[Gasification] Combined Heat and Biochar Camp, Goodfield, IL USA Feb 7-11 2011 - Preliminary Report

[Doug Brethower]

Officially prepared for the National Biomass Producers Association.  

Presented to this list in hopes of more widespread fueling of thought, commentary, discussion, corrections and critique.

CHAB Presenters included:

Paul Anderson
   Dr. TLUD, maximizing efficiency of biomass to heat energy and biochar conversion, fuels characterization.

   -- Introduced the "Joy to the World" institutional scale smokeless biomass cooking stove developed at the first CHAB camp by Amanda Joy. Campers discovered that this stove also makes an excellent high throughput cooker for biomass to biochar conversion inside a retort chamber.
   -- Worked with camp attendee aka "trench foot" on trench pyrolyzer design.  Goal is maximum biochar production "in the trenches", an on site trench in locations with plentiful biomass waste in need of conversion. 14 percent biochar was achieved on the  second and final run.  Some interesting scale up designs and heat uses were gathered from subsequent inputs by camp attendees. 
   -- Detailed the design considerations of his Champion cookstove, a competition winning natural draft gasifier stove that has just began commercial production and was used to prepare breakfast each day during the camp.
   -- Nothing new under the sun, the Paal Wendelbo story, simultaneous and separate development of TLUD technology.   


Hugh McLaughlin
   Biochar characterization, biomass to energy calculations, biomass in lighting applications (to replace fire, lamps, light bulbs), stove design considerations, fabrication techniques.

   --General fabrication instruction, calculations, theory, design, wear gloves, etc throughout the camp, aka Uncle Buck. 


Tom Reed
   General info and history of gasification with personal anecdotes going back to Harry LaFontaine.  Limelight lighting, rare earth lighting, "Vagabond" cookstove, a two-can natural draft design, built from two small corn cans.  Insights and  inspiration, including background accompaniment on the mouth harp to keep campers entertained during particularly long-winded mass flow and energy calculations.

Paul Wever, commercial application of gasification technology, 
   --  TMHJ camp stove, hardware store components, thirty minutes hand fabrication, boils water in 10 minutes with a few handfuls of woodchips and no smoke
   --  A commercial gas grille that uses biomass pyrolysis and natural draft to replace propane in a dual cooktop unit.  Used to prepare lunch each day for camp attendees.
   --  An upsize of the gas grille technique, added forced draft to produce 200,000 btu heat energy plus ~ 19 pounds per hour of biochar.  Commercially available in two versions:
       --Industrial version, fully automated, fits in a 20 foot shipping container, output can be doubled and still fit in 20 foot container.  A commercial unit is operational at Freedom Field Energy in Rockford, IL.
       --Manual feed version of the same combustion unit.  Fits in the bed of a pickup truck.  Includes augers and programmable automated auger controls. 
   -- Pelletizing, pucks, briquettes, blocks, bales, biomass densification for transport and feeding
   -- Community scale biomass conversion to energy and biochar for profit 

Bill Ayres, big picture of biomass energy production.  Official judge and timer for final day biomass to Combined Heat and Biochar competition.  

The competition promotes practical application of lessons learned during the camp using stoves hand fabricated from readily available materials (obtainium).  Bringing 2 liters of water to a boil quickly, then sustaining a simmer for the longest time using 500 grams of biomass fuel was the essence of the competition. 

Kathy Nafie of the Biomass Energy Foundation won both preliminary competitions.  At the same time she kept campers loaded up on nutritious, delicious hot eats from the "Woodgas Grille" in suburban Goodfield, IL.  The outdoor temp until the last day of the camp was below freezing, way below freezing at night.  Kathy's value to the camp - priceless.

Hugh McLaughlin won the final competition with sunflower seeds, tinsnips, two #10 cans, and a small computer sized fan operating on a 9 volt battery.  Boil was achieved in slightly over 10 minutes, simmer lasted for 100 minutes.  Final char was 18 percent.

I left my notes on top of a file cabinet, so this is from memory.  When the notes arrive I will check the math to see if Hugh sneaked in a perpetual motion machine.

Verticalized uses of biochar, essentially "loading up" biochar for value added applications, compost, em, bokashi was a hot topic outside the daily learning environment.

Sincerely,
Doug Brethower, long time lurker