Dear Tom Ok - a bit more "fun" than my gasifier project - but apart from the hospital it is more or less the same melody.
Give Mr Khosla my warm regards. It is getting late here now and my bed is missing me. Best regards Thomas ________________________________________ Fra: [email protected] [[email protected]] på vegne af [email protected] [[email protected]] Sendt: 10. juli 2011 21:42 Til: [email protected] Emne: Re: [Gasification] What happened at Choren Dear Thomas Koch, Ontario Hydro was calling the shots and my manager did not argue with them because he was intimidated by them. During the course of the works, I was burned and spent a month in the hospital recovering from 30% total body 3rd degree burns. I was sedated for 2 weeks. When I returned to work, I had the clarity of mind due to the sedation to stop the project. In the period I was in the hospital, the contractor building the system had spent $33,000 on electrical work which could not be accounted for. It was a total rip-off. It is true that the project was my responsibility, and it is also true that the client can be wrong, and how to deal with this is the art of project management. It is not taught in school, most folks don't learn it which is the reason that they are technicians, and it is very stressful, if one knows how to play poker well, can bluff without any cards, then they will make a good manager. Perhaps the best poker player in the biggest game of all time was Reagan when the bluffed Gorbachev on SDI. I have an invitation to call Kholsa and maybe I will this week. Sincerely, Leland T. "Tom" Taylor President Thermogenics Inc. -----Original Message----- From: Thomas Koch <[email protected]> To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification <[email protected]> Sent: Sun, Jul 10, 2011 12:22 pm Subject: Re: [Gasification] What happened at Choren Dear Tom I have had similar experinces - crashed with a 2,3 MWth 3 stage gasifier for all sorts of reasons. But at the end of the day there only one whom I can blame - and that is myselves - mainly for being to enthusiastic and not carefull enough in the first 25 % of the project. At a sales meeting arranged arranged by the Min of Foreign Affairs a (smart) salesman selling smart metering participated. He was really frustrated - he had been in this business for 7 month - seeeeeeven month - and he had not recieved one order until now!!!!! I told him that i have been in this business for 25 years and nor recieved one oreder for one year. Yes I send a letter to Khosla - and got an ansver from one of his assistants that did speak an other language than me. His money - his decisions. Same thing with CHOREN - I had numerous discussions with several customers that had identified our plug feedcr as an ideal feeding device for a CHOREN plant - but at that stage they where all ready running out of enthusiasm - at least I was not happy about their answers - so nothing happend. But - i can rest asure you that here in Denmark it is not only golddiggers that can loose commen sense and hundres on millions DKK ( 1/5 in $). Our 2 national 2 gen bioetanol from straw projects have just been evaluated by Risoe. INBICON - DONGs (100 % ovned by the danish state) project was evalauted to "Calculations of the economy in the IBUS concept shows that the production of bioethanol from straw would not be social welfare and economic profitability. The extended economic analysis shows a significant negative NPV for the project." (from google translate) http://www.biopress.dk/projekter/kronologisk/5a4cbf0991b435ea988abbd69332184c It it reported in English - but run it through Google translate and it will give the overall picture if you want to se an example of how taxmoney can off set common sense. The interesting question is now - can we use this experince to some thing that is pointing more to the future the writing reports about failed gasification projects? Best regards Thomas ________________________________________ Fra: [email protected] [[email protected]] på vegne af [email protected] [[email protected]] Sendt: 10. juli 2011 19:37 Til: [email protected] Emne: Re: [Gasification] What happened at Choren Dear Thomas Koch, I presume that you tried to relay your views to Vinod Kholsa, the founder of Sun Microsystems and some thing with AMD. All successful IT types that have not a clue about energy projects. There was a speech given to a group of high powered financial types at an energy conference once by a wise person who asked the audience who had operated a power plant, negotiated a PPA, done due diligence on a power plant project and out of several hundred or so, only one or two raised their hands. The rest were refugees from the IT world,looking for the next gold mine. I have had many experiences with even my own personnel about how things need to be done to work right. The heavy duty power struggles within Ontario Hydro between engineering groups within OHT were legendary and resulted in the project having 200% overruns in time and cost, ultimately failing due to OH's loss of several nuclear reactors and being broken up, canceling the project. The damage to Thermogenics was irreparable. Whatever can't go wrong will. Sincerely, Leland T. "Tom" Taylor President Thermogenics Inc. -----Original Message----- From: Thomas Koch <[email protected]> To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification <[email protected]> Sent: Sat, Jul 9, 2011 8:35 pm Subject: Re: [Gasification] What happened at Choren I forgot a NOT - I did not see any evidence !!! ________________________________________ Fra: Thomas Koch Sendt: 10. juli 2011 04:32 Til: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification Emne: SV: [Gasification] What happened at Choren Dear Tom Taylor I did see any evidence that steel was developed at Range - I interpreted as one of the arguments that was used to fool them selves and maybe the investors also. I tried to communicate my views to the VC that provided the money to Range - just to try to find out how they are thinking - but they did not want to discus with me. Did Shell report reasons why they pulled out of CHOREN? Best regards Thomas ________________________________________ Fra: [email protected] [[email protected]] på vegne af [email protected] [[email protected]] Sendt: 9. juli 2011 22:17 Til: [email protected] Emne: Re: [Gasification] What happened at Choren Dear Mr. Koch, I certainly appreciate your insight to the management and technical issues at both Range and Choren. You know that Shell pulled out of Choren some time ago because of these reported reasons. A few years ago