Dear Robert,
Los Angeles hauls it's green waste to east of Phoenix and dumps it. Getting
a permit for an outhouse in the South Coast Air Quality Management District
(Los Angeles area to San Bernadino and south) is virtually impossible. We had
spent $300,000 on a waste to ethanol project (cellulosic ethanol) in the
Cabezon Indian tribal land area only to find out there were no air credits
available and the tribe adhered to the SCAQMD standards although they didn't
have to.
Several groups have tried to do gasifiers in cities and have run into
permitting, zoning, NIMBY issues and given up. In other instances, Occidental
Chemical build a 200 tpd plant near San Diego, ran it for 8 hours and scrapped
it after spending huge sums on it. With the failures of many attempts at
gasification, in particular MSW, the investment world is very leery of getting
involved.
One group I have been working with spent 5 years working on a PPA (not in
this country) and it was issued in September.
In areas where there are mandated renewable energy portfolio mandates where
the utility has to supplement with renewable energy purchases, you may not be
able to get a Power Purchase Agreement as they don't need to issue one if they
are mandated to buy one, or they will not give you renewable energy premium
pricing as they can buy credits cheaply and the DoD has used this to keep their
renewable energy pricing down, at least one branch of the DoD claims this.
It is a very complicated and in many cases, stupid process. As an example,
if distributed systems were in the Los Angeles area, the truck traffic would be
greatly reduced, reducing the emissions from truck traffic, but this doesn't
matter in the emissions counting.
With natural gas pricing low, it is creeping into the power costs even in
the East Coast and will shelve many renewable energy projects.
Sincerely,
Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
Thermogenics Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Gersch <[email protected]>
To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
<[email protected]>
Sent: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 10:12 am
Subject: Re: [Gasification] Sweden's trash project
Tom,
Thanks for the input. The NPR story makes us sound like idiots for not having
similar programs in the US. Somehow, I had assumed that only with tax
incentives, could such a program be viable. I am probably the most ignorant
member of the group, but I have wondered why each city in the US doesn't
install a gasifier plant to deal with the waste brush. For the ignorant, it
would seem viable and reduce some of what we bury. Waste wood from
homebuilding, old concrete forms, old fences, Christmas trees, old pallets and
all the trees that are knocked down for new construction plus the trees that
are trimmed equate to a lot of BTU's. I am in San Antonio and we at lease make
mulch from so of the waste wood.I assume most other US cities do at least that.
Thanks
Robert Gersch
----- Original Message -----
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2012 10:57 AM
Subject: Re: [Gasification] Sweden's trash project
There are quite a few waste incinerators in Europe. Italy has sent it's trash
by train to Germany to be incinerated. There are some gasifiers there also. One
Norwegian firm has an incinerator design that doesn't produce dioxins above
regulatory limits, but all are very expensive, one 300 tpd gasifier system is
valued at $300mm. Some of the existing incinerators do not meet emissions
levels, but the government has not shut them down as there is no option
otherwise. EU capital and sale of electricity pricing is heavily subsidized by
the government and does not compete in other parts of the world. One group had
4 dual stage "gasifier" but actually combustor systems in Europe, all have been
shut down for emissions reasons, lack of continuing subsidies, expense of
operation and the only remaining one operating that I know of is in Japan.
Sincerely,
Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
Thermogenics Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Gersch <[email protected]>
To: 'Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification'
<[email protected]>
Sent: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 9:47 am
Subject: [Gasification] Sweden's trash project
Below is a link to a NPR story on Sweden's conversion of trash to energy.
There is no mention of the method used. Does anyone know if this is
gasification? If you read the article, other countries are paying Sweden to
take their trash and Sweden produces energy from it. Is there a chance that
this could actually be cost effective?
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/10/28/163823839/sweden-wants-your-trash?ft=3&f=111787346&sc=nl&cc=es-20121104
Thanks
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