[Gasification] : Borealis / Spanner RE2 CHP

Tue Sep 23 10:25:48 CDT 2014

Thomas,

Thanks for the interesting article and the assessment from your experience. While the article has a positive pitch positive it does not hide some of the failures of the systems it reviews. It seems to me that one purpose of the article is in the side bar, to promote a new partnership in thermal gasification. It will be interesting to see if private companies that supply the district heating and energy businesses, like Alfa Laval/Aalborg or members of the Danish District Heating Association (http://www.districtenergy.org/), or utilities like DONG join the partnership.

I am always surprised that companies don’t do more direct research on experience that others have had with systems they are trying to develop. These days they often stop at what they can find on the internet. Or, people won’t tell them anything because of confidentiality agreements.   

We find that it is easier to develop private industrial projects than projects for public services like your district heat and power projects. 

It is very expensive for a small gasifier project to sell power to the grid here. The utilities do not want to see small generators so they discourage them with very high fees and penalties for failure to produce. Even so we have a few companies that are continuing to generate power from gasification at a small scale.

Let’s go back to Borealis/Spanner and other systems that are apparently working. What makes them work? How do they meet the owners expectations for cost and performance?

Tom

From: Gasification [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Koch
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 4:25 AM
To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
Subject: Re: [Gasification] : Borealis / Spanner RE2 CHP

Tom

What you write here is very much in line with my observations - “Now there are many more and it is difficult to tell what operates and what doesn’t” 

One of the challenges is that small scale gasification is to a certain degree promoted by “true believers” and that can influence the quality of the information. 

There have been some comments about the Danish gasification market here. 

A few days ago this article was published - http://www.biopress.dk/PDF/er-forgasningsteknologien-klar-til-markedet

Is the gasification technology ready for the market is the title?  It is optimistic and realistic. It is written by Morten Tony Hansen – his salary for this topic comes from public grants.

I would say Morten  is 25 %  too optimistic and leave out 75 % of the problems. Harrie (and maybe Morten) says that I am far too negative and it is maybe true.

Let me try to explain what it looks like from my chair.

TK Energi builds a 2,3 MW 3 stage gasifier in Gjøl (with approx. 1,5 mio $ in public support to TK Energi from EU and DEA)  based on a 2-400 KW gasifier design that has been operated for approx. 5000 hours in total at the time of decision. During the project period the electricity price drops. The gasifier is build complete but never started because it is difficult to imagine it will ever be competitive and commercial. A correct decision – but as being the one that has spent 4-5 years and lost 9 mio DKK in cash it takes a few weeks and cold beers to regain my optimism. 

Two years later Weiss gets a grant (in total 4-5 Mio $ + some support from DTU) to build a 500 KW 3 stage gasifier in Hillerod based on the Viking design. I wonder why they did not spend more energy collecting information about “know-how-not” specially in the light of the 100 KW Blaere gasifier (based on the same design) that crashed after 200 hours some years ago.  

Now Morten writes that the Hillerod project has had a “major breakdown on the pyrolysis unit and other components – a large repair process is forseen – the financial foundation for the project must be  reestablished” 

I can not tell you why – but the result is an other crashed gasification project.

Thomas  

Fra: Gasification [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] På vegne af Tom Miles
Sendt: 22. september 2014 02:21
Til: 'Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification'
Emne: Re: [Gasification] : Borealis / Spanner RE2 CHP

Thomas,

There was a time in the 1980s when we could count the number of gasifiers in operation. Now there are many more and it is difficult to tell what operates and what doesn’t. IEA Task 33 Gasification could help us with country surveys of technical and economic gasifier performance. Solar Energy Research Institute (now National Renewable Energy Laboratory) did a very nice technical and economic review of small gasifiers in 1982. So what do today’s gasifiers look like? 

