RE: GAS-L: biomass gasification for hydrogen production - future potential

[Peter Singfield <snkm@btl.net>]

At 05:45 PM 5/21/2001 +0200, you wrote:
>Hello Jerry,
>
>I am fully with you on the issue that collecting the quantities of wood
>required to make a meaningful contribution to green power supply is as big a
>challenge as mitigating the CO2 problem in itself.
>
>Somewhere somehow this wood collection requires a true sustainable approach,
>otherwise all our efforts will be in vain again. With respect to dedicated
>tree growing (and/or SRC) and sustainable forest management, this List has
>many experts qualified to debate how far one can go on forestry.

Lets see -- from 1969 to 1975 I was delivery hard wood pulp from Quebec to
Berlin New Hampshire -- Brown Company. A transport of 135 miles through the
White Mountains. 40 tons per load. Two such loads per day. This pulp mill
has been in existence for many years -- used 1200 cords of hard wood per
day -- year round. Make that 3000 tons per day.

This was not an exceptionally large mill. Just your average. The wood
supply infrastructure was well in place -- for many many years -- 

In Quebec -- on the North Shore -- we had operations such as this and much
larger that had operated for over 150 years. (Anglo-Canadian) But slow
growing Black Spruce that meant truly incredible areas were required. River
drives -- etc.

So sustaining this sort of wood supply in not a problem -- and not anything
new under the sun for some areas of this planet.

True -- coal burning power plants and the resulting "acid rain" certainly
made a dent in forestry supplies in the North Eastern area of this continent.

In the tropics -- such as here in Belize -- there would be no problem
sustainable supplying huge amounts of forest product. Silviculture is an
old and well developed science.

True -- biomass power plant operators are probably not aware of prior art
in this domain of human endeavor. But take faith -- if it worked for a
hundred and more years in the past -- it can work again.

Including "breeding" your own line of forestry workers -- generation after
generation. Building of roads and other transport infrastructure. It all
has been done before.

Peter Singfield / Belize




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