Wood Gasification Plant Opens

Been really tied up, but saw this story yesterday and wanted to bring attention to it. I think it is significant, and a sign of things to come. Not much time to comment, but some excerpts from the article:

Plant making gas from wood opens in Austria

GUESSING, Austria (AFP) – A new plant that produces gas from wood was opened in Austria on Wednesday, paving the way towards new possibilities in renewable energy.

According to its backers, the gas produced at the plant can be used in urban heating systems, for gas-powered cars or by power stations that work on gas.

“The gas produced has the same quality as natural gas,” said Richard Zweiler, from the European Centre for Renewable Energy (EEE), which is behind the project.

A plant able to produce between 20 and 25 megawatts of power — about 25 times bigger than the Guessing project — is already in the works in Goteborg, Sweden.

Readers may know that I am a big fan of gasification over the long haul. Whether the approach described here turns out to be the right one or not, I think gasification makes far more sense than some of the renewable paths we have headed down. I believe 20 years from now we will be doing commercial biomass gasification for heat and power. I don’t believe we will be making commercial quantities of cellulosic ethanol or algal biofuels.

36 thoughts on “Wood Gasification Plant Opens”

  1. One big problem/opportunity with gasifiers is that all the byproducts have to be taken care of.

    Typically, these require a setup similar to a refinery where processes are cascaded one into the next – and multibillion dollar investments.

    The lignite gasification plant out of Buleah (spelling) ND is a case in point. It is a very interesting combination including sequestration of a significant percentage of the CO2 generated.

    The gasification process has some big boys in it with a long background. GE, BGL, Lurgi, Shell etc.

  2. So how does the topsoil and soil ecology magically fix itself once biomass is being depleted at unsustainable rates. Top soil is already being essentially strip mined by industrial practices in agriculture. Does, anyone seem to understand that there is NO SUCH THING as agricultural waste? Decaying plant matter from stalks stems and everything is important for maintaining a host soil organisms and relationships despite the organic mater mass itself. Gasifiers will help open up the strip mining of entire forest for their BTU content. I can think of no better way to turn the entire world into a anthropogenic induced desert, if you don't believe me research the sahel. Don't anyone dare tell me that tight regulations and environmental forces will dare keep some sort of forest mining process at bay. It worked well with the fishing industry and many others. And to what purpose are we trying to gasify everything? To heat and light our homes? This is kind of the way we use solar panels to capture light in a complex infrastructure intensive process, to turn that light into electricity, to in turn it back to light. The whole process could be simplified down to a window or a well designed home, however the world is locked in a frenzy trying to create complexity because it yields jobs counting beans. What good will this do the world as a whole?

  3. I admire the skill and intellect of people seeking wood gasification solutions. They might want to look at eucalyptus grown in SE Asia, for a wood source.

    That being said, we seem to be entering an era of huge natural gas strikes, as in underground. This seems like it will be played out globally, due to shale gas.

    Can wood gas compete with abundant shale gas?

    NG is so abundant, I think the years 2010-2100 will someday be called "The Natural Gas Era."

    –Benny "Boom, No Doom" Cole

  4. The pine beetle has already killed 3%, or so, of the trees in the West/Northwest. More trees will die, a lot more, if the dead/sick trees aren't removed.

    Drive through Mississippi's pine forests and you see hundreds of thousands of dead pine trees, probably, mostly killed by ice storms.

    We put a dull pencil to it once, and the amount of energy to be derived from just these trees, alone, was Enormous.

    BTW, some "waste" is fairly rich in nutrients, some, such as corn cobs, is virtually Devoid of any value. Waving arms, and hyperventilating isn't of much use.

  5. RR QUOTES THE REPORT:

    "The gas produced has the same quality as natural gas," said Richard Zweiler, from the European Centre for Renewable Energy (EEE), which is behind the project.

    ———————————–
    A contrary view might be that:

    "The heat of combustion of producer gas (syngas derived from wood) is rather low compared to other fuels. Taylor [1] reports that "producer gas" has a lower heating value of 5.7 MJ/kg versus 55.9 MJ/kg for natural gas and 44.1 MJ/kg for gasoline.

