[Gasification] BIOCOAL - THE WOOD FUEL OF THE FUTURE

David G. LeVine dlevine at speakeasy.net
Tue Jul 17 15:44:36 CDT 2012


On 07/17/2012 10:47 AM, Gerald Kutney wrote:
>
> If I understood the work of Thoresen properly, his use of biocoal 
> referred to a biocarbon product.  It was ECN who proposed the term for 
> a torrefied material.  Both products have similarities to coal.  
> Torrefied biomass has an energy value close to lignite, while 
> biocarbon (often used in biochar applications) has energy, chemical 
> and physical properties like that of bituminous coal.  Generally, 
> "biocoal" today is rightly or wrongly used for torrefied biomass.  
> Torrefaction was discovered in France in the 1830's.
>
> Gerald Kutney, Ph.D.
>
> Managing Director
>
> Sixth Element Sustainable Management
>
> Executive Bioenergy Consultants
>
> www.6esm.com
>

Considering that biocoal is made from wood and it costs energy to 
torrefy it, and some of the mass is lost to out gassing, one can 
rationally conclude that a larger mass of wood will be needed than the 
mass of biocoal produced.

Since biocoal is likely to have more energy per unit mass than the 
original wood (but the wood to produce it will weigh more than the 
biocoal), biocoal will likely have more than 16.2 to 18 MJ/KG (a common 
number for wood, "Biomass Energy Foundation: Fuel Densities" 
<http://web.archive.org/web/20100110042311/http://www.woodgas.com/fuel_densities.htm>. 
Woodgas.com), but less than 32.5 MJ/KG (a common number for anthracite 
coal, Fisher, Juliya (2003). "Energy Density of Coal" 
<http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/JuliyaFisher.shtml>. The Physics 
Factbook.)

Two or three billion people in the world are currently using wood as 
fuel (woodgas.com), assuming there are more using other fuels plus wood, 
3 billion is a safe number for potential biocoal users.

Do the math and you will see that biocoal is NOT the answer, it will 
result in deforestation as it becomes the energy source of choice for 
the world.  Of course wood is not the best choice either, both for 
pollution and deforestation reasons.  What we need is a clean, high 
energy, cheap, nonpolluting power source, fat chance of that appearing 
soon.  In the interim, more than one fuel will need to be used.

For certain uses biocoal is wonderful, but for general use it appears to 
be a recipe for disaster.  Great Britain had huge hardwood forests 
around London before wood was in common use for fuel.  Now coal is more 
common and it is dirty!  What hardwood forests still exist in Great Britain?

Dave  8{(

-- 
/"The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look 
at the men he has around him."/
Niccolo Machiavelli

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