[Gasification] Gasification Digest, Vol 22, Issue 7

[Tom Miles]

David,

That's not my area but from what I have seen the reliability issues are
upstream of the engine. Mechanics seem to be quite confident about their
engines when the gas is clean. 

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org
[mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of David
Coote
Sent: Sunday, July 01, 2012 9:52 PM
To: gasification at lists.bioenergylists.org
Subject: Re: [Gasification] Gasification Digest, Vol 22, Issue 7

On 30/06/2012 5:00 AM, gasification-request at lists.bioenergylists.org wrote:

Thank you very much for this, Tom. Wonderful to have someone of your 
experience sharing this knowledge with the list.

Picking up on what you say below, for how long do you think a 
demonstration plant should make clean gas and run a generator  before 
the decision is made to build a commercial plant?

Regards

David

> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2012 17:59:07 -0700
> From: "Tom Miles"<tmiles at trmiles.com>
> To: "'Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification'"
> 	<gasification at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Subject: Re: [Gasification] Identifying and fixing technical and
> 	commercial	roadblocks to commercial small-scale CHP gasifiers
> Message-ID:<01d101cd5592$635a9780$2a0fc680$@trmiles.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"
>
> David,
>
> Generally if a piece of equipment can get through commercial production
for
> 600 hours you will have discovered most of the unanticipated problems.  It
> usually takes a couple of months of round the clock production to get to
> that point. Beyond that it takes another couple of thousand hours to
verify
> operation and increase reliability. When you're hitting over 90%
production
> every 24 hour day then it should get boring. With industrial biomass
systems
> fuel quality, fuel sizing, drying, and feeding account for about 95% of
the
> unintended stoppages/outages/downtime. If you are ready for commercial
> production then you have already solved the downstream problems like
> figuring out how to make good quality gas, gas cleaning and cooling, and
gas
> use, whether it is a boiler or engine.
>
> The variety of biomass feedstocks in type, form size and availability is
> usually a challenge. A device is often developed on fuels with certain
> specifications. When things fail vendors complain that the fuel was
> non-spec. It happens all the time but it doesn't really help anybody. As a
> supplier you have to be prepared to supply or specify the fuel system
along
> with the reactor.
>
> A major challenge for development companies has less to do with the
> technology and more to do with how you run a business. Some are business
> failures more than technology failures.  People just have different
talents
> for running startup businesses. Technology developers chronically waste a
> lot of money up front, delay in building and testing prototypes, have slow
> turnarounds on improvements, use equipment that won't stand up to the
> abrasiveness of biomass, etc. It doesn't take long before you run out of
> money. As in other businesses the good strategy is probably to develop a
> good product and then sell it to a company in a similar business, like a
> boiler company, that can take advantage of manufacturing capabilities that
> are used to produce other products.
>
> Sometimes the gasifier is just a "money magnet," a piece of pretty steel
to
> attract investors. It is assumed that you can get it to work was you burn
> through the start-up funding. Sometimes it seems like we are very
> inefficient at using money invested in gasification but we may be no
> different than other industries.
>
> A common mistake is to try to export a gasification products too soon. In
> other equipment we say that you need to develop a domestic market before
you
> try to export it. In the 1970s we saw a lot of gasifiers start out in
> universities then the prototypes were exported to developing companies
> before they were fully developed. Usually they rusted there unless the
> engineer or scientist who developed them showed up. Then they are very
> expensive to try to improve or maintain.
>
> We have many companies offering gasifiers have built one prototype and
claim
> performance well beyond their demonstrated capabilities. It's fine for the
> prototypes and the first several commercial units to fail as along as the
> supplier stays with it and makes things work. We tend to criticize
> prototypes or initial installations that fail. We should applaud the
success
> of those who have recovered from the failure by identifying the problem an
> designing around it in time to get back into production.   We all have
> failures as we develop new systems. Sometimes developers can't continue
> development because the client has failed financially. Usually the grant
> money runs out before you get through commissioning.
>
> Those are just some of the many hazards in developing gasification
systems.
> Add all that to a limited and fickle market and it's actually a pretty
high
> risk activity. As they say, to make a small fortune in gasification you
need
> to start with a large fortune.
>
> Tom
>    

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