[Gasification] Blue water gas

[drew]

    This is something that I have worked on and discussed on this list 
with some vigorous debate.   
    One thing that Doug and other list members pointed out strongly is 
that the locations of these historical plants burning coal are now 
amoung the worst poluted sites anywhere (leaving aside nuclear).    The 
reverbatory process seems to have been very dirty, with many nasty 
durable hydrocarbons exiting in both the blue gas stream and the air gas 
stream.    The artical you quote talks about the gasses being cracked by 
contact with the hot bricks in the exhaust flue but Doug talked about 
the tar beater fans designed and required  to condense and separate out 
the tars from the gas streams.    Using biomass might reduce the amount 
of tar (and most thankfuly the sulfer), but not enough to count on the 
tars not being a problem.    It seems  clear that an opperator would 
tend to want to switch to the steam mode as often and as long as 
possible to keep up overall efficencies, but that nearing the end of 
each cycle the bricks would have lost much of thier heat, leading to 
less and less cracking of the tars resulting in dirty gasses.    
Efficency might be the trade off for clean blue gass? in these systems.
    I am definately not saying that it is not worth working on.    I 
belive that it can be done, and done simply and think that I might know 
how.    I think though at this stage it is best to focus on inventorying 
the problems that the existing hsitorical  technology had, getting the 
best understanding of how these historical systems worked and the 
differances between them.    I would love to hear any more info that 
list members have on these systems.   It is interesting to note that 
thes town gass systems came on the scene around the same time as 
reverbitory foundry furnaces, and I belive the two systems "cross 
polinated".     Using reverbitory furnaces revolutionized the steel 
making process perhaps even more than the bessimer steel process.

All The Best

Drew

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