[Terrapreta] Economics of biochar

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Christelle,

I have most of the parts and most of the design complete.  I guess it is in a "finally assembly" stage, but the reactor is not yet operational.  I have made some charcoal in a barrel.  The main issue remaining to work out with the Pyrolysis Reactor is building in the gas flow controls and the temperature and oxygen sensor arrays.  The gas flow control will be done either with a variable speed blower or fan, "sucking" air through the charcoal bed and out the bottom of the reactor, or with an "eductor" type venturi.  The venturi eductor, though, has a static flow rate, so experimenting with variable gas flow rates would not possible using one.  The sensor arrays are for expermentation monitoring mostly now, but may someday be used as "feedbacks" to automate the control functions of the process; gas flow, biomass and charcoal material flows, etc.

I am now having a "tower" to support the reacotr fabricated (to a design I drew).  It will hold the reactor vessel straight up, about 12 feet to the top.  The biomass will be feed into the top (manually at first) from some scaffolding standing next to it and the charcoal will be removed at the bottom (also manually at first) and put into barrels.  I can grind, measure, mix, test, and bag the charcoal I can make.  Characterizing the charcoal completely; with maximum process temperature, feedstock species, "proximate analysis" of the charcoal, computing energy balances, and such are things I think I can do, but I need some more equipment to do some of it, muffle oven, muffle furnace, crucibles, precision scale, etc.  I have thought about doing gas analysis too, but the gas chromatographs and mass spectrometers are very out of range expensive.  Cheaper gas testers (TESTO) are available, but they come with limits on operability, types of tests, and/or for large numbers of tests.

The only thing like a "field" experiment which I have done is maybe to spread a little ash and/or charcoal in a few places in the woods around my house.  I've measured nothing and observed only no deleterious effects.  I hope to expand this effort and do some more, well documented, experiments with charcoal-into-soil in the spring.  I hope to have made some further associations with other people, soil science researchers, farmers, or other growers, etc., too, who will buy and use my charcoal to do experiments as well.

This winter I have been continuing my contract work with the "Power Inverter" company, writing firmware, to finance building the pyrolysis reactor (this is the the primary Troposphere Energy, LLC project now).  It seems, having just completed my year end report of income and expenses for taxes on my business, that I spent almost as much as I had earned last year on and at Troposphere Energy, LLC on this reactor and getting what I need to get the system "up and running", so I can sell "characterized charcoal".

But, I've still got money in the bank from my contract earnings and I am hopeful my experiments go well, so that the reactor is producing charcoal in the spring, if not sooner.  I can make charcoal easily, in lots of ways.  This reactor is supposed to help me "make charcoal" in a more controlled way, which will allow me to make charcoal with a more uniform consistency, and cleans up the process, so that there are NO toxic or atmosphere damaging (potent GHG) emissions, and so that there are less low-efficiency process energy losses.  This system could allow me to "make characterized charcoal" and harvest some biomass energy, too.  This is my hope.

Improving the process efficiencies of pyrolysing biomass into gases, heat, and charcoal will make the process potentially self-sustaining and net energy producing, rather than energy intensive (requiring external fuels), or wasteful of heat or other energy forms coming out of the reaction.  The insulation, the gas flow, and the material flow controls are all very important issues to manage and synchronize, if better efficiency and cleaner operation are desired, over what can be achieved with pyrolyzing biomass "in a barrel".

Regards,

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: chris braun<about:blank> 
  To: Sean K. Barry<about:blank> 
  Cc: Greg and April<about:blank> ; terrapreta<about:blank> 
  Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 11:13 PM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Economics of biochar


  Hello Sean,

  What is the current stand of your reactor ? 
  Have you already made field trials ? 

  Sincerely yours,
  Christelle 


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: chris braun<mailto:brauncch at gmail.com> 
  To: Sean K. Barry<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com> 
  Cc: Greg and April<mailto:gregandapril at earthlink.net> ; terrapreta<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 11:13 PM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Economics of biochar


  Hello Sean,

  What is the current stand of your reactor ? 
  Have you already made field trials ? 

  Sincerely yours,
  Christelle 


  On Jan 11, 2008 6:02 AM, Sean K. Barry < sean.barry at juno.com<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com>> wrote:

    Hi Greg,

    I have many of the books too and have been through some, but not all or even much of it.  Although I would say I don't completely understand it yet, like Tom Reed or Agua Das (NREL/BEF), Robert Brown (NREL/UofIA), Michael Antal (UofHI), Danny Day (Eprida) might, I'm slowly getting there.

    I have cracked open some of my best college biochemistry books and bought and read from many other books sources and articles; Knowledge Publications, Scientific American, American Association for the Advancement of SCIENCE (AAAS + SCIENCE Journal), Nature, IEEE, IREE (Inititative for Renewable Energy and the Environment in Minnesota), the University of Minnesota, Department of Defense, the IPCC,  United Nations FAO/TPI, and etc.

    I read as much as I can, too, of anthropological history like; Jared Diamonds, "Guns, Germs, and Steel" and "Collapse" and Charles Mann's, "1491".  I paid up my US$229 for Dr. Johannes Lehmann's (Cornell University) seminal compilation on Terra Preta, "Amazonian Dark Earth, Origins, Properties, Management".  I read all over Wikipedia and the Internet, too.

    To me, it is all so very interesting; the chemistry, physics, engineering, and the applied science is all very invigoratingly thought provoking for me.  I can do it all day and night most of the time.  I think about and talk about it even while eating and sleeping.  I'm steeped in it.
    It's just a great big, world wide, scientific research, experimentation, and applied science development project!!!  I'm probably going to stay at it until I die.

    I am building a reactor (and more other designs and devices to follow) to do experiments.  I want to make and sell charcoal, biomass energy, gases, and biomass-to-energy/bniomass-to-charcoal conversion devices.  I want to do my own field testing with charcoal in soils and to help others to develop Terra Preta soil testing trials, development soil test procedures, and charcoal making methodologies and recipes.

    I'm trying real hard to learn and still learning, because I really want to and I love doing this kind of work.  More than anything else, I think
    it is my desire to understand this topic that helps me understand it.

    Regards,

    SKB
      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: Greg and April<mailto:gregandapril at earthlink.net> 
      To: Sean K. Barry<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com> 
      Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 9:37 AM
      Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Economics of biochar


      Been there - even have a number of the books - still doesn't make it any easier to understand.


      From: Sean K. Barry<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com> 
        To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> ; Greg and April<mailto:gregandapril at earthlink.net> 
        Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 20:38
        Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Economics of biochar


        Hi Greg,

        I get a lot of my information from the Biomass Energy Foundation library, at www.woodgas.com<http://www.woodgas.com/>

        Regards,

        SKB

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