[Gasification] questions

Jeff Davis jeffdavis0124 at gmail.com
Fri Feb 20 23:51:53 CST 2015


I never see corn cobs any more. I'm not sure but I think the modern combine
spits them out on the ground.

Jeff
On Feb 20, 2015 2:56 PM, "Kermit Schlansker" <kssustain at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
>          One major question that I have about gasification is why corn
> cobs are not mentioned more as a major fuel source. There must be a lot of
> them and as combined heat and power they could keep farm houses, schools,
> and apartments warm. I know that some of them are returned to the soil and
> some are probably used to distill ethanol. Wouldn’t it be better to distill
> the ethanol with solar energy or with combined heat and manufacturing
> (comanufacturing)? Is cellulosic ethanol likely to become important?
> Another question is, can we gasify the cobs and then return the ashes to
> the soil or must we put carbon back to the soil to fertilize it?  Would
> powdered coal stay indefinitely in the soil and do the same thing? On this
> list I have seen opinions on both side of this but I hope someone knows the
> truth.
>
>           Since fertilizer is all important to gasification and it will
> be scarce, we should consider the use of sewage for fertilizer. One of the
> reasons that sewage is said to be unfit is that medicines and other
> impurities would poison us. Wouldn’t gasification destroy many of these
> organic compounds and thus purify the ashes so they could be used as
> fertilizer for food crops? Inorganic compounds probably would not be
> destroyed and in recycling fertilizer, salt might be the ultimate pollutant.
>
>
>           Tom Reed’s gasification driven tractor seemed to me to be one
> of the best gasification projects. I did think that the sheet metal would
> rust pretty quickly and that it needed cast iron. I wonder if it ever
> worked enough to plow with. I believe that some farm made ethanol used as a
> starting and power increasing fuel might make it more practical. Making
> farming self supporting in terms of energy seems like a good idea.
>
>        There are many corn fields surrounding Ann Arbor yet the best
> energy project the city has came up with is a large array of solar panels.
> Why not use those corn cobs? Where is the propaganda machine for biomass
> energy? I believe that available biomass energy is greater than either
> solar or wind but the environmentalists ignore and deplore it. One way to
> advertise the virtue of biomass energy would be to create a large farm with
> an apartment on it. Gasification, can combine heat and power for the
> building and also create enough fuel for plowing from farm biomass. This
> would create a huge advertising of the need for gasification.
>
>
>
>                                                      K Schlansker
>
>
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