Honey Lake’s giving us a new way to do what we do best: take energy that would otherwise be wasted and convert it into clean power and processed steam, i.e., recycling energy. Whether recycling heat that would otherwise be thrown away at a metals plant or recycling biomass waste that would clog landfills, the principal is the same.

We’re going to put our capital and our team’s extensive clean energy expertise to work enhancing the plant’s efficiency and production. These enhancements could reduce California CO2 emissions by 44,000 metric tons per year. That’s the equivalent of taking more than 8,000 cars off the road. Sweet.

As RED’s own Sean Casten pointed out at the Environmental Law & Policy Center’s recent forum on Chicago’s clean energy economy, the Windy City is home to several energy recycling companies. It also boasts numerous research institutions and associations focused on this kind of clean energy, including the Energy Resources Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Midwest CHP Application Center, which coordinates our region’s combined heat and power technologies.

Chicago also has several CHP and waste energy recovery projects nearby. For example, just south of the city, ArcelorMittal Steel’s smelters capture waste energy from their coke ovens and stacks in order to generate about as much electricity as a small coal-fired power plant, all without burning additional fossil fuel or emitting pollution or greenhouse gases.

Chicago as HQ for the leading energy-recycling businesses, research centers and installations makes it a great center for energy innovation.

No wonder we like it here.

The second is Carbon Nation, a “positive, solutions-based, non-preachy, non-partisan, big tent film about tackling climate change while boosting the economy.” That’s our kind of movie. The Castens appear in the film to lend their expertise about energy recycling.

Momentum is building for recycled energy. I believe it was Martin Luther King Jr. who said “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward efficient use of energy at industrial facilities.” Or something to that effect.

This award reflects the increasing awareness that energy recycling has been receiving in the U.S. The potential for a more efficient energy system has always been there, but change comes gradually. With each award, with each article, with each deal, with each piece of legislation, our country gets a little closer to where it needs to be.

“As the founder and president of several energy companies, Casten has succeeded since 1975 in simultaneously slashing power costs and greenhouse gas emissions, and as an author and the founder of numerous advocacy groups, he has precipitated policy changes that have advanced industrial energy recycling and efficiency,” Platts noted in announcing the Lifetime Achievement Award, bestowed at the 2009 Platts Global Energy Awards.

Platts, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, is the leading source for global energy and commodities information.

As an interesting aside as we look to the start of the U.N. Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, many of the systems Casten developed are similar to what Denmark has used to revolutionize their energy system and slash their greenhouse emissions over the past 30 years.

Sadly, while Denmark produces more than 50 percent of its power from energy recycling and waste heat recovery projects, the U.S. generates only 8 percent from these super-efficient processes.

Two policy proposals are advanced. A Clean Energy Standard Offer Program (CESOP) would provide clean power at a discount, while output-based pollution credits would keep the government from selecting technology winners and allow clean-energy producers to benefit directly from polluter payments.