We need to distinguish between small gasifiers intended for intermittent use or daily power only and gasifiers like the Spanner that are  intended for continuous generation. We bought 10 kWe and 20 kWe All Power Labs Power Pallets in 2011 and after testing them at a university we installed them at a sawmill in Alaska in 2012. (The mill hasn’t used them because they were too small for the mill loads and we haven’t gotten them relocated to a village where they could be useful for small laods.) APL has probably built a couple of hundred 20 kWe power pallets since then. The APL power pallet makes a nice clean gas at a low capital cost. Like the small Ankurs and their clones they are batch fed and are probably used a few hours per day.  

Tom 

From: Gasification [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Koch
Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2014 3:11 PM
To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
Subject: Re: [Gasification] : Borealis / Spanner RE2 CHP

Tom 

After 30 years in gasification I do get curious when some body states that “the fact remains that”. I am fully aware that I have not seen all gasifiers but …

Considering the well know challenge of gasification that informations are a bit optimistic I would suggest to write 

At Mr Straw Gasificatorson, Purolysys lane 285, Tar creek - in Belgium there is a ……… that has

At Mrs Maniurita Torereficata, Char ave 12 …………. There is a xxx gasifier that has operated for xxxx hours  

I guess that less than 5 % of the small gasifiers I have visited over the last 30 years have worked when I was there.

Thomas 

Fra: Gasification [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] På vegne af Tom Miles
Sendt: 21. september 2014 21:03
Til: 'Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification'
Emne: Re: [Gasification] : Borealis / Spanner RE2 CHP

Thomas,

Visit 250 Spanner customers or 100 Burkhardt customers. I would expect to find several gasifiers operating just like the wood fired boilers that we build in small institutions: 3-5 hours (max 12) per week of labor, stable fuel consumption, predictable heat and power production, 4,000-5,000 hours operation per year. Then look at the values of the products: heat, power, biochar. Compare gasifier fired heat systems. What is the marginal cost of generating power? What are the circumstances that favor gasification for heat, char, or power? Other gasifiers will be operating for only a few hundred hours per year because of their particular circumstances.

I previously used the US Northeast (New Hampshire) as an example because wood fuel is accessible, they have a tradition of wood burning boilers, many nurseries or farms do not have access to natural gas, power is costly, and even a small amount of gasifier char can be used in the nursery growing media as a substitute for expensive materials (vermiculite). Heat and biochar products from one gasifier that we are working on has the potential to return the cost of the system in a year and a half. Although we are making an engine quality gas, and have generated power, it is not worth it in our circumstances. 

Fracking and directional drilling in this country has brought low cost oil and gas that has eliminated many biomass power projects in the way that Peter described. Still, there are many places that are not on a natural gas line and do not get low cost oil. They would benefit from small scale gasification. We just need suitable systems. 

Tom

From: Gasification [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Koch
Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2014 11:02 AM
To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
Subject: Re: [Gasification] : Borealis / Spanner RE2 CHP

Harrie – I can to certain degree understand your comment but a certain realism is also nice.

When I started as an inventor many years ago I got an advice from an old man which I have recalled many many times in my carrier I gasification 

“When you judge the quality of an advice, it is very important to know it the person that gives you the advice, gets his salary every end of the month or he has to fight for his own money every day”

90 % of the bad examples in gasification are initiated/supported or what ever term you like, by people that had no personal consequence of their advice. 

I can tell you that I really tried to get the gasifier in Gjol to work and lost approx. 1,2 mio € in cash. In 2012 TK Energi went banckrupt. Not because of Gjol – but if I had not spend my money on a hopeless technology that I started working with 20 years before, TK Energi might have survived. 

I am back in business, developing gasifier again, with the wisdom of 30 years technological failures and a bankruptcy. 

So Harrie, Can you give me 5 addresses on gasifiers below 1 MW power, in Europe,  that have operated for 5000 hours? 

Best regards

Thomas

Fra: Gasification [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] På vegne af Harrie Knoef
Sendt: 21. september 2014 19:16
Til: 'Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification'
Emne: Re: [Gasification] : Borealis / Spanner RE2 CHP

Denmark is not a good example for gasifers, with their distict heating system.

The fact remains that there are 100 hundreda commercially operating gasifiers in Europe.

Nobody can deny this and lets keepm positive inmsted of all this negative impusles

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