Qi BioEnergy

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NewEarth Renewable Energy, Inc. has created ECO Clean Coal, an innovative 100% biomass fuel that burns without emitting smoke, as demonstrated here with a smoke detector, set off by an ordinary wood pellet, but not by the burning ECO Clean Coal pellet.

ECO Clean Coal can be either co-fired with coal or totally replace coal at any coal-fired power plant worldwide, without any retrofitting, loss of productivity, or service to customer. It is a pound per pound replacement for coal. It is the most compatible biomass fuel to burn with coal.

BioCoal™ Fuel
Made from biomass, in pellet form, that has all the
positive qualities required to finally help solve our
energy and pollution problems. BioCoal™ Fuel is
a clean burning product that was once wood, but
processed in a unique way that removes virtually
all the water and polluting volatile organic
compounds before combustion. The wood is
processed in a proprietary manner that changes
the chemistry and structure of the wood into a
friable material that has a high carbon content
that can be used with coal or to replace coal.
Every ton of carbon in BioCoal™ Fuel used will
keep 3.6 tons of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel
out of our air. BioCoal™ Fuel is resistant to water
absorption and can be stored indefinitely without
decay.

A small, economically viable pellet mill produces 25,000 - 35,000 tons per year. If the local market expanded from 1 percent to 7 percent (8,400 households), the small mill capacity would be matched. Market expansion will take place as the cost of conventional energy increases, but will be slow in the near term without a strategy. If steps are not initiated now to encourage and capture a growing market, it will be filled by a pellet plant from outside the region.

Here are some safe bets:

Non-renewable fuel prices will remain volatile with increasing spikes due to political and natural disruptions.

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Renewable fuel sources like wood, solar, geothermal will grow in use and affordability.

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There will be a market shake-out in the pellet industry over the next three years due to a lag between production

• capacity and market.Given current and projected demographics within the Four Corners region there is room for one pellet mill of moderate size (25,000 to 35,000 tons annually). We recommend a phased strategy beginning in 2008 with strategic commercial and residential market development. Construction of the plant will be triggered by capture of at least 5 percent of the residential market. The estimated investment for all phases is between $7 million and $10 million. Investment in this proposal will place the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe in a position to capitalize on the mill opportunity and other related business ventures as well as benefit the residents of Indian Country.

Strategic Steps:

Build bag and bulk pellet delivery routes in up to 300 mile loops linking together towns in a 100 mile radius

• thus servicing homes, hospitals, schools, offices and other buildings in Indian Country and high elevation communities.Make all public buildings “Native Wood Ready” in the design phase and invest in pellet boiler retrofits for those

• in the “green zones” on the map.Initiate a subsidized pellet stove installation program for eligible families within the “green zone.” The program

• can be modeled after the EPA’s Great American Woodstove Changeout program. See this site for information on EPA’s program http://epa.gov/woodstoves/how-to-guide.html Decent stoves installed cost approximately $2500. The program could offer a $1000 subsidy and $1500 zero interest loan. The program achieves immediate benefits regarding heating bills, air quality, and market build-up. Utilize Forest Energy Corp as the bag and bulk pellet supplier while markets are stabilizing. Either buy, store,

• and disperse pellets from a centralized location on tribal land or arrange for delivery by Forest Energy Corp. Propane carriers can adapt to carry pellets as well. If silos are added to the installation program, delivery costs can be cut in half and thus consumer prices.

Forest Energy Wood Pellets are made from 100% recycled wood and biomass residue. In our manufacturing process, the wood residue (raw material) is screened, dried to a specific moisture level, and ground to a uniform size. Then, a finely balanced blend of sawdust is conveyed into the pellet mills where it is compressed and formed into a very dense and consistent wood pellet. The ending result is a highly efficient source of thermal energy for consumers.

Hello Casey,

Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you. I sent your questions around to some of the other researchers I work with. Prof. Vance Morey and Dr. Nalladurai Kaliyan have been doing a lot of work on biomass densification here at the UofMN
Here are some answers to your questions:

what does HHV stand for? I am trying to figure out what is the yearly input in tons of biomass needed to just fuel the heat needs of a plant?

HHV stands for Higher Heating Value which is the amount of heat released during combustion. See this link for more detail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_of_combustion
You can find a graph showing the amount of biomass fuel needed to supply the heat needs of a 50 million gallon per year dry grind ethanol plant in the ASABE paper I have attached. If you use only corn stover it is about 400 tons (363 metric tonnes) per day

When you all are looking at this study do you envision bales being stored at the field through out the year and a fleet of trucks will delivery them to the ethanol plant at the time they are needed rather than bulk storing at the ethanol plant?

We assumed that the biomass would be densified into pellets or briquettes at a facility separate from the ethanol plant. The ethanol plant would have enough storage to hold about a weeks worth of densified biomass fuel.

Densification, is grinding the way to go with that in order to keep transportation costs lower or can you just delivery bales to the plant where you have a stationary grinder on site?

A response from Prof. Morey:
Grinding is a preliminary step in densification. Grinding probably leads to lower bulk density than bales in the first step. That is something we are working on. I not a big fan of moving a pelleting or briquetting device to the site of the bales to make the pellets or briquettes. I think there is an intermediate stage of grinding followed by compacting the material at the local site, but not forming briquettes, in order to transport to a central facility for making the briquettes. I think this will be operated like a separate business even if it owned by the same people who own the ethanol plant.
He asked the question that a lot of people ask which is if you get the bales delivered to the ethanol plant why do you need to densify. I think we will find that feeding densified material (pellets or briquettes) in to the combustor or gasifier will be important to have predictable performance at the plant. The cost reductions resulting from predictable performance will justify the densification cost. We still need to do the analysis to see if this turns out to be true.

