Well said, Tom, but fruitless I think. Bill Klein, 3i
----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Miles" <[email protected]> To: "'Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification'" <[email protected]> Cc: <[email protected]>; "'Blunck Michael GTZ 4413'" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 1:48 PM Subject: Re: [Gasification] [Stoves] Paper series small-scale ElectricityGeneration from Biomass > Paper series: Small-scale Electricity Generation from Biomass GTZ-HERA has looked more closely into the small-scale use of biomass for rural off-grid electrification. Results are disillusioning. Christa, Michael, Elmar, Thank you for pointing us to these reports. There is some interesting information in the gasification report but frankly the study is not much use to either policy makers or engineers. I say this not because of its conclusions but because if its content. Those of us who have been involved in small scale gasification for more than 35 years have lived through the litany of tears reported in the study. We will look with interest at the documents and literature that are cited but I suspect that we could make better use of these studies and come to more useful conclusions. As an overview report it identifies a number of problems (toxic gases, tars, pollutants) without clearly understanding or describing how these are solved. It would be far more useful if it were written from an engineering perspective that highlighted lessons learned, paths forward and circumstances where gasification can work rather than concluding, essentially, that small scale gasification has failed because it does not meet the criteria of the European automobile industry. Even highly productive systems were discounted because they didn't meet European environmental health and safety standards. Reading the report one would not know that there are affordable small scale systems that you can very safely run in your backyard in Germany. The report ignores developments in the last five years that are yielding systems that solve many of the problems that are highlighted. It has ignored some very important sources. It quotes unidentified sources ("independent experts") and old data (Stassen's World Bank study). Literature is cited but it does not look like very many of us who are involved in gasifier development were contacted for this study. It assumes that students who write theses correctly interpret what they observe. It incorrectly applies problems associated with some gasifier designs to all gasifiers. To be of any use to industry or policy makers this introductory, or overview level, study should be followed up with a deeper study of how gasification can be used successfully. (A follow up could be done in collaboration with the IEA Task 33 on biomass gasification.) At best it will stimulate interest in making better gasification systems. At worst it will erode confidence (i.e. funding) at the policy level in the potential of small scale gasification. Kind regards, Tom Miles www.gasifiers.bioenergylists.org Ref. Small-scale Electricity Generation from Biomass Part 1 - Biomass Gasification http://www.gtz.de/de/dokumente/gtz2010-en-small-scale-electricity-generation -from-biomass-part-I.pdf Part 2 - Biogas http://www.gtz.de/de/dokumente/gtz2010-en-small-scale-electricity-generation -from-biomass-part-2.pdf Part 3 of the paper series which will cover plant oil for power generation will be available by the end of this year. _______________________________________________ Gasification mailing list [email protected] http://listserv.repp.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_listserv.repp.org http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org http://info.bioenergylists.org _______________________________________________ Gasification mailing list [email protected] http://listserv.repp.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_listserv.repp.org http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org http://info.bioenergylists.org