    If you look at the combustibles you can perhaps fathom why this is so.

    Twenty (20%) CO, perhaps 20% H2 and about 2-5 % CH4 methane. This sounds more like typical syngas at about 1/2 the embodied energy per unit/volume as methane.

    Turning people's "doo-doo" into methane is a money-maker.

    Compare the Rentech (syngas)plant in Rialto, CA to the Renton Wash. plant which sells the methane as nat gas rather than burn it it turbines to make electricity since electricity rates in the Seattle area were some of the lowest in the nation when the plant was installed.

    Why turn wood into syngas and loose efficiency ? Why not just turn it into pellets and sell it for pellet/gasification stoves. Why waste all that energy through an addeneonal energy transformation, by turning it into a gas to be piped into homes ?

    Why not just peletise the wood products and sell them as fuel "since it is carbon neutral" ?

    That would be too simple.

    OOOOpps, I forgot…….

    This is really about the internal combustion engine and preserving it at all costs, isn't it ?

    John

  6. Russ – LEGS gasification is an interesting technology whereby the carbon is captured in situ using CaO. Here's an abstract with a pretty good overview.

  7. Syngas derived from Wood versus Wood.

    Taylor [1] reports that "producer gas" (syngas derived from wood) has a lower heating value of 5.7 MJ/kg. …

    The heating value of wood is typically 15-18 MJ/kg.

    You loose 10 Joules of energy when you convert to syn-gas according to Taylor.

    Plus all the wood you are going to waste in the gasification process.

    John

  8. aangel:
    Dave Cohen is an incorrigible doom-monger.
    See RR's post of a few days back on natural gas. RR has a fine, skeptical mind, and a peak lite doomer bent. Still, even RR allows that we have ample supplies of NG.
    The deal is, we have just started with shale gas. It is unlikely we have perfected recovery methods, or know where it is yet. Even so, we are swamped with the stuff–even as we build out LNG terminals. Industry guys are saying the terminal may go unused–we have too much gas. Globally, huge strikes of NG are being made. There promises (thanks to LNG tankers) to be a robust, noncartelized, global market in NG.
    That raises questions for OPEC, and also for alternative fuels.

  9. aangel-
    one more thing–I watched a gasoline on my drive-to-work route add a compressed natural gas pump in a matter of days. Little excavation, curiously enough. It pumps at 3600 or 3000 psi. It's done, and waiting for customers. Clean Energy Fuels put it in while Dave Cohen was flapping his lips about how hard it is to do.
    We don;t need to replace gasoline stations, we need only add NG pumps, and from what i saw, it ain't that hard.
    Here is the other good news: Gasoline stations are already advantageously situated coast-to-coast. We do not need to created from whole clothe, acquire land etc. We just use our very good existing network of gasoline stations, and add n natural gas pumps, as was done on the corner of olympic and la Cienega in Los Angeles, in a mater of weeks.
    Cohen is right–it may take decades. That's fine. We have a couple of decades to switch over, and I imagine it may take that long, or even longer, if thug states start developing oil again.
    The real point is, there is no doom scenario that makes sense. We have lifetimes of natural gas, and there are already 7 million NG cars on the road globally. This is a proven technology.
    I won't even get into PHEVs, which will also radically cut oil demand.
    Neither PHEVs or CNG cars are a panacea. Each has some limitations. They may cost more than the old ICEs and 25 cent gas. But they are very workable. We will adapt and thrive.
    What is sad to me, is guys like Cohen and Nate Hagen are going to spend decades trying to prove doom, and that it is coming, right around the corner, next time for sure it is real. At some point they are going to realize they have wasted a portion of their lives.
    Weare on the cusp of 2010, yet another year in which we were supposed to meet some horrific oil crunch., Instead, even the shoddily run thug state oil producers are cutting production for lack of buyers, and oil tankers are moored run the world, looking for a place to dump their crude.
    And the good stuff, the high mpg cars, are just coming to market.

