Wood-based Ethanol Plant Slated for Georgia

[jpak]

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=47371

Wood waste from millions of acres of indigenous Georgia Pine will be the main source of biomass for a new cellulosic ethanol production facility in Treutlen County, Georgia. The plant, being built by Colorado-based Range Fuels, Inc., will use a two-step thermo-chemical conversion process to convert biomass into a synthetic gas and then gas to ethanol.

Founded by Menlo Park, California-based Khosla Ventures, Range Fuels' (formerly Kergy, Inc.) business model is to design, build, own and operate its plants. The company estimates that the new plant -- combined with others to follow -- will have the capacity to produce over 1 billion gallons of ethanol per year.

"The state of Georgia has provided us with an excellent opportunity to use its abundant renewable natural resources to help solve fuel issues for the country," said Mitch Mandich, Range Fuels CEO. "Thanks to Georgia's environmentally sensitive stewardship of its forests for the past 50 years, Range Fuels can take what is traditionally considered a waste product, and turn it into a source of transportation fuel."

The company's proprietary technology -- known as the K2 system -- eliminates the use of enzymes, which have been an expensive component of traditional cellulosic ethanol production, and transforms otherwise useless products such as wood chips, agricultural wastes, grasses, and cornstalks as well as hog manure, municipal garbage, sawdust and paper pulp into ethanol through a thermo-chemical conversion process.

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[phantom power]

1. Interesting. I wonder where they will get their heat energy from.

[jpak]

2. Wood chips would be a good guess

yes no??

[phantom power]

3. I don't see why not. It would technically be burning potential product.

[jpak]

4. Wood pellet mills use wood chips for fuel and feed stock

don't see a problem here...

[Moby Grape]

5. EROEI problem

using wood chips for process heat,
implies an EROEI of less than 1.

is you don't want an EROEI loss,
you are better off with the wood chips

[jpak]

6. No EROEI problems here - those mills produce more wood in pellets than they use for fuel

http://www.pelletheat.com/pellets/process_8.php#photo

Wood for fuel is a small part of the process...

[Moby Grape]

7. these are your choices

suppose you own a mountain of near worthless woodchips.
your choices are...

EROEI neutral, would be to let them sit there

EROEI negative, would be to turn the woodchips into a useful product
typically, half of the energy is lost, do you really want to throw
half of the energy away to turn something useless into something useful?

don't be negative

[jpak]

8. Nonsense

The energy content of the pellets produced is much much greater than the wood energy used to dry them.

and that's a positive...

[Moby Grape]

9. you are ignoring the energy value of the feedstock

these conversions are typically 50 percent efficient, or less

what do you want?

the FULL energy value of a worthless pile of sawdust

or HALF the energy in a valueable product.

I vote for FULL

[jpak]

10. Where do you get the 50% BS??

Here's how you make a wood pellet...

Get some wood chips

grind them into smaller pieces-parts

press them into pellets

add a little wood heat to dry them

presto = a wood pellet

You do NOT lose 50% of the energy in the feedstock.

NONE OF THE ENERGY IN THE FEEDSTOCK IS LOST

I vote for reality...

[Moby Grape]

11. look at the original title

ethanol.

do you think wood turns into ethanol,
when you click your heels together three times?

the conversion throws half the energy away.

[jpak]

12. Where do you get 50% conversion losses???

Oh, I know...click your heels three times...

Ethanol is automobile transportation fuel - wood chips are not (unless you have a Stanley Steamer).

[JohnWxy]

13. talking jibberish is not making an argument. All conversions of chemically stored energy from

one form to another have inefficiencies. Generating electrical energy from coal achieves only about 32% efficiency.

There is considerable research being done re generating electricity from biomass feedstocks. Corn stover and other agricultural waste as well as wood chips have been considered. This technology can also be used to not only generate electricity but provide heat energy used in the production of corn or cellulosic ethanol.

HEre is a link to a U.S. Dept of Energy site with references to several studies.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/other_recent_reports.html Once on this page click on the title: The Net CO2 Emissions and Energy Balances of Biomass and Coal-Fired Power Systems (1999) NREL

To determine the environmental implication of producing electricity from biomass and coal, life cycle assessments (LCA) have been conducted on systems based on three power generation options: 1) biomass-fired integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) system, 2) three coal-fired power plant technologies, and 3) a system cofiring waste biomass with coal. Each assessment was conducted in a cradle-to-grave manner to cover all processes necessary for the operation of the power plant, including raw material extraction, feed preparation, transportation, and waste disposal and recycling.

~~
The net energy balance of the biomass IGCC system shows that 16 units of energy are produced for every unit of energy consumed. Because of the use of a non-renewable resource, the coal systems consume more energy than they produce. Cofiring biomass with coal reduces net energy consumption by 20% and 6.4% for the 15% and 5% cofiring cases; however, the net energy balance is still negative.
~
The net CO2 emissions of the biomass system are significantly lower than any of the coal systems beacause of the uptake of CO2 during biomass growth. Biommass IGCC can obtain Carbon closures of 95% or greater, depending on the amount of carbon that is sequestered in the soil. Coal power systems, because they do not remove from the atmosphere any of the CO2 they produce, have Carbon closures of zero.