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Being revised to produce ONLY Biomethane for a Toshiba 300 mW(e) Allam Cycle Electricity Power Plant


          Introduction to this page:
What:     Plasma Torch Biomass Gasifier. A way to break molecules down into their atomic constituents without incineration.
Where:   Gasifiers are currently used to incinerate Metropolitan Solid Waste (MSW) [garbage] into synthetic heating gas to generate electricity. Plasma Gasifiers do not consume the feedstock atoms as incineration does.
When:    Coal was used to make  "City Gas"  (synthesis gas, or "Syngas") for over 200 years. City Gas was replaced with "Natural Gas" everywhere it was available in the United States soon after World War II.
Why:      No production of environmental CO2 emissions, far higher yields (+50%) of much cleaner tar-free syngas as feedstock for refinery synthesis of renewable carbon hydrocarbon fuels such as gasoline, diesel, etc.
How:      Westinghouse is a major manufacturer of high-powered electric plasma torches that can produce heat hotter than the Sun's surface - 8,000°C. Shipyards can mass-produce gasifiers as if they were small boats.

For conversion of waste, plasma gasification technologies are attractive because of their unique abilities to cope with the large variability in particle size, moisture, energy content, and composition of the waste stream. However, plasma gasification is currently less energy efficient than the other gasifiers. - MIT - Biomass to Liquid Fuels Pathways: A Techno-Economic-Environmental Evaluation, March 2015.

International Plasma Technology Center:  http://www.plasmacombustion.org/index.html 

   Plasma Torch Wood to Syngas Gasifier

Visit:  https://www.globalsyngas.org/               https://www.globalsyngas.org/resources/the-gasification-industry/ 
 http://www.alternrg.com/               http://www.alternrg.com/waste_to_energy/typical_plasma_facility/                http://www.alternrg.com/waste_to_energy/waste-to-liquids/ 
EnviroPower Renewable Inc.  https://eprenewable.com/ 

Uses large amounts of steady electricity to pyrolyze up to 1,000 tons of biomass per day to produce syngas for 300 mW(e) Allam Cycle electricity power plant.

According to the Georgia Forestry Commission, a typical 50 megaWatt biopower electricity plant might consume 605,120 green tons of wood per year.

A VERY ROUGH ESTIMATE FOR REMOVING 100 MILLION TONS OF CO2 PER DAY FROM PLANET EARTH'S AIR TO MAKE ELECTRICITY:   Assuming similar green wood-to-syngas conversion efficiencies, a single 300 megaWatt Allam cycle power plant might consume syngas containing 3.6 million green tons of wood per year. About half the weight of wood is carbon from the air, in this case 1.8 million tons of carbon per year. Since the weight of the carbon atom is 12/44 (or 0.27) of the weight of a carbon dioxide molecule (i.e., one carbon atom (12 mol), two oxygen atoms (16 mol ea.)), the 1.8 million tons of carbon represents about 6.7 million tons of CO2 captured from the air per year, or 18,000 tons of CO2 per day. 

SCALE UP: If mankind is putting about 100 million tons of CO2 per day into the air, and one average Allam Cycle electricity plant can pull 18,000 tons of CO2 per day out of the air, it might take 5,556 Allam Cycle power plants to zero out the CO2 mankind is currently adding to Climate Change every day with fossil fuels. According to one study, (above right), the total 2040 [year] addressable market for the Allam Cycle Turbine would be 31,727 units. To put this in perspective, the world currently has well over 50,000 coal power plant units in operation.

 

                       

       Feedstock                                                                                                 Plasma Gasifier

 

 

                                 

The general MSW scene. (Metropolitan Solid Waste, (MSW) i.e., what's in garbage trucks.)

 

Tees Valley is a UK municipal garbage disposal site that takes 1,000 tons of garbage (MSW) per day and, using a Model G65 plasma gasifier, breaks it down into syngas (a synthetic natural gas) to power jet engines that are driving utility electricity generators.

Instead of making electricity, they could be making carbon-neutral combustion fuels out of the syngas.

Stop and think about what you are looking at.  50 megaWatts of electricity - at $70 per megaWatt-hour - ain't much.  About $85,000 every 24 hours.  The 300 megaWatt Toshiba-built Allam carbon captured power plant suggested in this website will produce 6 times as much clean electricity from natural gas.  The facility above consumes 1,000 tons (2 million pounds) of metropolitan solid waste (MSW) [garbage] every day and only puts out a little bit of electricity by burning the 2 million pounds of syngas produced by by the garbage.