  10. Anonymous of June 25, 2009 3:52 PM wrote "So how does the topsoil and soil ecology magically fix itself once biomass is being depleted at unsustainable rates…"

    There's nothing magical about it. You just put the ash back on the fields and restore the nitrates with crop rotation (or even without that, if the crop itself is nitrogen fixing), or even better you recycle it through settling ponds to grow nitrogen fixing pond scum to get green manure.

    John wrote 'Why turn wood into syngas and loose efficiency ? Why not just turn it into pellets and sell it for pellet/gasification stoves. Why waste all that energy through an addeneonal energy transformation, by turning it into a gas to be piped into homes ? Why not just peletise the wood products and sell them as fuel "since it is carbon neutral" ? … This is really about the internal combustion engine and preserving it at all costs, isn't it ?'

    That is jumping to a conclusion that the syngas would simply be piped and then burned for heating. It can also be used for feedstock for other things, or used directly to run farm equipment like tractors and so improve the Energy Return On Investment (EROI) for whatever else the farm might be doing – which might be making some other final biofuel that wouldn't be economic if a (probably large) proportion of it had to be used to run the farm's processes.

  11. "So how does the topsoil and soil ecology magically fix itself once biomass is being depleted at unsustainable rates."

    Of course that's a logical impossibility. The trick is not to deplete at unsustainable rates, and it can certainly be done. Remember, the carbon that is built up in plants came from the air. Provided you are not extracting critical nutrients in an unsustainable fashion, you needn't deplete the topsoil. There are certain species of wood that can be harvested again and again in 20-year cycles on the same plot of soil without negative impact.

    RR

  12. "The heat of combustion of producer gas (syngas derived from wood) is rather low compared to other fuels."

    Apples and oranges. Producer gas makes steam in addition to the product gas. Heat is generated in the production that is captured and used.

    "Why not just peletise the wood products and sell them as fuel "since it is carbon neutral" ?"

    If your goal is to heat homes, I agree that this would be more efficient. The downside is that pellets don't burn as cleanly, and you can end up putting things like sulfur and particulates into the air. Producer gas can be cleaned up (which is an advantage coal gasification has over coal combustion for power).

    RR

  13. Wood is a very inefficient home heating fuel. The main bugaboo is transportation. Also, wood stoves just aren't practical for most homeowners (believe it or not, most people Do Not live on small farms, anymore.)

  14. Certain Old Men might want to putter around with Wood Stoves, but most busy, growing families would look at you like you're freakin crazy.

  15. @Benjamin: With respect to this transition away from oil we're undergoing, there is — in my view — so much you're glossing over in your last comment it's hard to know where to start, so I'll let someone else continue this conversation if they want.

    As for nat gas, I think we're very lucky to have at least more decades of that while we're dealing with the oil shocks heading our way.

    Best,
    André

  16. A couple of points here.

    First for Russ. Gasifiers operate at around 2,500 F, give or take a few hundred degrees. At this temperature any inerts (the minerals) become a glass-like slag.

    Secondly, any nitrogen in the feed gets converted to ammonia during the process. The process also recovers elemental sulfur. These byproducts could be converted back into anhydrous ammonia or ammonium thiosulfate (ATS) and prilled sulfur. All of which could be used to at least partially replace lost nutrients to the soil. The refinery that RR worked at had one of these units, so I'm surprised Robert didn't mention it. The company that does this is here: Tessenderlo Kerley

  17. Pellet fuel appliances burn small, 3/8–1 inch (100–254 millimeter [mm])-long pellets that look like rabbit feed. Pellets are made from compacted sawdust, wood chips, bark, agricultural crop waste, waste paper, and other organic materials. Some models can also burn nutshells, corn kernels, and small wood chips. They are more convenient to operate and have much higher combustion and heating efficiencies than ordinary wood stoves or fireplaces. As a consequence of this, they produce very little air pollution. In fact, pellet stoves are the cleanest of solid fuel-burning residential heating appliances. With combustion efficiencies of 78%–85%, they are also exempt from United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) smoke-emission testing requirements. Pellet stoves have heating capacities that range between 8,000 and 90,000 Btu per hour. They are suitable for homes as well as apartments or condominiums.

