Interesting set of links.
Scanning through them, I thought I found one that would give some process performance parameters, but did not find any yet. Maybe you can help point me to such information.
I am particularly interested in what is called the 'Exergy' of the process. But anything that provides a good indication of the raw input BTU is needed to produce a unit of material, as compared to the final product heating value in btu per unit, would be of interest.
For example only, there was a time, and still is for most processes, that to produce 1 liter of ethanol, it takes more energy than you get out of a liter of ethanol. Byt the time you get the seed, cultivate, plant, cost and power and water use for irrigation, harvesting, collection, transport, pre-process, process, ferment, heat, boil, distill, cool, collect and contain, the total energy used to do all that is why it is more than you ever hope to get out of it by burning it. Newer processes utlizing special feedstock has improved on that, but not by a tremendous amount. The result, is that as an alternate energy source, ethanol, while touted by many, is really a stupid thing to produce. If you want a farm program, or simply need to convert the energy from one form to another for a particular type of storage or use, well then there can be some merit. But from an energy supply standpoint it is a lousy and often a net-negative energy supply.
I would suspect P2O has some similar issues, but somewhat less complicated by the extent of the peripheral processes involved.
Suffice to say, I am not poo pooing it. Just wondering if the majority of the benefit is to simply transform the waste and not landfill it rather than being a good source of TRUE alternative energy. If so, that still does not make it bad, it just needs to be understood so its use is not misapplied and to avoid any net-negative energy scenarios or anything close to them.
Any honest input would be appreciated.
HS
