Thomas,
There was a time in the 1980s when we could count the number of gasifiers in operation. Now there are many more and it is difficult to tell what operates and what doesn’t. IEA Task 33 Gasification could help us with country surveys of technical and economic gasifier performance. Solar Energy Research Institute (now National Renewable Energy Laboratory) did a very nice technical and economic review of small gasifiers in 1982. So what do today’s gasifiers look like? We need to distinguish between small gasifiers intended for intermittent use or daily power only and gasifiers like the Spanner that are intended for continuous generation. We bought 10 kWe and 20 kWe All Power Labs Power Pallets in 2011 and after testing them at a university we installed them at a sawmill in Alaska in 2012. (The mill hasn’t used them because they were too small for the mill loads and we haven’t gotten them relocated to a village where they could be useful for small laods.) APL has probably built a couple of hundred 20 kWe power pallets since then. The APL power pallet makes a nice clean gas at a low capital cost. Like the small Ankurs and their clones they are batch fed and are probably used a few hours per day. Tom From: Gasification [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Thomas Koch Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2014 3:11 PM To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification Subject: Re: [Gasification] : Borealis / Spanner RE2 CHP Tom After 30 years in gasification I do get curious when some body states that “the fact remains that”. I am fully aware that I have not seen all gasifiers but … Considering the well know challenge of gasification that informations are a bit optimistic I would suggest to write At Mr Straw Gasificatorson, Purolysys lane 285, Tar creek - in Belgium there is a ……… that has At Mrs Maniurita Torereficata, Char ave 12 …………. There is a xxx gasifier that has operated for xxxx hours I guess that less than 5 % of the small gasifiers I have visited over the last 30 years have worked when I was there. Thomas Fra: Gasification [mailto:[email protected]] På vegne af Tom Miles Sendt: 21. september 2014 21:03 Til: 'Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification' Emne: Re: [Gasification] : Borealis / Spanner RE2 CHP Thomas, Visit 250 Spanner customers or 100 Burkhardt customers. I would expect to find several gasifiers operating just like the wood fired boilers that we build in small institutions: 3-5 hours (max 12) per week of labor, stable fuel consumption, predictable heat and power production, 4,000-5,000 hours operation per year. Then look at the values of the products: heat, power, biochar. Compare gasifier fired heat systems. What is the marginal cost of generating power? What are the circumstances that favor gasification for heat, char, or power? Other gasifiers will be operating for only a few hundred hours per year because of their particular circumstances. I previously used the US Northeast (New Hampshire) as an example because wood fuel is accessible, they have a tradition of wood burning boilers, many nurseries or farms do not have access to natural gas, power is costly, and even a small amount of gasifier char can be used in the nursery growing media as a substitute for expensive materials (vermiculite). Heat and biochar products from one gasifier that we are working on has the potential to return the cost of the system in a year and a half. Although we are making an engine quality gas, and have generated power, it is not worth it in our circumstances. Fracking and directional drilling in this country has brought low cost oil and gas that has eliminated many biomass power projects in the way that Peter described. Still, there are many places that are not on a natural gas line and do not get low cost oil. They would benefit from small scale gasification. We just need suitable systems. Tom From: Gasification [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Thomas Koch Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2014 11:02 AM To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification Subject: Re: [Gasification] : Borealis / Spanner RE2 CHP Harrie – I can to certain degree understand your comment but a certain realism is also nice. When I started as an inventor many years ago I got an advice from an old man which I have recalled many many times in my carrier I gasification “When you judge the quality of an advice, it is very important to know it the person that gives you the advice, gets his salary every end of the month or he has to fight for his own money every day” 90 % of the bad examples in gasification are initiated/supported or what ever term you like, by people that had no personal consequence of their advice. I can tell you that I really tried to get the gasifier in Gjol to work and lost approx. 1,2 mio € in cash. In 2012 TK Energi went banckrupt. Not because of Gjol – but if I had not spend my money on a hopeless technology that I started working with 20 years before, TK Energi might have survived. I am back in business, developing gasifier again, with the wisdom of 30 years technological failures and a bankruptcy. So Harrie, Can you give me 5 addresses on gasifiers below 1 MW power, in Europe, that have operated for 5000 hours? Best regards Thomas Fra: Gasification [mailto:[email protected]] På vegne af Harrie Knoef Sendt: 21. september 2014 19:16 Til: 'Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification' Emne: Re: [Gasification] : Borealis / Spanner RE2 CHP Denmark is not a good example for gasifers, with their distict heating system. The fact remains that there are 100 hundreda commercially operating gasifiers in Europe. Nobody can deny this and lets keepm positive inmsted of all this negative impusles
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