[Bioconversion] Destructive distillation of biomass

[list at sylva.icuklive.co.uk]

Forwarding Walt's reply to my earlier post, with his accord, I've kept
this to bioconversion with the hope that people will migrate subjects
like this to this list, Andrew Heggie.

On Sat, 13 Nov 2004 14:21:57 -0800, Walt Patrick  wrote:

At 07:48 PM 11/13/04 +0000, AHJ wrote:
 >One of the anachronisms that I cannot come to terms with is that the
 >only work in the biomass field I have been offered is to develop a
 >means to incinerate biomass from conservation areas, when what I
want
 >to do is research and implement a means to economically harvest the
 >same biomass.

	Work of this nature, i.e. out of the box, is often best done
by amateurs, i.e. by people who do something because they truly want
to see it happen, as contrasted with those who are paid to try and
make something new work.

	Personally, I can't imagine anything more worthwhile that
building a working model of a viable way to convert wood waste to
methanol. Consequently, that's what I spend time researching and
working on. This year we've acquired a 6" PTO-driven chipper that has
enabled us to generate a suitable feedstock.

	The chipper in operation
http://www.windward.org/notes/notes64/wdchip02.jpg
	And the chips it produces
http://www.windward.org/notes/notes64/wdchip01.jpg

	Now we're working on a combination torrefication /
auto-thermal steam reformer to convert the chips into syngas.
	Here's the 25 gallon test reactor we're constructing
http://www.windward.org/notes/notes64/atr02.jpg

	Since no one is paying us to do this, we're not dependent on
others in order to be able to follow through. The route we're
following may or may not ultimately prove viable, but either way,
we're enjoying the work and are confident that we'll be able to see it
through. Indeed, every time we fill up one of the vehicles at a gas
station, it's a reminder to get back to work on the reactor :-)

	And if the answer turns out to be "no, this path doesn't
work," then we'll take what we've learned, reconfigure and try another
way. So long as the journey is fun and paid for as you go, you can
keep going a very long time :-)

	What we've done is to focus on building a sustainable
community of people who care about such things, who want to see new
ways and new options happen, and then using that context as an
incubator in which to explore all sorts of interesting options. By
taking a cooperative approach to research, instead of a corporate one,
we're able to do what we want and have a good time doing it.

	While it might be nice to get someone to pay you to do what
you want to, our experience is that it's better to just pay yourself.

with best wishes,

Walt
http://www.windward.org/