[Terrapreta] Wood harvesting

[Tom Miles]

Joe,

Good article. The 50 MWe Craven facility consumes about 50 dry tons of
biomass per hour or 3-4 truckloads per hour, 1200 dry tons per day or about
400,000 dry tons of biomass per year. This represents about 100,000 tons of
charcoal per year. 

The article says the plant is small. At 50 MWe it is among the 10 largest
biomass plants in North America. (Most biomass plants are 20-30 MWe). As
such it will have a good supply infrastructure with as many as 120
suppliers. Due to its location it probably consumes a combination of forest
residues, wood processing residues and urban residues. The delivered costs
to the plant would be a good indication of what a charcoal plant would have
to pay. Production costs would be similar to the larger Kingsford plants
where volatile gases are recovered to generate steam and power. Plant
operating costs take advantage of economies of scale and will be much lower
than a 50 tpd plant, primarily in labor.   

Edward's Terrum plant in Illinois will process 30,000 ton/year of coal. Due
to the energy density that plant would probably process about 20,000 tpy
biomass, or 60 tpd, similar in scale to the plants proposed by ABRI, BEST
and others. It would produce 4,000 to 5,000 tpy charcoal.

At one time more than 80% of the ash from wood burning facilities was
applied on the land and not in landfills. That varies by region and fuel
source. Plants burning urban wood probably have to use a landfill.

Tom
 

  

-----Original Message-----
From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
[mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of joe ferguson
Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2007 7:44 AM
To: terrapreta
Subject: [Terrapreta] Wood harvesting

This article:
http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/637021.html
appeared in the local newspaper.  It reports on work at an experimental 
forest in eastern North Carolina, USA, to clear undergrowth from mature 
forest as a means of wildfire prevention.

In the operation the brush is chipped and the chips hauled away for 
boiler fuel at a 50MWE electric generation plant.  Much of the article 
is involved in reporting on speculation as to the use of the wood ash 
resulting from the operations.

I would think that the activity at this research station would serve as 
a good source of data on operating costs for an operation of small 
industrial scale, since some of its production steps are identical to 
what is involved in a commercial char-production operation.

Joe Ferguson



_______________________________________________
Terrapreta mailing list
Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar/
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org
http://info.bioenergylists.org