Pellets? Do they add another unnessecary step in this process? Could you turn the biomass to pellets in order to store in a silo on site using the bulk delivery to the site scenario?

Portable pelleting operation, what do you think of a semi trailer with a pelleting system built on it to grind and pellet at the feedstock location and you delivery pellets instead of ground biomass?

This is going to require a lot of trucks and baling equipment, do you see an opportunity for a contract company to provide these services to an ethanol plant. Essentially creating a partnership where a secondary company sources feedstock to the plant and the plant makes the investment in the gasification equipment. Or do you see the ethanol company trying to take on this whole process?

We assume it will be a contracted company, but the ethanol plant will be very closely involved.

Let’s say you are trying to meet the needs of a 50 million gallon facility, what is the radius in miles of the plant that you would need to collect from. I understand this will be based on a % of land you are harvesting off.

This depends on how much biomass farmers are willing to take off their land each year.
Lets say the plant is surrounded by corn fields. The corn yield is 150 bushels/acre, half the above ground weight of the corn plant represents grain, the other half is corn stover. If the farmer is willing to take off 50% of the corn stover each year you would have about 2.1 tons per acre available. The plant needs 132,000 tons per year. So you need about 63,000 acres to draw from. If the area is pure corn ground the radius would be 5.6 miles.

Thanks for taking the time to reply

Nexus has been meeting the needs of commercial greenhouse growers for over 35 years. We have built our reputation on structures of uncompromising quality and the best customer service in the industry.

Nexus has a broad range of structures to meet your individual growing needs. All of our structures can be customized to provide growers with the size, covering, heating, cooling, and controls to provide the best possible environment for your crop.

The primary purpose of the greenhouse facility is to serve as a demonstration greenhouse showcasing new technologies in “real world” conditions for economic development. Designed by the Bioresource Engineering Department of Cook College, Rutgers University and built by the County of Burlington’s Board of Chosen Freeholders, the greenhouse has numerous environmental technologies incorporated into its design. These technologies serve to give the greenhouse a soft footprint on the environment. The greenhouse has been operational since 1996. It is one of the largest research greenhouses in the U.S. with over 46,000 square feet of greenhouse production space and 10,000 square feet of support buildings.

Some of the noteworthy features incorporated into the research facility include:

• Sophisticated computerized environmental controls for 5 separate zones that monitor, control, and record the temperature, light level, humidity and carbon dioxide level for each zone while minimizing energy usage
• Heated floors throughout that serve as a thermal storage device and places the heat where it is needed, in the crop
• High Intensity Lighting to supplement natural sunlight and extend the daylegnth during the lower-light periods of the year (September through April)
• Energy curtains that reduce heat loss, during the night, in winter and reduce the cooling loads, during the day, in summer
• High density polyethylene liners under the greenhouse floors to prevent irrigation water from leaving the greenhouse and going into the ground
• Double-wall acrylic sidewalls to reduce heat loss through the sides of the greenhouse
• High pressure fog cooling system
• Dual-fueled boiler for both landfill gas and natural gas
• Landfill gas fired microturbines and waste heat recovery system
• Automated rolling benches or “Dutch trays” that allow the crop to be brought to the workers in the headhouse and also allow for greater space utilization in the greenhouse
• Recirculating hydroponic irrigation system
• Glass and double layer polyethylene roofing in identical sections to allow for comparison of crop production under both covers

Research at the greenhouse focuses on the economic and crop production impacts of the new technologies. The results are then made available for greenhouse growers (and those considering getting into greenhouse production) to evaluate.

For more photos please visit our online photo gallery.

Prepared feedstock (<10% moisture and 1-2 mm particle size) is fed into the bubbling fluid-bed reactor, which is heated to 450–500 °C in the absence of oxygen. This is lower than conventional pyrolysis systems and, therefore, has the benefit of higher overall energy conversion efficiency. The feedstock flashes and vaporizes like throwing droplets of water onto a hot frying pan. The resulting gases pass into a cyclone where solid particles, char, are extracted. The gases enter a quench tower where they are quickly cooled using BioOil already made in the process

The BioOil condenses and falls into the product tank, while non-condensable gases are returned to the reactor to maintain process heating. The entire reaction from injection to quenching takes only two seconds.

100% of the feedstock is utilized in the process to produce BioOil and char. As the non-condensable gases are used as energy to run the process, nothing is wasted and no waste is produced. The uncondensed, flammable gases are re-circulated to fuel approximately 75% of the energy needed by the pyrolysis process.

Three products are produced: BioOil (60-75% by weight), char (15-20% wt.) and non-condensable gases (10-20% wt.). Yields vary depending on the feedstock composition. BioOil and char are commercial products and non-condensable gases are recycled and supply a major part of the energy required by the process. No waste is produced in the Dynamotive process

A fourth product, BioOil Plus, can be produced by adding back the separated char into the BioOil, in a finely ground form of about 8 microns in size.

We have now built a unique pilot-scale reactor that uses a hot sand medium (called a fluidized-bed reactor) to convert perennial grasses to bio-oil and have now tested the reactor on switchgrass. The reactor was able to use switchgrass as a feedstock and produce a quantity of bio-oil that was 60% of the weight of the switchgrass fed into the reactor. We tested the composition and fuel properties of the produced liquid and found that the energy content was about the same as the parent switchgrass but the density was more than 2.5 X greater.