IF, INSTEAD, 2 million pounds of carbon-neutral gasoline were made instead, that would produce - at 7 pounds per U.S. gallon - 286,000 gallons of clean, non-climate changing gasoline - every day. Also, from garbage, you get paid a "tipping fee" of about a dollar a ton to take the MSW from the truck.

 

Tees Valley is a UK municipal garbage disposal facility that is generating electricity using garbage as non-fossil biofuel.

The project has been so successful they are adding a second plasma gasifier.

Visit:  http://www.alternrg.com/ 

 

 

        

Plasma Gasification of Biomass.pdf     Plasma Overview - Slide Show - OBrien_NRG_6.6.08.pdf    Plasma - NRG_s_Plasma_Presentation.pdf   

Why plasma torch gasification was picked. You can get an idea of the performance of plasma gasification of biomass
from this paper by Czech Republic's Milan Hrabovsky, Institute of Plasma Physics, ASCR: 
Thermal Plasma Gasification - 19.316.pdf  also:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_torch  

A quick, high-quality introduction: "How Plasma Torch Pyrolyzation Works"  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWAG4SCZo10
                     Alter Plasma (Westinghouse):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBqx8t-YLrw
                     Alter Overview Video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrYJof510NU    
                     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPRa31dS0vA 
                     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut3I7OIPFR8 
                     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7gzdFGc3y4 
                     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI7s6IRpOHA
                     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15bVXLrBW2o 

          

 

 

        

Visit:  http://www.alternrg.com/ 

 

http://fulcrum-bioenergy.com/  (Their first garbage-to-fuels project.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3krO0LxZfn4  Lower temperature fossil fuel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTLyK0B1tjY  Plasma

https://www.netl.doe.gov/File%20Library/Research/Coal/energy%20systems/gasification/gasifipedia/index.html   

https://www.netl.doe.gov/research/coal/energy-systems/gasification/gasifipedia/biomass 

Energy Park Biomass:  https://www.netl.doe.gov/research/coal/energy-systems/gasification/gasifipedia/biomass-msw 

https://www.netl.doe.gov/research/coal/energy-systems/gasification/gas-optimization

https://www.environmental-expert.com/companies/keyword-plasma-gasification-9193
https://www.environmental-expert.com/companies/westinghouse-plasma-corporation-41035/  

Biofuels feedstock study supports billion-ton estimate    http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/15043/biofuels-feedstock-study-supports-billion-ton-estimate     CO2 and Other Emission Factors by Fuel - 2014.pdf

 

 

Kraft Paper Mill   (About Black Liquor from wood.)  https://www.netl.doe.gov/research/coal/energy-systems/gasification/gasifipedia/blackliquor
The thinking here is that if you repower the world's thousands of paper mills with small modular underground nuclear reactors, about 1/2 the energy in the wood consumed for papermaking would be freed up for biomass fuel production.
The paper mill could add a small hydrogen plus biomass methanol refinery, convert their black liquor into vehicle fuel and sell it locally for a good profit, thus replacing a substantial amount of fossil oil.
  https://www.netl.doe.gov/research/coal/energy-systems/gasification/gasifipedia/biomass-msw 

        

http://plascotechnologies.com/  Plasco Conversion Technologies 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Footnotes & Links

This facility would be defined by local and national building and electrical codes, and supplemented by constraints from the relevant equipment manufacturers.

Water Cooled Plasma Torches
Mk 3a:  80 to 300 kiloWatt
Mk II:   300 to 800 kW, 800 to 2,400 kW. - Does this mean a 6 torch gasifier column could consume as much as 14.4 megaWatts?

 

This website is still a draft. The candidate document's footnote numbers go with a private database. Copy the document's title and submit it to Google. The document may still be posted on the Internet.

