[Gasification] Identifying and fixing technical and commercial roadblocks to commercial small-scale CHP gasifiers

Thu Jun 28 23:59:36 CDT 2012

Greg

You are right is early morning here - but old men has to get up during the night :)

The pretreatment discussion is very interesting from a market development point of view.

For some reason torrefaction becomes the "elevator to happiness" - and 30-40 % energy loss + 2-5 % mechanical energy consumption is suddenly no problem - while we all talk about conservation od the carbon resource.

Other pretreatment options comes from the agricultural sector and carries the characteristics of culture of farming - that is should be cheap but it does not matter so much if you have to attend to it because you are there anyway feeding your pigs.

What is needed is the signs of a real stable market then the technology development will professionalize and there will be a chance to separate the different technologies in working and not working.

If you go through the names that has been mentioned here on the list for gasifier below 2 MWe over the last days it is extremely difficult to evaluate the technological quality.

A fancy home page is a reliable a political promises - e few you can trust.

And if you come to me and want to buy a gasifier I will tell you that I am 30 % away from a commercial product and that I need to spend at least 5 mio $ before I can give you any trustworthy information's about conditions for a guarantee.

Thomas

Fra: gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] På vegne af Greg Manning
Sendt: 29. juni 2012 06:02
Til: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
Emne: Re: [Gasification] Identifying and fixing technical and commercial roadblocks to commercial small-scale CHP gasifiers

Hi Thomas, (List).

Thank you for the quick reply, it must be morning there ?

As far as "pre-treatment" I could type you some options, but rather than that, (missing the top half of my middle finger on the left hand) so typing is slow for me, can I show you some (off the list< lurkers).

Giving the "farm" to one person is one thing, giving it to all that never post here, is something else.

Greg

P.S. I'll contact you in a day or two.

On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 10:51 PM, Thomas Koch <tk at tke.dk<mailto:tk at tke.dk>> wrote:
Hi Greg

"Commercial product" has certainly different definitions depending of what you are doing.

But for renewables most of my customers are not looking for an activity - like gasifier maintenance - but they are certainly willing to accept some extra cost and maintenance compared to a gas boiler.

In my definition the product is commercial when you can start to get interest from the non religious customers eg. when you can start a dialog with a bank concerning financing of the project - without involving your house or what ever the bank will ask for.

My analysis of the market, for the next 10-20 years, for small and medium scale - below 50 MW - gasifiers for biomass is that new innovation - or a few more nuclear catastrophes like in Japan -  is needed before the technology has a chance to become commercial.

The only biomass gasification technology that might be commercial in the near future is cofiring of biomass in large entrained flow gasifier - if the pretreatment issues can be solved at reasonable cost and energy consumption.

Waste gasification could also have a chance - but again - the success depends on how the pretreatment issues are solved.

What is an elegant pretreatment solution? - difficult to say - but we will know it when it is there.

Thomas

Fra: gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org<mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org> [mailto:gasification-bounces@<mailto:gasification-bounces@>lists.bioenergylists.org<http://lists.bioenergylists.org>] På vegne af Greg Manning
Sendt: 29. juni 2012 05:25

Til: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
Emne: Re: [Gasification] Identifying and fixing technical and commercial roadblocks to commercial small-scale CHP gasifiers

Thomas (and list).

What is you definition of a "Commercial Product" ?

to my knowledge, ALL gasification systems have "consumables", if a gasifier runs for 600 and then needs a consumable > would this fit the bill ? or does it need to run 4000 hours before replacement ??

IMO a timed "shut-down" (much like big business does, Koch Fertilizer for example does one every 200 some odd days, or thereabouts). Is considered commercial.

Or does it need to be like a gas furnace, that runs for 20 some odd years every winter, with only a filter change (most, don't even get that).

I'm asking, simply because I would like your opinion.

Greg

On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 9:56 PM, Thomas Koch <tk at tke.dk<mailto:tk at tke.dk>> wrote:
Tom

>From my experiences I have learned that many unexpected problems caused by high temperature and reducing atmosphere can come after 500 - 2000 - 8000 hours.
I would be surprised if no new unexpected problems would show up after 15000 - 30000 hours operation.

