[Gasification] Lanzatech, Range Fuels etc lessons learnt

David Coote dccoote at mira.net
Wed Jan 25 18:10:58 CST 2012


Some years ago I worked for a large US engineering company that built 
all sorts of complicated systems. One of the things they did very well 
was "lessons learnt". At the end of a project the project engineers were 
given time to put together documents describing what worked, what 
didn't, what tools had been built for the project, new techniques 
developed etc This information was stored in a central repository and 
made available for future projects. This stuff was an incredibly 
valuable resource as it saved engineering project managers large amounts 
of time and money.

There have been a number of spectacular failures in the area of 
innovative biomass energy systems. I've found various bits and pieces on 
the WWW including this list that give some insight into what has gone 
wrong. But it's not clear that the lessons from the failed systems are 
being used to inform new plant development.

Does anyone know of an academic or authoritative government report that 
collates  and presents information and analysis on what hasn't worked at 
places like Range Fuels? This would be a very useful aid for investors 
or governments asked to support innovative biomass energy projects. A 
reasonable question for a proponent of a new system would be how their 
system avoids the problems experienced by previous plants

Cheers

David




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