Climate Change Challenge!! $$$ 3

[cranky108]

If you look at the international price of sugar, and figgure the present cost of aid given to sugar growing countries. We would be much better off importing sugar and reducing our aid to these countries (I call that win-win).

What we have done now with corn mash is reduced the price supports to the US farmers (and made a place to dump spoiled wiskey).

There was an EPRI study years ago about whole tree burning in power plants (I no longer have access). Where a 100MW plant could support a farm community in a diameter of 100 miles, more or less.
Biggest problem is water, but recycled water could work.

 

[owg]

OPG is currently testing the use of biomass as a new renewable energy source for Ontario. Biomass used in OPG's program consists primarily of wood pellets and agricultural by-products such as grain screenings and milling spoils that can be burned to generate electricity. OPG does not use food crops in its biomass program.

Biomass is considered to be "carbon neutral", meaning the amount of carbon released when burned is equal to the amount removed from the atmosphere when the plant is growing.

For power companies, biomass has the potential to play an important role in reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by supplementing or replacing coal. Mixing biomass with coal is already a well established practice in several European countries.

Pelletized grain screenings is delivered to OPG's Thunder Bay Station. More recently, OPG's Nanticoke Generating Station successfully co-fired milling by-products with coal and OPG's Thunder Bay Generating Station conducted a test burn using pelletized grain screenings. The Atikokan Generating Station has been testing wood pellets with considerable success.

Notice the careful wording of the first line in the second paragraph. The accompanying picture (not included here) even shows a diesel truck delivering the fuel. So much for carbon neutrality. Grain screenings and milling spoils previously went into livestock feed.




HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[cranky108]

owg, What is the delevery method used to inject the pellets into the boiler?

This seems to be a technology that would be hard to intergrate into an existing plant, and a secure fuel source would have to be obtained.
So the over all processing and delevery may be a consiterable task.

New technology takes time to provide a major impact and most utilities don't want serial numbers one and two.

 

[rb1957]

"Biomass is considered to be "carbon neutral", meaning the amount of carbon released when burned is equal to the amount removed from the atmosphere when the plant is growing." ...
but then burning gasoline (= petrol) is also "carbon neutral"

 

[Unotec]

Everything in earth is "carbon neutral" when it comes to an overall global mass balance. It is also close to being energy neutral. This is the basic flaw of the global warming models.

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying ” Damn that was fun!” - Unknown>>

 

[owg]

cranky108 - I have no further information on the OPG biomass program.
rb1957 - I guess its just a timing variance.

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca