Dear Robert, Tom , and other knowledgeable people
Your responses to the Swedish trash importing and energy production business
raise two particular issues that I believe need to be responded to
separately, and I invite comments on both. These are
- technological adequacy
- economic viability
On the first, an internet search delivers a range of quite low tech to
ultra-high tech solutions to delivering Energy-from-Waste, each claiming to
be the solution to the challenge - few seem to have large commercial scale
plants operating on biomass such as forest waste/ MSW/ or similar. How do
you select the sheep from the goats?
On the second, it seems to me that economic viability can only be assessed
on the basis of local issues and constraints together with the CapEx and
OpEx aspects of the technology selected plus likely energy outputs and usage
efficiencies.
Of these cost of feedstock, haulage costs to plant, local environmental
constraints, local taxes, local incentives, etc - all these can be
accurately determined at the proposed E-f-W site but how do you get reliable
CapEx/ OpEx and energy outputs?
I am investigating potential replacement of a major portion of coal and
natural gas usage for steam/heat generation in a food processing operation
with MSW amd maybe some forest waste. Gasification and co-firing of the
boilers is being proposed. Technologically, does this seem "sensible" with
presently available plant? Does it really need high-end technology?
Kind regards
John Pearce
Manildra Group
Australia
Dr R. John Pearce
R&D Manager
Manildra Group
Phone: 61.2.4423.8259
Fax: 61.2.4423.8258
Mobile: 61.4.1291.9000
_____
From: Gasification [mailto:gasification-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On
Behalf Of linvent at aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, 6 November 2012 4:29 AM
To: gasification at lists.bioenergylists.org
Subject: Re: [Gasification] Sweden's trash project
Dear Robert,
Los Angeles hauls it's green waste to east of Phoenix and dumps it.
Getting a permit for an outhouse in the South Coast Air Quality Management
District (Los Angeles area to San Bernadino and south) is virtually
impossible. We had spent $300,000 on a waste to ethanol project (cellulosic
ethanol) in the Cabezon Indian tribal land area only to find out there were
no air credits available and the tribe adhered to the SCAQMD standards
although they didn't have to.
Several groups have tried to do gasifiers in cities and have run into
permitting, zoning, NIMBY issues and given up. In other instances,
Occidental Chemical build a 200 tpd plant near San Diego, ran it for 8 hours
and scrapped it after spending huge sums on it. With the failures of many
attempts at gasification, in particular MSW, the investment world is very
leery of getting involved.
One group I have been working with spent 5 years working on a PPA (not
in this country) and it was issued in September.
In areas where there are mandated renewable energy portfolio mandates
where the utility has to supplement with renewable energy purchases, you may
not be able to get a Power Purchase Agreement as they don't need to issue
one if they are mandated to buy one, or they will not give you renewable
energy premium pricing as they can buy credits cheaply and the DoD has used
this to keep their renewable energy pricing down, at least one branch of the
DoD claims this.
It is a very complicated and in many cases, stupid process. As an
example, if distributed systems were in the Los Angeles area, the truck
traffic would be greatly reduced, reducing the emissions from truck traffic,
but this doesn't matter in the emissions counting.
With natural gas pricing low, it is creeping into the power costs even
in the East Coast and will shelve many renewable energy projects.
Sincerely,
Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
Thermogenics Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Gersch <Robert at rkgenterprises.com>
To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
<gasification at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Sent: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 10:12 am
Subject: Re: [Gasification] Sweden's trash project
Tom,
Thanks for the input. The NPR story makes us sound like idiots for not
having similar programs in the US. Somehow, I had assumed that only with
tax incentives, could such a program be viable. I am probably the most
ignorant member of the group, but I have wondered why each city in the US
doesn't install a gasifier plant to deal with the waste brush. For the
ignorant, it would seem viable and reduce some of what we bury. Waste wood
from homebuilding, old concrete forms, old fences, Christmas trees, old
pallets and all the trees that are knocked down for new construction plus
the trees that are trimmed equate to a lot of BTU's. I am in San Antonio
and we at lease make mulch from so of the waste wood.I assume most other US
cities do at least that.
Thanks
Robert Gersch
----- Original Message -----
From: linvent at aol.com
To: gasification at lists.bioenergylists.org
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2012 10:57 AM
Subject: Re: [Gasification] Sweden's trash project
There are quite a few waste incinerators in Europe. Italy has sent it's
trash by train to Germany to be incinerated. There are some gasifiers there
also. One Norwegian firm has an incinerator design that doesn't produce
dioxins above regulatory limits, but all are very expensive, one 300 tpd
gasifier system is valued at $300mm. Some of the existing incinerators do
not meet emissions levels, but the government has not shut them down as
there is no option otherwise. EU capital and sale of electricity pricing is
heavily subsidized by the government and does not compete in other parts of
the world. One group had 4 dual stage "gasifier" but actually combustor
systems in Europe, all have been shut down for emissions reasons, lack of
continuing subsidies, expense of operation and the only remaining one
operating that I know of is in Japan.
Sincerely,
Leland T. "Tom" Taylor
Thermogenics Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Gersch <Robert at rkgenterprises.com>
To: 'Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification'
<gasification at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Sent: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 9:47 am
Subject: [Gasification] Sweden's trash project
Below is a link to a NPR story on Sweden's conversion of trash to energy.
There is no mention of the method used. Does anyone know if this is
gasification? If you read the article, other countries are paying Sweden to
take their trash and Sweden produces energy from it. Is there a chance that
this could actually be cost effective?
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/10/28/163823839/sweden-wants-your-t
rash?ft=3
<http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/10/28/163823839/sweden-wants-your-
trash?ft=3&f=111787346&sc=nl&cc=es-20121104>
&f=111787346&sc=nl&cc=es-20121104
Thanks
_______________________________________________
Gasification mailing list
to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
Gasification at bioenergylists.org
to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_lists.bioenerg
ylists.org
for more Gasifiers, News and Information see our web site:
http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/
_____
_______________________________________________
Gasification mailing list
to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
Gasification at bioenergylists.org
to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_lists.bioenerg
ylists.org
for more Gasifiers, News and Information see our web site:
http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/
_______________________________________________
Gasification mailing list
to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
Gasification at bioenergylists.org
to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_lists.bioenerg
ylists.org
for more Gasifiers, News and Information see our web site:
http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/gasification_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20121106/fded01dd/attachment.html>