[Gasification] Gasification Digest, Vol 27, Issue 6 - Price of biochar

[David Coote]

On 12/11/2012 7:00 AM, gasification-request at lists.bioenergylists.org wrote:

At 40c/lb that's close enough to $1/kg or $1000/tonne.

If that char is being used for agricultural purposes at that price it's 
an expensive soil conditioner. I wonder if that's the price  they need 
to make the pyrolysers work financially after selling the heat or a 
price  they can charge for char through a subsidy.


> Message: 5
> Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 20:37:55 -0800
> From: "Tom Miles"<tmiles at trmiles.com>
> To:<mark at ludlow.com>, "'Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and
> 	gasification'"	<gasification at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Subject: Re: [Gasification] Sweden's trash project / Japanese trash
> 	project
> Message-ID:<000901cdbfc6$51ef75d0$f5ce6170$@trmiles.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-2022-jp"
>
> Mark,
>
>
>
> The Japanese unit looks like it might be a small rotary pyrolyzer that is
> heated by burning the offgas. In that case we would expect to see a char
> product and a clean stack.
>
>
>
> Ebara is the main waste to energy company that uses gasification in Japan.
> Burn the gas directly into a close coupled boiler.
>
>
>
> Japan funded extensive waste gasification in the 1990s. They tried several
> different types of gasifiers. Ebara is one of the few companies that still
> used gasification for waste. There are several companies that make rotary
> pyrolyzers. Last year in Kyoto we did not see evidence that they are used
> much for biochar production.  Most biochar seems to be made by very small
> scale stirred bed rice husk gasifiers by Kansai Corporation.. The gas is
> burned above the stirred bed and used to heat water for space heating or
> process heat. The biochar (called ?kuntan?) sells for about $0.40/lb.
>
>
>
> Tom
>