Reference Articles

2.600 ---------- 6 PLASMA GASIFICATION – PLASMA TORCH BIOMASS GASIFIER ----------
2.602 ----- 19.316 -- KEY --- All 22 Chapters --- Progress In Biomass and Bioenergy Production
2.602.1 ----- Scale-Up of a Cold Flow Model of FICFB Biomass Gasification Process to an Industrial Pilot Plant - Example of Dynamic Similarity
2.602.2 ----- Second Law Analysis of Bubbling Fluidized Bed Gasifier for Biomass Gasification
2.602.3 ----- Thermal Plasma Gasification of Biomass
2.602.4 ----- Numerical Investigation of Hybrid-Stabilized Argon-Water Electric Arc used for Biomass Gasification
2.602.5 ----- A Simple Analytical Model for Remote Assessment of the Dynamics of Biomass Accumulation
2.602.6 ----- Assessment of Forest Aboveground Biomass Stocks and Dynamics with Inventory Data, Remotely Sensed Imagery and Geostatistics
2.602.7 ----- Hexavalent Chromium Removal by a Paecilomyces sp Fungal
2.602.8 ----- Biosorption of Metals - State of the Art, General Features, and Potential Applications for Environmental and Technological Processes
2.602.9 ----- Investigation of Different Control Strategies for the Waste Water Treatment Plant
2.602.10 ----- Preparation and Characterization of Bio-Oil Biomass
2.602.11 ----- Combined Microwave - Acid Pretreatment of the Biomass
2.602.12 ----- Relationship between Microbial C, Microbial N and Microbial DNA Extracts During Municipal Solid Waste Composting Process
2.602.13 ----- Characterization of Activated Carbons Produced from Oleaster Stones
2.602.14 ----- Effect of the Presence of Substituted Urea and also Ammonia as Nitrogen Source in Cultivated Medium on Chlorella's Lipid Content
2.602.15 ----- Recovery of Ammonia and Ketones from Biomass Wastes
2.602.16 ----- Characterization of Biomass as Non Conventional Fuels by Thermal Techniques
2.602.17 ----- Estimating Nonharvested Crop Residue Cover Dynamics Using Remote Sensing
2.602.18 ----- Activated Carbon from Waste Biomass
2.602.19 ----- Ethanol and Hydrogen Production with Thermophilic Bacteria from Sugars and Complex Biomass
2.602.20 ----- Analysis of Process Configurations for Bioethanol Production from Microalgal Biomass
2.602.21 ----- Microbial Conversion of Biomass - A Review of Microbial Fuel Cells
2.602.22 ----- Methods for Structural and Parametric Synthesis of Bio-Economic Models
2.606 ----- 16.410 ----- 2 ----- PLASMA - BIOFEEDSTOCK FROM GARBAGE (MSW) PYROLYZERS
2.607 ----- 17.602 ----- 2016 Billion-Ton Biofuels Report
2.608 ----- 17.603 ----- Why stop at carbon capture storage - Think CO2 utilization
2.609 ----- 17.604 -- KEY --- Plasma Torch Processing, St Lucie Project
2.610 ----- 17.605 ----- PLASCO - Plasma Biomass Municipal Waste
2.611 ----- 17.606 ----- Plasma Gasification - Clean Renewable Fuel Through Vaporization Of Waste
2.612 ----- 17.607 ----- Plasma Gasification to form Synthesis Gas
2.613 ----- 17.608 ----- Clean Energy with Plasma Gasification – NRG
2.614 ----- 17.609 ----- Gasification News – HartENERGY
2.615 ----- 17.610 ----- Plasma - Gasification of Sludge and Biosolids
2.616 ----- 17.611 ----- Plasma Arc Recycling
2.617 ----- 17.612 ----- Plasma Arc Flow - Waste to Energy
2.618 ----- 17.613 ----- Gasification of municipal solid waste in the Plasma Gasification Melting Process
2.619 ----- 17.614 ----- Plasma Gasification as a Viable Waste-to-Energy Treatment of Municipal Solid Waste
2.620 ----- 17.615 ----- Waste Gasification by Thermal Plasma - A Review – Alter
2.621 ----- 17.616 -- KEY --- Wood Gasification - Plasma - Derived Biomass – 2013
2.622 ----- 17.617 ----- Plasma Torch - Westinghouse - Coal Pyrolyzation
2.623 ----- 17.618 ----- Depleted Oil Siemens Heavy Oil Burning Gas Turbine
2.625 ----- 17.620 -- KEY --- Process and technological aspects of municipal solid waste gasification. A Review
2.626 ----- 17.621 ----- Biomass Gasification 101 - Slide Show
2.627 ----- 17.622 ----- Plasma Gasification - Clean Renewable Fuel Through Vaporization Waste
2.628 ----- 17.623 ----- Bubbling Fluidized Gasifier
2.629 ----- 17.624 ----- Gas and the energy transition
2.630 ----- 17.625 ----- The Shale Gas Shock – GWPF
2.631 ----- 18.002 ----- Coal-to-Liquids Technology
