burNiNg solutioNs Continued from page 20 clean it at a commercial scale so that it can be used in conventional diesel generators. As a result, gasification is a very active research field. For now, those doing it, such as in Europe, are generating power at an uncompeti- tive 20 cents per kilowatt hour or more. The next step is exponentially harder – cleaning the gas even beyond the purity required for an engine so that this syngas can be converted to a liquid fuel. If you take the carbon monoxide and hydrogen from the gasifier and put it into a reactor with a catalyst, you can make liquid fuels like ethanol or diesel, etc. There is a lot of interest in this, but this level of cleanliness is a long way from where we are now on the commercial scale. Current commercial operations are burning the gas right away for heat, which does not require advanced cleaning. Pyrolysis for its part is the process of making organic liquid fuel called “bio-oil” and/or charcoal by exposing biomass to temperatures in excess of 350 degrees Celsius in the complete absence of oxygen. It effectively increases fuel density to beyond the 1,200 kg/m3 range, or double the density of wood pellets, making transport and handling more efficient. But it is important to remember that this is not oil, but rather a mixture of chemicals that includes aldehydes, ketones, esters and specialty chemi- cals. As far as burning this directly as a fuel, it requires special handling as it is corrosive, demands modified burner nozzles, and tends to polymer- ize, or turn to a solid at high heat. There is significant potential in this black liquid, from fuel upgrading to perhaps pharmaceutical or consumer chemicals, but a lot of work re- mains to be done to extract those chemicals on a commercial scale. Other issues to be resolved include heat transfer and scale-up for the fast pyroly- sis oil plants (not an issue for the charcoal slow pyrolysis technologies). Few fast pyrolysis plants (bio-oil) seem to be able to run above 100 tpd, which is very small by conventional fuel standards. At the end of the day, for a ground-ready commercial project, you can look at straight combustion for heat at any scale or co-gen or power gen- eration for the most part at scales approaching 10 MWe. The rest of these emerging technologies are still very much in the development or pre-com- mercial stage, and would fall into the old “buyer beware” category.• Dr. Fernando Preto is with CanmetENERGY of Natural Resources Canada in Ottawa, ON. He wrote this article for Canadian Biomass. He can be reached at [email protected]. AD INDEX Acrowood .............................................................................................................. 31 Amandus Kahl Hamburg ..............................................................................12 Combustion Expert .................................................................................. 18-19 Continental Biomass .....................................................................................36 Con-Vey ................................................................................................................... 31 Distribution Canada .....................................................................................34 Elmia AB .................................................................................................................28 Gaston Richard ..................................................................................................12 Hurst Boiler............................................................................................................16 Jeffrey Specialty Equipment ......................................................................7 Komptech .................................................................................................................9 Peterson Pacific ...............................................................................................29 Ponsse North America ...................................................................................2 Rayco Mfg, Inc ......................................................................................................6 SFM Network ....................................................................................................30 Silvana Import Trading, Inc ........................................................................17 Vermeer Canada .................................................................................................8 West Salem Machinery .............................................................................20 32 CanadianBIOMASS MARCH 2009 EVENTS BOARD APRIL 7-8, 2009 • CARBON TRADEX AMERICA 2009 Washington, D.C. www.carbontradeexamerica.com APRIL 17, 2009 • BIOENERGY NORTHAMERICA 2009 CONFERENCE Chicago, IL +44 20 7251 9151 www.environmental-finance.com/conferences/2009/ BioNam09/intro.htm APRIL 22-23, 2009 • PRAIRIE PROVINCES BIOENERGY CONFERENCE– BIOENERGY FROMFOREST FUELS Saskatoon, SK www.feric.ca APRIL 28-30, 2009 • INTERNATIONAL BIOMASS CONFERENCE& TRADE SHOW Portland, OR 719-539-0300 www.biomassconference.com MAY 13-15, 2009 • SMALLWOOD2008 ANDBIOENERGY& WOODPRODUCTS JOINTCONFERENCE Madison, WI 217-333-5900
Canadian Biomass March 2009: Page 32