our government used the language "too big to fail" when it bailed out financial institutions. This is the same problem with these large projects, they convince themselves that because they have so much money that they couldn't fail. They also believed it and made decisions accordingly. I appreciate the information on Range's development of a special steel. I wonder where it is now? it is also interesting to see that serious, seasoned project managers are not in sight, but come from the IT world (as did Range's financing). Of course, when Farmland Industries hired Texaco to refit the Coolwater (originally near Barstow, California) coal gasifier to petcoke, they fired them after 6 months because they didn't do much besides spend money. Farmland took over the work themselves and made it work, but it drove them into bankruptcy. There are a few consultants out there who can do a productive contribution, but they have to be very, very carefully managed or else they spend lot of your money. Sincerely, Leland T. "Tom" Taylor President Thermogenics Inc. -----Original Message----- From: Thomas Koch <[email protected]> To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification <[email protected]> Sent: Sat, Jul 9, 2011 11:54 am Subject: Re: [Gasification] What happened at Choren It is a very interesting question you raise. What can be learned from Range Fuels and from CHOREN I have visited both companies trying to help them feeding biomass into their reactors and spend quit a lot of brain work on both. One common thing is that both did not answer simpel normal questions. I did not understand the energy balance on Range and the Mass balance on CHOREN. And questions was ansvered by business development people. I remember a meeting at CHOREN where I asked about the low melting ash components - where did they go and how did it work? The business development manager started a long specialtive explanation about how they washed it out of the char - after it had been taken out of the pressurised enclosure - and then the char was put back into the process with out these troublesome ash components. My business development manager had $$$ in his eyes - imagine all the feeders we could sell - (we counted 7 pressurised in and outlet on each gasifier!!!!) if we could just focus on this problem instead of discussing ash and other irrelevant issues. At the site visit 2 of their engineers told me that they had tried to draw the attention of the management to this problem with little succes. My imagination tells my that you can identify 50 similar issues at CHOREN. Similar I had a discussion with a manager at RANGE - he had realised that the complexity could potentially be a problem. He was a former succesfull business man from Apple. I tried to explain him the consequenses of thermal transient in a startup situation when you have square hot geometries. He then explained me that at Range they had invented a refractory steel that could stand 100 degree higher temperatures than the most expensive Haynes cobalt/steel alloy. I congratulated him with this invention and predicted that he would be come a VERY rich man just by this singel invention. I dont think he understood one word of what I said to him. The lesson I have learned is that all projects my full fill 5 rules. 1 First law of thermodynamics - Mass will not be made from nothing and can not dissapear 2 Second law of thermodynamics - No matter what you do you make a loss :-) 3 First law of money - Money will not be made from nothing but can disappear 4 Common sense mut be applied to all elements in the process. 5 You can fool your selves but only others if you pay them their salary. And making projects by consultants - FORGET IT!! Best regards Thomas Koch ______________________________________ Fra: [email protected] [[email protected]] på vegne af [email protected] [[email protected]] Sendt: 9. juli 2011 17:32 Til: [email protected] Emne: Re: [Gasification] What happened at Choren 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, ... _______________________________________________ Gasification mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_lists.bioenergylists.org for more Gasifiers, News and Information see our web site: http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/_______________________________________________ Gasification mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_lists.bioenergylists.org for more Gasifiers, News and Information see our web site: http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/ _______________________________________________ Gasification mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_lists.bioenergylists.org for more Gasifiers, News and Information see our web site: http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/ _______________________________________________ Gasification mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_lists.bioenergylists.org for more Gasifiers, News and Information see our web site: http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/ _______________________________________________ Gasification mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_lists.bioenergylists.org for more Gasifiers, News and Information see our web site: http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/ _______________________________________________ Gasification mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_lists.bioenergylists.org for more Gasifiers, News and Information see our web site: http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/ _______________________________________________ Gasification mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_lists.bioenergylists.org for more Gasifiers, News and Information see our web site: http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/ _______________________________________________ Gasification mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_lists.bioenergylists.org for more Gasifiers, News and Information see our web site: http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/ _______________________________________________ Gasification mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_lists.bioenergylists.org for more Gasifiers, News and Information see our web site: http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/ _______________________________________________ Gasification mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_lists.bioenergylists.org for more Gasifiers, News and Information see our web site: http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/
