Hi Peter, >Air normally contains about 300ppm of CO2, and this is barely above starvation >level for most plants. Raising the CO2 levels to 1,000 ppm or even higher can >result in increased growth of >most plants by 20%-100% (if given sufficient >light to utilize this CO2 by photosynthesis).
It's normal to use LPG to raise the CO2 level in greenhouses in New Zealand, but in our research to use gasified heating for growers, we were told several times that 10% was the optimum CO2 level for plants. >Northern greenhouses will necessarily be as airtight as possible to prevent >heat loss. An undesirable effect from this is low levels of CO2 as the plants >scavenge the available CO2 which is >not replaced. This results in very low >levels of CO2 inside the greenhouse and reduced plant growth. Our project in California is right in the middle of testing out all these obscure facts and figures, and I am writing up all the photo captions at this moment for the Fluidyne Archive Update. >A gasifier inside a greenhouse would result is 50% less fuel burned and 50% >more plant growth. Seems to me that markets of gasifiers have a large >potential market here that no one that I >can see is capitalizing on. Is >anyone doing this? With people moving in and out of these areas, issues of safety have to be considered. It's one thing to have a need, but not always possible to obtain the necessary fuel supplies to run a gasifier at the right cost. Heating costs from LPG are becoming a problem, but gasifiers of any type, need the infrastructure to implement them. We still have a lot to prove to the sceptics, so steady as she goes chaps, don't get carried away with "possibles". Doug Williams, Fluidyne. _______________________________________________ The Gasification list has moved to [email protected] - please update your email contacts to reflect the change. Please visit http://info.bioenergylists.org for more news on the list move. Thank you, Gasification Administrator