    Most pellet stoves cost between $1,700 and $3,000. However, a pellet stove is often cheaper to install than a cordwood-burning heater. Many can be direct-vented and do not need an expensive chimney or flue. As a result, the installed cost of the entire system may be less than that of a conventional wood stove.

    sincerely,
    Takchess
    An Old Man

  18. Takchess,

    Thanks for giving readers some info on pellet stoves, I didn't know you could get a tax credit.

    My mother and father bought a cast iron wood burning stove which sat on the stone hearth of their fireplace and used the chimney as a vent for the stove. They had central air and heat but found it was cheaper to heat with cord-wood since they had a large house and only needed to heat a few rooms.

    The Franklin stove was much more efficient than loosing most of the heat up the chimney or even a Rumsford fireplace. They lived in Portland (Oregon). I have a small cast iron stove that I heat my shop with during the winter here in Texas.

    John

  19. how does the 6/24/09 news release by Rentech [RTK] http://WWW.RENTECHINC.COM on multiple integrated fossil or biomas input gasification look? silvagas and clearfuels gasification with syngas or synthetic diesel output.

    fran

  20. " I watched a gasoline [station]on my drive-to-work route add a compressed natural gas pump in a matter of days. Little excavation, curiously enough. It pumps at 3600 or 3000 psi. It's done, and waiting for customers."

    Benny — time to get out there and do some research. Next time you drive past that station, stop & ask a few questions.

    1. How many vehicle tanks can that Compressed Natural Gas pump fill each day? If the pump has to pressure up city gas to about 4,000 psi in an accumulator, we may be surprised at how few fill-ups it can actually do in a day.

    2. How much energy does the compressor consume in pressuring up the gas? Converted to a percentage of the CNG delivered to paying custormers.

    3. Who is subsidizing this pump? And by how much per gallon gasoline equivalent?

    I am not trying to rain on your parade here. Simply trying to get some facts.

    Some energy sources will forever remain trivial — such as windmills and pellet stoves. Some sources are already incomparably more important, and could yield even more, such as natural gas. But all large-scale energy sources have downsides too. Let's not pretend that there are simple answers which don't require trade-offs.

  21. PM Lawrence said:

    That is jumping to a conclusion that the syngas would simply be piped and then burned for heating. It can also be used for feedstock for other things, or used directly to run farm equipment like tractors and so improve the Energy Return On Investment (EROI) for whatever else the farm might be doing – which might be making some other final biofuel that wouldn't be economic if a (probably large) proportion of it had to be used to run the farm's processes.

    _________________________________

    The news item Robert offered says that some of the syngas in Europe will be used to make electricity. about 20 kw or so.

    The article Robert quoted just happened to also mention heating. ( I questioned the rationale for this)

    You are correct

    As far as farm use goes, it's still more efficient to turn the animal dung into methane (which many farmers do rather than to burn dried up cow pies to make syngas which has appx half the embodied energy of methane.

    The problem with farm produced methane is that the anaerobic digestion takes much more time than gasification.

    Certain fuel stocks such as wood, corn cobs etc. might be better used to make syngas even though it has a lower specific energy than methane, since lignins don't digest very easily.

    If you want fuel "fast" then syngas will give you that at perhaps 1/2 the specific energy of methane.

    I agree. The farmers don't have to use it to heat their homes but can use it for other farm processes or even to make home-grown electricity if they want.

    John

  22. "The article Robert quoted just happened to also mention heating. ( I questioned the rationale for this)"

    That's part of the deal, and what drives the economics. When you use the biomass to produce electricity, you get heat as well. When you have a home for that heat, you have a possible good fit.

    RR

  23. Robert,

    Okay, I see why they are claiming enriched syngas at Guessing. They are bedding calcium carbonate in the reactor to remove the CO2 component and increase the H2 desity of the gas which is why they claim that their syngas is methane equivalent when normal wood-gas would not be.

    They claim this also lowers the required reactor temperature.

