[Gasification] Biomass heated ethanol plants

[Ed Woolsey]

Neil ...all:

Pretty good numbers, you might be low with your $50/hr transport
costs...at least in the Midwest...I'd at least double it...and add some
handling costs.  The competition is not between biomass costs and
natural gas, the competition is Powder River Basin coal prices versus
biomass.
One solution is "fossil carbon taxes", but no one yet brave enough to
run for US political office on that one.  Perhaps one day soon.

Ed
Iowa



-----Original Message-----
From: gasification-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:gasification-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of
CAVM at aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2006 10:19 PM
To: gasification at listserv.repp.org
Subject: Re: [Gasification] Biomass heated ethanol plants

 
Boy you sure are asking a lot.  Let me simply the response though by
saying 
that kiln dried wood waste of various kinds cost about $18-25/ton plus  
freight.  As a dry commodity the shipping truck is filled with volume
long  before 
it is filled with weight. It will have about 16-18,000,000 BTU/ton.
Roughly 
$1.00 per million BTU.
 
I don't know what you mean about hardwood forests lining the  waterways.
You 
may be thinking of Nebraska or South Dakota.   Illinois, Indiana,
Kentucky, 
Tennessee are reputed to have more forested land  now than when Daniel
Boone 
first set foot here.
 
As for transportation costs, that would be about $50 per trucking hour
for  a 
short haul such as from my site to the ethanol plant 10 miles away.
Figure 
one round trip per hour maybe.  $50 per 20 tons of fuel, or  320,000,000
BTU, 
for freight.  
 
For comparison sake, corn and corn stover have about 18-22,000,000 BTU
per  
ton.  They would be dried on the vine, so to speak, and raked, baled and

hauled from the field.  Keep in mind the required $30/ton FOB the field
for  the 
farmer to engage in this exercise.  If these fields were likewise 10
miles from 
an ethanol plant, for agruement's sake, you would have $30/18,000,000
BTU = 
$1.66/mm BTU.
 
Compare either of these to natural gas or propane.  Of course biomass  
requires a one time combustion or gasification capital cost for
equipment.   Like I 
said earlier, does this give anybody any ideas?
 
Neal
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
-------------------------------

Thanks,  Neal.

Could you please work backward from the gasifier and compare the  net
heating
value (as delivered, with possible fiber water saturation) and  include
all
associated costs among which transportation is likely  paramount.
There's an
old saying in the Value Recovery industry: "You can't  put waste on
wheels".

Having been raised in the Midwest and grown to  middle age in the
Pacific
Northwest, it's very difficult for me to accept  the assertion that the
Midwest is, "...big timber country". Yes, I am aware  of the hardwood
"forests" that line waterways but in general, its hard to  see the
forest for
the trees.

mark


 
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