[Gasification] Pyrolysing compost to make fuel

[Kevin Chisholm]

Dear Neal

It seems to me that conversion to energy forms is fundamentally "the use of 
last resort" for biomass resources. If there is any alternative use for the 
biomass, then almost invariably, it has a higher worth.

Energy projects seem highly distorted because of subsidies. Ity surprises me 
that the Researcher is taking compost and then "setting fire" to it, to make 
a fuel, rather than using it as a soil amendment and fertilizer substitute. 
I don't have the benefit of a Mass and Energy balance for the process, but 
it would intuitively seem that applying the compost to the soil would save 
more fuel than could be produced from the pyrolysis oils.

At any rate, if the process was technically successful, I would guess that 
it would require more government Subsidies and concessions before it would 
be implemented industrially.

Subsidies can be a fundamentally good thing, if they enable fundamentally 
good things to happen. It is far from clear that setting fire to compost is 
a good thing. On the other hand, subsidies can enable a few people to make a 
lot of money while the subsidies last. The internet abounds with spam, 
promoting Conferences and Seminars whose basic thrust is "How to apply for 
subsidies on biomass projects." There seem to be a lot of people chasing 
Subsidies, rather than looking for the right thing to do.

Best wishes,

Kevin


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <CAVM at aol.com>
To: <GASIFICATION at LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2006 10:40 AM
Subject: Re: [Gasification] Pyrolysing compost to make fuel


>
> Roger, the underlying issue is to make fuel from cellulose material.
> Neither standard fermentation to alcohol nor methane production via 
> anaerobic
> digestion work well with high solids and high cellulose materials.  Or am 
> I  wrong?
>
> Neal
>
> In a message dated 8/3/2006 8:34:55 AM Central Daylight Time,
> rsamson at reap-canada.com writes:
>
> They  would be wiser to make biogas out of farm derived material and
> recovering  the lignin fraction as a stable organic matter soil amendment.
> Biogas is a  cheaper and more sustainable option. Mining soils to produce
> sustainable  energy is a pretty poor trade off.
>
> Germany now has 2700 biogas systems  running on manure and energy crops. I
> don't understand how the US is so  backwards to keep putting all their 
> eggs
> in the liquid fuels from biomass  basket. It creates the worst fuel cycles
> and needs the most subsidies.
>
> Here is a presentation on the german biogas systems that was given 
> recently
> in Canada:
>
>>  http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/engineer/facts/bg_pres4.pdf
>
>
>
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