[Stoves] The Blues

[tmiles at trmiles.com]

The intent of these lists is to provide forums for discussion. As the list
owner and sole sponsor I'm not concerned about the amount of traffic on a
particular list.  A new topic of interest usually emerges when we think it
might be time to shut down a list.  

There is an active wood gas group on Yahoo that deals with small scale
engine applications.  

Small scale power generation has been the focus of the
gasification at bioenergylists.org list since 1996. Making syngas to produce
liquid fuels has not been a frequent topic. 

While there are thousands of small scale gasifiers in operation they seem to
land in two areas: low cost rice husk gasifiers to power SE Asian rice
mills; and, expensive chip and pellet systems in developed economies. The
rice husk systems often operate seasonally. They are very low cost and would
not be acceptable to operate in most developed economies. Suppliers of those
systems have occasionally posted on the gasification list. While these
gasifier-engine systems do their intended job they apparently require high
maintenance and operate for limited hours during the year.  

Most commercial gasifiers are in Europe where electricity is expensive
relative to wood; where there is value in recovering waste heat from the
engine; and where there are financial incentives for renewable energy. Many
of them run 7000-8000 hours per year. They require wood fuel that meets
tight size and moisture content specifications. One of the more recent
companies has been making power efficiently at the 400-500 kWe scale with
biochar as a coproduct. Those suppliers have difficulty finding
opportunities in North America where fossil energy is cheap and where
renewable energy from solar, wind and hydro are also cheap compared with
biomass. Biomass energy in general has declined in North America due to
lower cost alternatives.  Three North American gasifier suppliers have found
opportunities using wood and agricultural residues as fuel, sometimes
including biochar as a co-product. They have been active on the gasification
list in the past but recently have been concentrating on their market and
product development.

Pyrolysis and gasification are clearly important processes to understand for
developing cook stoves and biomass heating appliances. TLUDs would be a
prime example. These processes also help to understand products of
incomplete combustion. But if you get the fuel, air, and design right then
you can skip the conversation about the intermediate steps of pyrolysis and
gasification. Let's talk about them as appropriate. 

Many thanks to Andrew for facilitating the discussion on this list and to
all for contributing your experience and challenges.   

Tom
Bioenergylists.org



  



-----Original Message-----
From: Stoves <stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org> On Behalf Of Andrew
Heggie
Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2019 4:09 AM
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Subject: Re: [Stoves] The Blues

On Sun, 13 Jan 2019 at 11:58, Andrew Heggie <aj.heggie at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> The gasification list has dwindled worse than stoves, there have been 
> no posts since November.

Correction; I have checked the archive there were two posts on Wednesday but
they went in my spam.

Andrew

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