[Gasification] Combustion vs. gasification

[Robert Kana]

Dear Mr. Seiler,

Actually the question come from customer he wanted to know if producing 
electricity with steam turbines or wood gas would be more efficient? 
This particular customer had couple of steam boilers which are used for 
drying wood in the kilns as well as in hot presses. Their thermal energy 
needs are much higher than electricity need.  Of course when we use the 
heat from the gasifier (returning steam lines will be jacketed to cool 
the wood gas) to re- heat the returning water ( from 50 degrees to 85 
degrees), that alone will save the client about 300 tons of wood chips a 
month. On this project we were lucky all the waste wood chips are 
already dried to 8-10%, but we will still use some more drying since we 
have so much "waste" heat to use.

We will install 2 x 750 Kwe capacity gasifiers to run generators. 
Exhaust heat is more than 500 degrees, this heat will also be used in 
kilns as supplement to help drying wood. Our new design gasifier 
produces bio char, that will also be mixed with wood chips for burning 
in the gasifiers. Customer is already convinced that gasification will 
be more efficient compare to combustion. His return on investment will 
be less than 2 years. Since he is already paying $ 60.000 a month 
electric bill which will have another increase in January, it was easy 
to convince him.

We plan to use IC engines either from Jenbachar or another manufacturer 
for producing electricity.  We really thank all the people who put their 
ideas and make suggestion to us. We value everyone's input and always 
consider the options have been presented. Hopefully when we prove that 
we can really built these systems, we have so many friends to thanks. 
All of us trying different ways to make gasification, by doing that we 
are also helping environment. That is the most rewarding feeling about 
this business.

I thank you and all the friends again, may God bless you all.

Best Regards,

Robert Kana
Biomass Energy Indonesia