    Now, it makes more sense why they propose to pipe the gas to homes for heating.
    ————————————

    John

  24. rufus,

    I think they might be running the cooled wood-gas over quicklime CaO which would absorb the CO2 to form calcium carbonate, CaCO3. I don't know where they are getting the quicklime (CaO).

    They might be using the reactor heat to drive out CO2 from CaCO3 then using the resulting quicklime to clean the syn-gas . As the gas gets cleaned it turns the CaO back into CaCO3. It may be a closed loop process, which makes one wonder what happens to the extra CO2 ?

    I couldn't find a real good explanation about the Guessing plant and how it works exactly.

    ——————————–

    Man, this gasification stuff has been around forever.

    They have been making coal gas and wood gas since the late 1700's. Coal gas was used to run the old gas street lights and to run factories during the industrial revolution up til the early 1900's. They used wood-gas to run vehicles during WW2.

    Electricity and cheap natural gas took over, I hope these modern chemists have got some clever new wrinkles. This stuff is ancient history.

    John

  25. Kinu:
    Funny you should ask. Just yesterday I called the PR guy at CleanEnergyFuels.
    The Olympic-La Cienega NG pump was installed by CleanEnergyFuels, which recently completed a very successful secondary offering. So, it is not subsidized by taxpayers, although one could argue by shareholders.
    The storage tanks are above-ground behind a cinder-block wall, that's why no excavation. You are right, it draws gas from existing utility line, and has an on-site compressor.
    I asked the PR guy how much this cost and how many more can we expect. He said his company is rapidly ramping up the number of CNG stations, and he will get back to me with more info, which I will gladly share.
    By the way, many Europeans makers already have CNG cars on the road, in use.
    I will ask him how many cars they can fill up in a day. Obviously, right now, I doubt they service more than a few cars a day. I have never seen it used.
    At any location, we are probably years away from overuse. If that happens, then somebody can open another pump at the next gas station.
    Really, I have to say, the whole installation was remarkably rapid, and, obviously, we have gas stations coast-to-coast already. The infrastructure is there already, in terms of locations. If the gasoline stations do not have a natural gas hookup, you can use delivered tanks.
    Like I said, my point is not that CNG will blow all the gasoline cars off the road in the net couple of years. My point is that we have decades and decades of NG, a flush market for generations ahead. We know CNG cars/trucks work, seven million vehicles on the road.
    There is no doom scenario that makes sense.
    We may pay some additional percent of our income to travel around in cars and trucks. That's it; that's the worst reasonable doom scenario.
    A modest decline in living standards, most probably easily offset by driving smaller cars, or moving a little closer to work, or other small adjustments.
    Only in flabby-soft America could the prospect of driving small cars or using CNG cars be equated to doom.
    There will be the upside of cleaner urban air. PHEVs will do that too.
    I welcome the future. I t looks good to me.

  26. "Just yesterday I called the PR guy at CleanEnergyFuels."

    Benny — thanks for sharing. Much appreciated.

    Pulling gas from the city supply & pumping up the pressure is probably the limiting step in refueling capacity. Think of how often an air compressor in a machine shop has to run — and that's generally smaller volumes at lower pressures. It would be interesting to know if it takes 5 minutes or 2 hours to refill the accumulator after each paying customer.

    By the way, we are almost completely on the same page with respect to the silliness of doomers. Technologically, we have energy answers today. If we support real continuing research, we will have even better answers tomorrow.

    Where we probably part company is on the political will to implement meaningful solutions. For example, Obama's Cap'n Trade will make it harder to have high horse power compressors at your neighborhood filling station. The stupidity of the Political Class should never be underestimated.

  27. MESSRS COLE/KINU–

    check details of CLNE fueling station in LIMA, PERU for large capacity/multi vehicle capability.

    fran

  28. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

    This old guy bought his first wood (cord) boiler about 30 years ago. This was shortly after my neighbor told me the oil truck could not get up our common drive way in winter. Another neighbor had a wood boiler that gasified the wood and burned the gas in a separate chamber. It could also use propane.

    Expensive biomass gasifier demonstration projects have one thing in common. They demonstrate that more conventional technology works better. For example, see http://www.energyproducts.com/

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