A green scenario: extended version

By Andrew Edwards
Staff Writer

Lead cannot be transmuted into gold, but an Inland Empire business called Viresco Energy was founded on an attempt to convert waste materials into commercially-viable fuel.

Only time will tell if Viresco succeeds, but companies specializing in environmentally-friendly technologies may be a rising trend.

San Francisco-based Cleantech Group reported in early January that venture capital investment in clean technologies like solar, biofuels, and wind reached a record $8.4 billion in 2008 in North
American, Europe, China and India.

The rising investment came in the midst of the recession.

The prospect of green technology being the next big thing raises the tantalizing possibility that the Inland Empire could become a focal point for new business and reap the economic rewards.

Over a span of decades, the idea of the Inland Empire evolving into something like the Silicon Valley for environmental technology isn't so farfetched, said Tim Gerrity, director of the Office
of Technology Transfer and Commercialization at Cal State San Bernardino.

At present, Gerrity said the Office of Technology Transfer is not coordinating research into clean technologies, but he would be happy to see the organization take on that kind of work in the future.

Gerrity said the organization has historically focused on defense-related innovations. For example, the office issued a solicitation in November that offered money to help inventors to
develop medical technology for the military.

"If we can solve problems for soldiers that are wounded on the battlefield, we can solve problems for people who are injured in car accidents," Gerrity said.

One of the stories of the Cold War -- besides the risk of nuclear exchange -- was research into military technologies that led to innovations that eventually led to the development of civilian projects.

Historian Margaret Pugh O'Mara, author of "Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Search for the Next Silicon Valley" opines that a research institution -- Stanford University --
and government-funded science was crucial to the development of Silicon Valley.

But that development, she says, didn't begin as a large-scale economic growth plan.

"None of these generals who were giving defense contracts in the 1950s wanted to think about what Silicon Valley would become. They wanted to beat the Russians," she said.

Another key factor is location. O'Mara said that during the early years of the Cold War, suburban areas were the place to be. The more recent trend has been a return of high technology professionals to "hip, urban districts."

At present, it may be impossible to answer the question of whether the Inland Empire can become a clean technology hub with any answer more definite than a "maybe."

O'Mara's perpsectives suggest that such a development would require the federal government to not only lead a Cold War-scale research effort, but to choose the Inland Empire as the place where that research will occur.

But the region is home to a research center focused on environmental engineering.

Inside the lab

The science behind Viresco's process was developed at a place UC Riverside calls CE-CERT. The abbreviation refers to a proper name that may too long for any engineer to ever willingly say: the Bourns College of Engineering -- Center for Environmental
Research & Technology.

Viresco's process can employ biomass materials like sewage sludge -- an industrial term for the stuff people flush down the toilet -- and wood chips to synthesize diesel fuel. Biological feed stocks can also be combined with coal.

Viresco's principals like to talk about how their process begins with junk -- municipal waste and wood taken from bark beetle-ravaged trees from the San Bernardino National Forest. Samples of their feed stocks are stored in Pyrex beakers and Mason jars kept inside the
firm's UC Riverside lab.

"We've been taking that waste, sludge, turning it into something useful," said Arun Raju, Viresco's young research director who earned his doctorate studying by studying synthetic
fuels production at UC Riverside.

When processed, the biosolids are mixed into a slurry that is pushed through a tubular device called a hydrogasification reactor.

Inside, the slurry is heated to a temperature hotter than 800 degrees Celsius and compressed to a pressure about 10 times that of air pressure at sea level.

Senior development engineer Junior Castillo said the heating process causes carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and methane to rise from the slurry.

The gases then go through another step that produces a "synthesis gas" composed of hydrogen and carbon monoxide that can be processed into synthetic diesel.

Viresco's president, Jim Guthrie, said CE-CERT faculty members Joseph Norbeck and Chan S. Park played key roles in researching the science behind the company's process. The company's lab is part of CE-CERT's facilities, which are north of UC Riverside proper.

Guthrie, who wears cowboy boots and a hands-free cell phone device on his right ear, said his background isn't in science. He said he's a builder by trade but is presently excited about the
prospects for Viresco's process.

Research team members say Viresco's technique is superior to other methods of synthesizing diesel because Viresco can process wet biosolids and don't have to use expensive oxygen.

The synthetic diesel, Raju said, promises to be cleaner than petroleum-based diesel as there is nearly zero sulfur content in Viresco's product.

Viresco hasn't gotten to the point where the firm is making money. Guthrie said he's invested $8-10 million in the firm and some time must pass before Viresco will be ready to go to market.

"We think we'll be commercially viable in probably less than 24 months," Guthrie said.