. Mirrors and curtains abound in this formal dining room. AE, D, DC, MC, V. No lunch weekends.

Address: 3133 E. Newberry Blvd., Milwaukee, WI, USA
Phone: 414/962-6300

Who would expect a restaurant with terrific peanut dishes in the heart of Milwaukee’s German historic district. Yet. here it is. MC, V.

Address: 1107 N. Old World 3rd St., Milwaukee, WI, USA
Phone: 414/765-1110