[Terrapreta] 200 tons per day Dynamotive plant in Missouri

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Lewis,

There are too many "hidden paths to failure" with small probabilities ...

This is what Murphy's Law is all about ... the sum of the individual probability of all of the "too many paths to failure" (the combined probability) exceeds the probability of success.  So, when you are approaching a traffic signal, which you internally wish to be GREEN when you get to it, then you must untie your shoe, let a fly into the car, and smear something on the outside of the windshield.  You see, these are things that require the light to be RED, so you may stop the car and attend to the driving disruption.  Murphy's Law will kick in, ... failure is imminent, you will not be allowed to succeed at this necessary stopping, and the light will be GREEN.  The only way to beat Murphy is to force a misunderstanding of what you really wish to succeed at.  That way, your true goal is hidden amongst the "too many paths to failure" and sits in the group with a somewhat higher combined probability of occurrence.  Lie to Murphy about what is success.

Hopefully, everyone understands that what I just wrote is mostly bullshit.  But, it is fun to tell my kids to untie their shoes so they can be to school on time.

In brief, do NOT sell gasoline at the incremental cost per barrel, hamburger at the incremental cost per pound  or bio-oil at the incremental cost per BTU !

With such enterprises, equating the price and incremental [ marginal ] cost  in a competitive market of a single product is a sure road to bankruptcy, as any employee thereof with only a high-school education will be glad to tell you. In brief, do NOT sell gasoline at the incremental cost per barrel, hamburger at the incremental cost per pound  or bio-oil at the incremental cost per BTU !

[5]     Instead one must optimize the collective net contribution of all products [ after allowing for product-specific costs ] to incremental joint variable costs, again taken collectively, if there is more than one category of the latter.

I think it is important to differentiate the terms of "product" from a chemical reaction versus "product" for sale.  While Dynamotive's "fast-pyrolysis" reaction may produce 18% charcoal as a product of the reaction, they do not, I believe, sell 18% of the biomass feedstock weight as a saleable charcoal only "product".
I don't know where it was ever suggested that any "products" for sale should be sold at the incremental cost?  Maybe I don't understand the point you are trying to make in these paragraphs.

I have a paper on this. If you are interested, send me a snail-mail address.

Please send me the paper, Lewis.  I like reading papers on microeconomic theory sometimes.

Regards,

Sean K. Barry
Principal Engineer/Owner
Troposphere Energy, LLC
11170 142nd St. N.
Stillwater, MN 55082-4797
(651)-285-0904 (Work/Cell)
(651)-351-0711 (Home/Fax)
sean.barry at juno.com<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/terrapreta_bioenergylists.org/attachments/20071208/3855f084/attachment.html