Yes - the internal politics of this sound strange, since one report has
TVA as a patent holder; but assuming they were not - the technology
itself sounds very interesting in view of the fact that many thousands
of people (mostly rural) own and swear-by wood pellet stoves... Home
Depot carries the fuel for cheap.
From the way I understand this - if you start with biomass, and then
grind or reduce that (beyond pellets) all the way down to a powder form,
and then pre-burn the powder in a "cyclone" (vortex cone) then you can
port the gas from the cyclone to a turbine, and not degrade the blades
while at the same time- losing little heat and making the fuel burn much
cleaner. Pellets themselves do not burn clean.
Since the automobile turbine (turbocharger) is a mass-produced item,
could it not be easily modified, alternator added, and used in a smaller
version of this for cheap home power ?
... then why would anyone using wood pellets NOT go off-grid - all or in
part? It would require a grinder to reduce pellets to poweder, a cyclone
and a small turbine, but in the end, you would get both heat and
electricity and less pollution than burning pellets.
Is that what TVA was afraid of - ultimately? ... i.e. consumers going
off-grid?
... doubt it, as it really makes less sense there in the South, but in
the Northern USA, not to mention Alaska, this would make a lot more
economic sense.
Jones
Horace Heffner wrote:
On Sep 4, 2007, at 9:33 AM, Jones Beene wrote:
Ever heard of BioTen? (not to be confused with the vitamin, biotin)
Looks like the TVA didn't like the competition:
http://topics.energycentral.com/centers/gentech/view/detail.cfm?aid=19
http://tinyurl.com/yuhe3d
Moved to Portland at one time? (nice photo):
http://tinyurl.com/2bbb38
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
