Re: GAS-L: Gasifiers and engines

[LINVENT@aol.com]

Dear listers,
    Yesterday afternoon I visited a nearby molding company. This company has 
been generating tons of waste daily and had a market for the shavings, dust 
and so on at a local particle board facility which they shipped to. The 
particle board company shut down two weeks ago, but stopped paying for the 
waste about 2 years ago. We had discussions with the management about 
generating power 1.4megawatts from their waste for their electrical load. 
They came over and saw the gasifier running an engine and we didn't hear much 
until I visited them yesterday. 
    In the last 4 months, they have rearranged the plant, added screening and 
a fine grinder which makes a wood flour. They are shipping the wood flour to 
Louisiana for $70/ton delivered. Their position was that they had to get rid 
of all the waste or go out of business. They also bale the shavings and 
larger pieces for bedding, a major market for them. They spent $300,000 for 
this process and did it very quickly. The income from the bedding is quite 
excellent. The wood flour will eventually pay for itself. Their comment that 
either do this or go out of business is quite interesting as they could 
merely haul it to the dump to get rid of it. We use the waste materials for 
our gasification work here on  a periodic basis. 
    They indicated that they would have to run a second shift to operate a 
power plant to get rid of all of the fines which would not be economic. Now 
they are in a position to run a part operation through the gasifier and get 
rid of the waste. Power generation is not a major concern for them although 
they pay $.085/kwhr. 
     At this point, the plant manager told me he is 5 months away from 
retirement and will not take on another project before retirement, although 
he is in an optimum position to do a gasification power generation plant now 
with the balance of materials taken care of. He or his successor would have 
to convince the owners of the economics of power generation to get the 
financing. 
    All of this is to say that gasification has a market, but even under the 
most optimum of conditions, it is difficult to find and secure.
    No wonder people get frustrated in this business. 

Sincerely,
Leland T. Taylor
 President
 Thermogenics Inc. 
7100-2nd St. NW, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87107 
phone 505-761-1454 fax 505-761-1456
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