Dear Tom Reed,
It is not clear to me how the economic issues of coal cause the
technical failure of biomass projects. I should think that whoever
invests hundreds of millions in any energy project has a spreadsheet in
front to look at and has done the homework to make sure the numbers are
correct. If this spreadsheet doesn't look good, then maybe the investor
would put it into a coal project instead?
The issue is that the spreadsheet isn't correct and the investor
will take a hike when some of the numbers do not match what was
presented to him. They have some degree of tolerance, but that % is
getting smaller and smaller as the investors get wiser and wiser.
This is precisely what happened to Syngas Corp,, Choren, and
Range. The reasons are very similar in all three cases. I can cite many
others of similar demise. Biomass project developers, managers,
engineers are their own worst enemy. Some of the engineering mistakes
are that of a freshman chemical engineer student. Coal is a well
seasoned, experienced industry, but there isn't one coal to liquids or
chemicals plant in the US, except for Eastman. The Chinese are way
ahead of us on that.
Sincerely,
Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
President
Thermogenics Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Reed <[email protected]>
To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
<[email protected]>; Cliff Hooper
<[email protected]>
Cc: gasification <[email protected]>
Sent: Sat, Jul 9, 2011 4:30 pm
Subject: Re: [Gasification] What happened at Choren
Dear Tom Taylor
You bring back many sad memories of sad projects that I was peripheral
to 1990-2000. i suppose one reason for the failure of biomass projects
is that coal is standing in the wings setting an economic floor that it
is hard for wood to beat.
A second reason is that al is a very direct benefit to anyone owning a
mine and the downside of coal vs biomass
Global warming from recycling sequestered carbon
Toxic emissions of mercury etc. are passed on to the world at large
which cant defined itself.
Tom Reed
Dr Thomas B Reed
President, The Biomass Energy Foundation
www.Woodgas.com
On Jul 9, 2011, at 11:32 AM, [email protected] wrote:
Dear Tom Miles and the list:
One thing that should be learned is that when there is a lot of
money around, the tendency is to hire a lot of folks and then the
pressure is on to burn money fast. I also see "financing issues with
start up of commercial plant" to read, too expensive, has technical
issues, vis a vis Range Fuels and others. This is a repeat of even the
Downdraft system from Grabowski under Syngas co. This was even
partially funded in the 80's by a group which had provided funding to
Thermogenics and the lead financier called me several years after
funding Syngas to say that i was right, it would fail. They decided to
not fund Thermogenics because of the lack of PhD's who could argue that
their process was better. Not having a degree made my arguments not
listened to.
The question arises as to what to do with a large staff which
initially does engineering work, and then when the design is completed,
what are they doing next until the design is completed and operational?
This is why to some extent, this work being done by consultants may be
better of a business structure.
Unfortunately, the financial world relies on degrees for results
which paves the way downhill. A multiple PhD in mathematics who was
Sandia National Laboratories' lead mathematician, with Stanford and
Caltech on his CV, had a saying on his door "A thermometer is not the
only thing with degrees and no brains".
The more of these large operations to hit the walls, the more
difficult the field will be to get serious project financing and move
forward. There are others slated to fail in near term from what I have
been hearing, high profile supposedly "successful commercial
operations".
Sincerely,
Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
President
Thermogenics Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: Dl <[email protected]>
To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
<[email protected]>
Sent: Fri, Jul 8, 2011 4:43 pm
Subject: Re: [Gasification] What happened at Choren
http://www.choren.com/en/information-and-press/press-releases/
Going into bankruptcy in Germany.
Dan Lacy
The best way to compile inaccurate information that no one wants is
to make it up.
Scott Adams
On Jul 8, 2011, at 3:25 PM, "Tom Miles" <[email protected]>
wrote:
This Google alert abut Choren should be on interest to anyone who has
follwoed biomass pyrolysis an dgiasification to syngas. See the Google
Alert link below. Tom News1 new result for gasifier What Happened
at Choren?
Consumer Energy Report
The gasifier would be scaled up from the pilot plant scale of 1 MW th
to 45 MW th . Shell's Fischer-Tropsch technology was being used in the
plant, ...
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