[Gasification] back to gasification

David david at h4c.org
Tue May 31 10:50:18 CDT 2011


Dr. Karve and list members,

On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 11:01 PM, Anand Karve <adkarve at gmail.com 
<mailto:adkarve at gmail.com>> wrote:
> We are already using, in India, wood gas made from agricultural 
> waste to run stationary internal combustion engines. But, for using 
> it as automobile fuel, it would have to be filled into cylinders, 
> for which the nitrogen in the wood gas would have to be removed in 
> order to reduce its bulk and to increase its calorfiic value. Does 
> anybody have a suggestion as to how this can be achieved?

There are no doubt exceptions in some circumstances, but biogas is 
generally rather more efficient at turning a hectare of plants into 
energy than a number of other forms of biomass conversion, and 
certainly less polluting. See, for example, this study 
<http://www.reap-canada.com/online_library/grass_pellets/40%20Developing%20Energy%20Crops%20for%20Thermal%20Ch16-Samson%20et%20al.%202009.pdf> 
by Roger Sampson and colleagues, or this report 
<http://news.mongabay.com/bioenergy/2006/10/hydrogen-out-compressed-biogas-in_01.html> 
about another study, done for the EU, which examined a large number of 
biofuel and powertrain options. More information here 
<http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/03/why-is-biogas-renewable-energys-cinderella>.

Even so, powering general-purpose ICE vehicles by the direct use of 
highly incompressible biomethane will only make sense at industrial 
scales (for example 
<http://www.ngvglobal.com/sewage-biogas-planned-for-delhi-buses-0517>), at 
least as I see it. An excellent lower-tech, distributed alternative is 
biodiesel production to produce liquid fuel, where the plant wastes, 
seed cake and the leftovers from transesterification are made into 
biogas (or perhaps ethanol where again, biogas is made from whatever 
digestible matter is not consumed in the process).



d.
-- 
David William House
"The Complete Biogas Handbook" |www.completebiogas.com|
/Vahid Biogas/, an alternative energy consultancy |www.vahidbiogas.com

|
"Make no search for water.       But find thirst,
And water from the very ground will burst."
(Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77)

http://bahai.us/
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