Our feedstock is chipped and piled at a
landfill. We would like to transport the chips 15 miles to a power plant
where we will integrate a gasifier. The majority of the chips may remain
at the landfill, but we would like to store a weeks worth supply of feedstock
at the power plant. I realize that putting the feedstock in a silo or
closed building would be disastrous. The main question is how to store
the weeks supply, 1000 tons, at the plant...just pile them, three walled
building?
Any help is appreciated
James Fields
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James,
A silo would not necessarily be disastrous,
though it could have that potential. Moisture and oxygen content is the
critical factor.
A 3 sided building may be the most economically
feasable way to store it, but it does increase the handling costs, unless you
put in a feed system right from the storage building. You will want to keep
rain off of it. Rain water is highly oxygenated.
The secret will be to continually rotate the
feedstock, so it doesn't have time to build up heat, although if it's already
in a pile at the landfill, it may have finished it's initial heating.
Fresh chips are more susceptable to heating.
The heat is caused by bacterial action in the
presence of oxygen, with enough moisture present to keep the 'bugs' happy.
A walking floor may be of interest to you. These
can be retrofitted into a van trailer to make it a self-unloader, and dump
inside your building without 30 foot ceilings. No need to dump in the yard,
then carry it with a frontend loader to the storage building.
They can also be used to feed the stock out
of your storage bin or bunker into a conveyor on the backside.
An informal recomendation would be to equip your
trucks with a Keith walking Floor in a 45 foot van trailer. These should be
able to haul 25 ton loads. 100 cubic yards. You'll need 40 loads of storage
space, or 4000 cubic yards.
15 feet high(5 yards) would require 800 yards of
floor space. An 80x100 building should work. Large vents in the peak ot the
roof and under the eaves will remove a lot of moisture for you.
A round storage bunker or silo would also be
usable, but you won't get the surface area exposure for natural
drying.
A 40 foot round structure would need to be piled
20 feet deep to store your reserve supply.
If you decide to go with a silo, you'll need to
unload it.
LOL I don't get any commission from either of
these companies.
Have you done any planning on the loading of the
trucks at the landfill?
This should give you a few things to
consider.
Let me know if I'm on the right track with your
needs.
Motie
Maybe it's a personal quirk, but can you CC to
the Gas list? As long as I am making a donation of my time, I would like it to
benefit anyone else who may be having problems too.
You may also get additional replies from someone
who has an entirely different perspective from
mine.
