[Terrapreta] Charcoal in Compost? 4USA?

[Tom Miles]

Bernie,

 

California has had pyrolysis demonstrations in the past but none of them has
demonstrated using char in agriculture. What would it take to demonstrate to
landscapers and nurseries in your area that char would be useful to them?
The nursery next door making saving money or getting better production by
using char? Where do we start this process?

 

One 50 dry tpd plant would produce about 10-15 tpd char plus oil and waste
gas. Gas from the process would be  used to make the oil and char. 

 

A char product could go out as 10%-20% in blended planting mix products or
as char to agricultural applications. At concentrations of 2-4 ton/acre a
day's production would cover 2.5-7.5 acres; 625-1875 acres per year.   

 

Delivered planting mix products are about $200-$250/200 ft3 unit around
here. Pick $200/ton as a price and you have a gross char sales of
$2,000-$3,000 per day; $40,000-$60,000 per month. Char production would be
2500-3000 tons per year. 

 

It sounds like as a biomass producer you'd rather sell to a char and oil
processor rather than produce the char yourself. How do we get the guy next
door to build a charcoal plant? 

 

Regards,

 

Tom

 

 

 

 

From: Bernie Lenhoff [mailto:bernie at greenwasterecycleyard.com] 
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 3:08 PM
To: Tom Miles; terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
Subject: RE: [Terrapreta] Charcoal in Compost? 4USA?

 

Hi Tom,

 

I'll refer you to the Advanced BioRefinery web page for their descriptions
of their plants:

 

http://www.advbiorefineryinc.ca/oneton.html

http://www.advbiorefineryinc.ca/50ton.html

 

Our yard could probably utilize their 100 ton unit (which is essentially a
double 50-ton). But I wouldn't take us as necessarily representative, since
we aren't yet diverting a large percentage of the total local green waste
volume. Any substantial municipality processes more woody biomass than we
do, I'm guessing 100s of tons daily.

 

We certainly would entertain the possibility of being a producer.
Theoretically, the biofuel could also produce power for other parts of our
operations, including the wood mill. The promise of such a closed system is
enticing.

 

Realistically, however, at this point it would make more sense for us to
supply the biomass to a separate plant (if one existed), because of the
investment involved (in cost, permitting, etc.). We currently send some of
our biomass to cogen plants. If we had a pyrolysis alternative, it would
certainly seem preferable.

 

Bernie

 

  _____  

From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
[mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Tom Miles
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 2:48 PM
To: Bernie Lenhoff; terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Charcoal in Compost? 4USA?

Bernie,

 

What is a "1-ton" plant? Is that 1 ton of biomass per day , i.e. 400 lb char
per day?

 

What size of charcoal processing system, in tons of waste wood/day, would be
suitable at a recycling yard like the ones you operate? 200 tpd?

 

Do you see charcoal products being produced at an operation like yours or in
a separate plant? 

 

Would you 

 

Thanks

Tom Miles

 

 

 

 

A demonstration 1-ton plant is about $60k, with their commercial and higher
capacity plants being far more expensive. A good current strategy might be
to encourage Waste Management authorities to put together
government/business/nonprofit/academic partners to set up demo plants with
associated research projects using the biochar and biofuel products created.

 

Bernie Lenhoff

Business Manager

Bernie at GreenWasteRecycleYard.com

  

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/terrapreta_bioenergylists.org/attachments/20070709/5820171e/attachment.html