Replies to post #33815 on First American Scientific Corp. (fka FASC)

[Net-Man]

TRCPA - Dryness is probably a very relative term depending on where you live! :)

I recall reading some years ago that Covanta burns peach pits too as part of their biomass. What ever is handy. It would be interesting to know though what the energy improvement would be for varying parts of the world and the local biomass. The MWe coefficient that was published for the MF-777 has always intrigued me. I don't understand the calculation well enough to run the analysis to see where the BE is for the equipment. Most of the focus has simply been on how it is used to produce a fuel out of the EFB's that would otherwise become a problem. There must be some numbers available that analyze the overall cost to produce EFB pellets/briquettes for fuel; what is the efficiency comparison of EFB fuel compared to coal, oil, or gas for instance. Other than government intervention, why would anyone switch to KDS produced fuels.

As a coworker is fond of saying - is juice worth the squeeze? I think it has been shown to be just the case with the KDS, but it would help the cause to have a deeper analysis of the equipment and juxtapose that against other fuel sources. Having that in hand would make marketing the equipment easy work.

fwiw,

Net-Man

[Net-Man]

beischens - I have taken a little more time to consider your post from yesterday regarding moisture content. Water removal from biomass is one of the major selling points of the KDS. Each successive 1% reduction in water produces a roughly equivalent increase in the energy released when it is burned.

Each biomass source will have its own water content and clearly be an issue as to how effective the KDS is in drying the material. However, once the material is refined by a KDS, the torrefaction process from Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne changes the characteristics of the bio-fuel such that it becomes moisture resistant. That should significantly change the operating conditions for transportation and storage of the resulting fuel. At a minimum, fuel could then be processed and stored for longer periods of time and presumably be less susceptible to mold and caking. Longer storage periods would also imply that larger stores of fuel could be stockpiled and perhaps even in the open versus covered areas/warehouses further reducing storage costs and more importantly reducing or eliminating fuel shortages.

Biomass fuel shortages were a problem for Minnesota Power and was driven in large part to weather - forest harvesting stopped when the weather was bad. Being able to provide a constant flow of fuel would be a game changer I would think.

fwiw,

Net-Man