Laidlaw Energy Group, Inc.(fka LLEG)

[discreet_suffolk]

INTERESTING....Wood-drying system available soon in US
By Lisa Gibson


Posted December 21, 2009, at 2:37 p.m. CST

A wood-drying system that has been used in Japan for the past five years will be available in the U.S. market in early 2010.

Greenstone Holdings Inc.’s Green-Dri system was developed from a biotechnological concept based on Toshio Ito’s Nobel Prize-winning Bound Water Transfer Theory, according to the company. Ito, a professor at John’s Hopkins University School of Medicine, discovered channels that regulate and facilitate water molecule transport through cell membranes.

Wood and its cells survive and function as a living organism after it is cut and the Green-Dri system uses that natural characteristic to “sweat out” water through the channels without damaging the cells, according to the company. The system allows for lower temperatures and less energy than conventional kilns, while shortening the drying time.

The sauna-like structures have double-layer walls, ceilings and floors made out of wood. The wood construction is a key element to the process and because of a constant temperature setting, no scheduling is necessary and mixtures of different species and sizes of wood can be dried at the same time. Systems can range in size from 5-feet-long, 5-feet-wide and 5-feet-tall, to 100-feet-long, 20-feet-wide and 20-feet-tall, according to Sal Miwa, Greenstone CEO. Costs can be anywhere from $3,000 to more than $200,000, he added. The operating cost, however, is about 10 percent that of conventional drying kilns. “Our test unit, which has 2,000-board-feet capacity, cost only $17 for electricity cost for one month,” he said. “A major part of saw mill cost and energy consumption is drying process, so we would be saving lots of energy.”

The kilns come with sliding or swinging doors and feature a small entry for inspections. A protective housing is available for use in colder regions and the system can be fit for loading via forklift or rail track. The target markets for the product are saw mills, lumber yards, and manufacturers of sporting equipment, musical instruments, furniture, cabinets and others, Miwa said.

More than 30 units have been sold in Japan so far. Japan’s Imperial Housing Agency approved specified usage of wood dried by Green-Dri for the new earthquake-proof Central Cultural Center at Todaiji Temple in Nara, Miwa said. The wooden Buddhist temple, also the largest wooden building in the world, dates back to 782.


http://www.biomassmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=3343


since the Permit states :
d. Unit efficiency
Based on the annual average heat input rate provided by B&W at a fuel moisture content of 37.6% (932 MMBtu/hr) and a gross power output of 70 MW, the Facility will have a gross heat rate of approximately 13,300 Btu/kWh. This equates to a fuel to gross power output efficiency of approximately 25%. This efficiency will vary to some degree with fuel moisturecontent, as added heat input is required to vaporize water contained in fuels with higher moisture content than the design fuel. The efficiency may be further improved during more detailed design engineering.


The question:
Can we buy one of these and reduce the moisture enough to improve the efficiency of the plant? When the time comes to look at engineering regarding wood-drying. I think issuing shares to pay for this improvement might be worth it in the long run......Just My Opinion. . . . lets be the first to use one here in the USA.