I can only agree that we should applaud any body that can make a gasifier that can operate for 600 hours - but we should remember that we are far from commercial products at this stage

Best regards

Thomas Koch

-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org<mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org> [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org<mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org>] På vegne af Tom Miles
Sendt: 29. juni 2012 02:59
Til: 'Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification'
Emne: Re: [Gasification] Identifying and fixing technical and commercial roadblocks to commercial small-scale CHP gasifiers

David,

Generally if a piece of equipment can get through commercial production for
600 hours you will have discovered most of the unanticipated problems.  It usually takes a couple of months of round the clock production to get to that point. Beyond that it takes another couple of thousand hours to verify operation and increase reliability. When you're hitting over 90% production every 24 hour day then it should get boring. With industrial biomass systems fuel quality, fuel sizing, drying, and feeding account for about 95% of the unintended stoppages/outages/downtime. If you are ready for commercial production then you have already solved the downstream problems like figuring out how to make good quality gas, gas cleaning and cooling, and gas use, whether it is a boiler or engine.

The variety of biomass feedstocks in type, form size and availability is usually a challenge. A device is often developed on fuels with certain specifications. When things fail vendors complain that the fuel was non-spec. It happens all the time but it doesn't really help anybody. As a supplier you have to be prepared to supply or specify the fuel system along with the reactor.

A major challenge for development companies has less to do with the technology and more to do with how you run a business. Some are business failures more than technology failures.  People just have different talents for running startup businesses. Technology developers chronically waste a lot of money up front, delay in building and testing prototypes, have slow turnarounds on improvements, use equipment that won't stand up to the abrasiveness of biomass, etc. It doesn't take long before you run out of money. As in other businesses the good strategy is probably to develop a good product and then sell it to a company in a similar business, like a boiler company, that can take advantage of manufacturing capabilities that are used to produce other products.

Sometimes the gasifier is just a "money magnet," a piece of pretty steel to attract investors. It is assumed that you can get it to work was you burn through the start-up funding. Sometimes it seems like we are very inefficient at using money invested in gasification but we may be no different than other industries.

A common mistake is to try to export a gasification products too soon. In other equipment we say that you need to develop a domestic market before you try to export it. In the 1970s we saw a lot of gasifiers start out in universities then the prototypes were exported to developing companies before they were fully developed. Usually they rusted there unless the engineer or scientist who developed them showed up. Then they are very expensive to try to improve or maintain.

We have many companies offering gasifiers have built one prototype and claim performance well beyond their demonstrated capabilities. It's fine for the prototypes and the first several commercial units to fail as along as the supplier stays with it and makes things work. We tend to criticize prototypes or initial installations that fail. We should applaud the success of those who have recovered from the failure by identifying the problem an
designing around it in time to get back into production.   We all have
failures as we develop new systems. Sometimes developers can't continue development because the client has failed financially. Usually the grant money runs out before you get through commissioning.

Those are just some of the many hazards in developing gasification systems.
Add all that to a limited and fickle market and it's actually a pretty high risk activity. As they say, to make a small fortune in gasification you need to start with a large fortune.

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org<mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org>
[mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org<mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org>] On Behalf Of David Coote
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 5:11 PM
To: gasification at lists.bioenergylists.org<mailto:gasification at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Subject: [Gasification] Identifying and fixing technical and commercial roadblocks to commercial small-scale CHP gasifiers

Thanks, Tom.

A very useful study would be identifying at good resolution the reasons why small-scale CHP gasifiers fail technically and/or struggle commercially.
Once that's clearly established suitable focus can be brought to bear on what is going wrong between pilot/demonstration and commercial phases with a view to fixing the issues. I think the same could apply to 2nd generation biofuels.

Regards

David

> -----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
> Fra: gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org<mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org<mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org>] P? vegne af Tom
> Miles
> Sendt: 28. juni 2012 03:14
> Til: 'Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification'
> Emne: Re: [Gasification] Which of the gasifiers Tom listed are meeting
> Knoef's commercial criteria
>
> David,
>
> It looks like you have the makings of a survey. :-/
>
> Harrie's criteria are good and would be difficult for most suppliers
> to
meet. We want gasifiers to be as readily installed and operated as boilers.
>
> We should determine what needs to be done to get more suppliers over
> all
of these hurdles.
>
> Tom
>
>
>
>
>
>

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