[Gasification] Re: NREL

Sun Jun 11 10:33:16 CDT 2006

Dear Mark Ludlow & All,

>What is the "sweet spot"? It seems obvious that we can't haul woody
>biomass from all over Florida, after a hurricane causes a massive lowdown,
>to a large gasifier;

I've lived in SW Florida since 1992.  Lost my first Florida house in 
Hurricane Andrew a few months after moving in.  Several other near miss 
experiences since then, including  Hurricane Charley in 2004.

But why wait until after a hurricane?  We create and process thousands of 
tons of woody biomass, five days a week.

>Is there a regional
> scale that minimizes fuel infeed costs and creates the lowest possible 
> cost
> per energy unit produced?

Yes.  The county landfills.  These are where it nearly all goes already. 
The problem is the current sizing of  abundant 'processed' woody biomass.
Right now its either mulched to bits or tree service chipper chipped on 
site.  The key is to start getting some of this chopped into blockier 
chunks, and maybe to densify tree cutter service chips into larger blocks.

Continually rising tipping fees (rising price of fuel, you know) are 
presently charged at all these sites.  $40-$60 ton.  Plus the disposer pays 
for the fuel and labor to haul it out there.  Is this a low enough cost?

The dynamics of development and zoning help here.  All the new landfills are 
on the extreme eastern sides of the
Gulf Coast counties from Tampa to Naples.  All fairly close to I-75 which 
runs laterally north-south to them.  Also fairly close to the two Seminole 
Gulf short line railroad spurs.  This means many sites could also draw from 
the western parts of the adjacent inland agricultural counties.   Once the 
biomass has value I'm sure the local politics of importing foreign 'waste' 
could be got over.

>It seems obvious that we can't haul woody
>biomass from all over Florida, after a hurricane causes a massive lowdown,
>to a large gasifier;

Agree.  However, you could haul multiple 500Kw gasifiers and gensets to a 
stricken area on flat bed semis, plus associated trailers with fuel 
processing equipment.   Then set up and operate them at the emergency debris 
concentration sites for several months using the windfall fuel.

>>minimizes fuel infeed costs<<

As with the regular county landfills, the fuel is delivered free of charge. 
And it will be processed down to small bits one way or another anyway.

Maybe FEMA/DHS would help pay for a prototype demonstrator project?  Local 
destruction of the electric grid is one outcome of CAT 3 and stronger 
hurricanes.  Meanwhile relief workers and contractors of all kinds stream 
into the area and live in RVs and tents.  And FEMA starts setting up 
emergency trailer parks for the de-housed locals.   It's all Generator City 
for weeks, believe me.  You have to see one of these widespread disaster 
road shows to believe it.

In between natural disasters these mobile generation units could work real 
estate development projects and U.S. Forest Service forest thinning 
projects.  For instance, we have another real estate project being cleared 
right now 2 miles from my house.  There's a semi-trailer sized mulcher 
currently sitting onsite that's been chewing up all the pine trees and brush 
the local sawmills didn't want.

Best Wishes,

Mark

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Ludlow" <mark at ludlow.com>
To: "'Mark & Elena Gallmeier'" <mgallmeir at comcast.net>; 
<gasification at listserv.repp.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2006 12:21 AM
Subject: RE: [Gasification] Re: NREL

> Dear Dr. Reed and List,
>
> Every promising technology has to "turn the corner" from being an academic
> curiosity to demonstrating promise of being a scaleable alternative to
> in-place technologies.
>
> The work done at NREL is invaluable. It creates a foundation for those who
> would hope to expand the theoretical and experimental underpinnings done
> there to systems functioning in daily use at various scales. It represents 
> a
> substantial body of knowledge. The "Encyclopedia" may be more aptly named
> the "Bible".
>
> For the impending energy crisis there exists no single "silver bullet". 
> Some
> technologies, such as anaerobic digestion, trump gasification when the
> inputs dictate as much. Paul Sandford's efforts to bring clean-combusting
> cook stoves to the billions of people who could benefit from them is
> admirable and, in my opinion, well-targeted. The impact may not be great 
> on
> the First World's gluttonous energy demand but the potential impact on the
> health and well-being of the great mass of the Earth's population is
> enormous.
>
> I would ask the List for their viewpoints: What is the "sweet spot"? It
> seems obvious that we can't haul woody biomass from all over Florida, 
> after
> a hurricane causes a massive lowdown, to a large gasifier; neither can we
> expect anyone but a hobbyist to create and maintain a front-to-back system
> to fuel a single IC prime mover powering a generator. Is there a regional
> scale that minimizes fuel infeed costs and creates the lowest possible 
> cost
> per energy unit produced?; I use the palm oil plantations of Indonesia as 
> a
> model here.
>
> In the final analysis, the ultimate efficiency of most energy systems 
> (save
> nuclear) reflects the relative recovery of incident solar radiation, in 
> some
> way or another.
>
> Mark Ludlow
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gasification-bounces at listserv.repp.org
> [mailto:gasification-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of Mark & Elena
> Gallmeier
> Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2006 9:34 AM
> To: gasification at listserv.repp.org
> Subject: [Gasification] Re: NREL
>
>
> Dear Dr. Reed & All,
>
>>>It is sad that the current National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL, here
>>>in
>>>Golden) no longer does fundamental work in biomass.<<
>
> But they do issue periodic economic analysis every 18 months or so 
> 'proving'
>
> that biomass gasification technologies won't be 'economical' for another 
> 20
> years.    I saw a number of these extending back into the middle 1990s, in
> which era I stopped looking through the online NREL indexes for useful
> information.  The earlier ones called for 2015-2020.  The more recent ones
> were giving dates of 2025 or so.
>
> Do you think that as more gasifiers are built, they'll increase their 
> update
> frequency of economic studies?
>
> Best Wishes,
>
> Mark
>
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>
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