2.632 ----- 18.003 ----- Gas-to-Liquids Technology - Stranded Gas Equipment
2.633 ----- 18.004 ----- Nuclear Supplying Process Heat
2.634 ----- 18.005 ----- PLASMA TORCH Processing, St Lucie Project
2.635 ----- 18.006 ----- Affordable, Low-Carbon Diesel Fuel from Domestic Coal And Biomass
2.636 ----- 18.007 ----- Molten Salt Oxidation - A reassessment
2.637 ----- 18.008 ----- The Gasification of Various Coal In Molten Salts
2.638 ----- 18.009 ----- The Kellogg Coal Gasification Process
2.639 ----- 18.010 ----- Mass and Heat Balance for Coal Gasification
2.640 ----- 18.011 ----- Kellogg Coal Gasification Process - F-T Archives
2.641 ----- 18.012 ----- Fischer-Tropsch Fuels from Coal and Biomass - Good Flow Charts
2.642 ----- 18.013 ----- LTFCB - Liquid Transportation Fuels from Coal and Biomass – BOOK
2.643 ----- 18.014 ----- LTFCB - Technological Status, Costs, and Environmental Impacts – SLIDES
2.644 ----- 18.015 ----- Conversion of Biomass and Coal to Liquid Transportation Fuels
2.645 ----- 18.016 ----- H-Coal
2.646 ----- 18.017 ----- Claus Sulphur Recovery Options
2.647 ----- 18.019 ----- Co-Firing of Biomass with Coal - Constraints and Role of Biomass Pre-Treatment
2.648 ----- 18.020 ----- Affordable, Low-Carbon Diesel Fuel from Domestic Coal and Biomass
2.649 ----- 18.021 ----- Coal & Biomass Co-Conversion to Transportation Fuels - MSH Slides
2.650 ----- 18.022 ----- Upgrading of Fischer-Tropsch Products to Produce Diesel
2.651 ----- 18.023 ----- Early Efforts to Upgrade Fischer-Tropsch Reaction Products
2.652 ----- 18.035 ----- Plasma Arc Gasification of Municipal Solid Waste
2.653 ----- 19.302 ----- Introduction to Biofuels
2.654 ----- 19.303 ----- Pyrolysis of Woody Material
2.665 ----- 19.314 -- KEY --- Thermal Plasma Gasification of Biomass
2.666 ----- 19.315 ----- Thermal Plasma Generators with Water Stabilized Arc
2.667 ----- 19.316 -- KEY --- Major Work --- Progress In Biomass and Bioenergy Production
2.668 ----- 28.709 ----- PLASCO - Plasma Biomass Municipal Waste
2.669 ----- 28.700 ---------- SEWAGE and GARBAGE to VEHICLE FUELS - Municipal Dry Sewage Sludge
2.670 ----- 28.701 ----- Study On Sewage Sludge Gasification - Fluidized Bed Dryer
2.671 ----- 28.702 ----- Sewage Sludge Gasification
2.672 ----- 28.703 ----- Sewage Sludge - A Fascinating Feedstock For Clean Energy
2.673 ----- 28.704 ----- Agricultural Waste
2.674 ----- 28.705 ----- DC Doesn't Let Waste go to Waste - Sewage for Cogeneration
2.675 ----- 28.710 ----- Garbage In - MegaWatts Out - Plasma Anoxic Gasification
2.677 ----- 28.712 ----- US 2012 Municipal Solid Waste – Garbage
2.678 ----- 28.713 ----- Sludge From A Sewage Treatment Plant As A Feasible Source Of Energy
2.679 ----- 59.901 ----- Determination of total organic carbon (TOC) in waste, Sludges and sediments
2.680 ----- 59.903 ----- Plasma Gasification - Clean Renewable Fuel Through Vaporization Of Waste
2.681 ----- 59.904 ----- Carbon Dioxide - A new material for energy storage
2.682 ----- 59.905 ----- Production of Syngas via Methane Reforming in Atmospheric Pressure Carbon Dioxide Microwave Plasma
2.683 ----- 59.906 ----- Plasma Gasification to form Synthesis Gas
2.684 ----- 59.907 ----- Clean Energy with Plasma Gasification – NRG
2.685 ----- 59.908 ----- Gasification News – HartENERGY
2.686 ----- 59.909 ----- Availability and cost for cellulosic feedstocks for bio-based fuels and chemicals
2.687 ----- 59.910 ----- BioFuels RFS' biofuel requirements saved 589M tons of carbon emissions over past decade
2.688 ----- 59.911 ----- It's lights out at troubled Honua Power - Renewable power from trash
2.689 ----- 59.912 ----- PLASMA TORCH Processing, St Lucie Project
2.690 ----- Plasma-Arc Gasification For Waste Management
2.691 ----- Aitken County Plasma Gasification Study
2.692 ----- Analysis of Thermal Plasma-Assisted Waste-to-Energy Processes - nawtec18-3582
2.693 ----- Plasma Gasification - Integrated Facility Solutions For Multiple Waste Streams - 14VANNIEROP
2.694 ----- The Alter NRG-Westinghouse Plasma Gasification Process - Independent Waste Technology Report

 

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News Notes