Re: GAS-L: Oh!! -- that small steam power plant ---

[Peter Singfield <snkm@btl.net>]

Hi Guys;

We are rich in Butane in Southern Mexico and upper Central America. It is
much more economic than charcoal (at the prices they sell it for here) and
much more convenient to use. They sell really economical ring burners made
from cast iron that come from China.

There is a great advantage to charcoal in that it can be easily converted
to synthesis gas -- probably using heat from a pyrolyzer -- but you need
1800F to do this.

>From synthesis gas one can make practically anything! Also -- if you run
the process at lower temps -- 1200F as example -- you can produce methane
from charcoal.

Either synthesis gas, methane, or a mixture of both will directly run any
spark ignition internal combustion machine -- very well indeed!

No need to go the diesel route where you must supplement operation with
diesel fuel.

Production of synthesis gas or methane from Coal Coke is ancient technology
and very well proven. I can see no problems adapting that process to charcoal.

Coke is simply pyrolized Coal!

In "small" combustion power plants -- the charcoal is a very important
source of heat.

Peter

At 08:59 PM 3/19/00 +0000, you wrote:
>On Sat, 18 Mar 2000 22:12:51 -0500, Alex wrote:
>
>
>>
>>Peter,
>>What do you think about the gasifier for this power plant producing a 
>>valuable co-product like charcoal. Ofcourse it may depend on your 
>>fuel, but  the total return from tri-gen (electricity, heat and 
>>charcoal) might make an attractive package in your part of the world.
>I attempted to respond to the thread Joacim and Tom Reed posted about
>the Kalle gasifier:
>"On Sat, 4 Mar 2000 20:03:48 EST, Tom Reed wrote:
>
>>  Charcoal is incredibly easy to gasify.  We always start our gasifier on
>>charcoal until it is hot enough for wood."
>Fine this is point one in favour of the proposition!
>
>On the stoves list Tom has not been in favour of charcoal as a
>co-product. The IDD stove clearly demonstrates clean burning (in an
>urban environment this is possibly a bigger factor than outright
>efficiency) but has the "drawback" of producing 25% by
>weight of charcoal fines as a residue. To me a rural community
>depending on wood for cooking may well welcome the ability to use a
>by-product to power a machine cheaply.
>>
>>Does anyone have good data (energy content, gas composition, efficiency) on
>>charcoal gasification.  (Not in Gen Gas.)
>Yes I am still waiting for response on this!
>
>Peter and Skip are looking at the small scale, I guess Alex is also
>looking at a similar scale. I was considering a micro scale, in the
>absence of an electricity grid with cooking taking place on idd
>woodstoves (essentially small hybrid pyrolyser/gasifiers with a large
>char residue) the char being utilised in cheap small gasifiers with no
>(or small) problems of gas cleanup in standard spark ignition engines
>to produce power.
>
>AJH
>
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The Gasification List is sponsored by
USDOE BioPower Program http://www.eren.doe.gov/biopower/
and PRM Energy Systems http://www.prmenergy.com
Other Sponsors, Archives and Information
http://www.crest.org/renewables/gasification-list-archive
http://solstice.crest.org/renewables/biomass-info/gasref.shtml
http://www.crest.org/renewables/biomass-info/
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