- Jul 19, 2006
- 306
If Not US, Wood Europe?
http://gtalumni.org/Publications/magazine/sum90/res.html
After investing $4.5 million to make biomass oil from wood scraps, the United States may be forced to sell the technology abroad, Dr. Daniel J. O'Neil warns.
As director of the Energy and Materials Sciences Laboratory at Georgia Tech, O'Neil encouraged the development of a patented biomass conversion process known as "entrained flow pyrolysis."
Non-polluting and economically practical, the process is believed to be the world's most efficient biomass conversion system, yielding up to 60 percent oil on a dry basis (72 percent on a wet basis), from wood scraps and other agricultural refuse. Further, the process is simple and operates at relatively low temperatures. Earlier biomass technology, also developed at Georgia Tech, produces roughly 30 percent oil.
And yet, O'Neil reports, U.S. manufacturers have expressed little interest in the technology, despite rising domestic oil prices which make the Georgia Tech process commercially attractive. Europeans are more highly motivated to perfect new energy technologies since they pay about $42 per barrel for oil--twice the U.S. price, he notes. O'Neil says Georgia Tech has discussed a technology transfer with several European organizations in Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Spain.
"This technology will probably be commercialized by a foreign entity," O'Neil says. "Five years from now, we'll probably end up buying U.S. technology back from a foreign-owned company. That's the irony."
What makes the Georgia Tech process so efficient? In a conventional biomass conversion system, O'Neil explains, wood scraps move slowly through a large, cross-sectional reactor, producing large quantities of charcoal. To harvest more oil and less charcoal, Tech researchers modified the process by pushing finely-ground wood particles rapidly through a high-temperature reactor.
Since the wood produces oil as a primary product and the oil has little time to degrade into gases or charcoal, O'Neil says, roughly 60 percent has been converted into biomass oil, which is suitable for use in industrial heaters, boilers, or kilns. The technique also generates lesser quantities of valuable charcoal and low-BTU gas. In the future, O'Neil predicts the process will be improved to produce gasoline and specialty chemicals.
If half of the unused wood residues produced annually in the U.S. were converted in a Georgia Tech system operating at just 40 percent yield, O'Neil says, about 98 billion tons of biomass oil--the equivalent of 412 million barrels of crude petroleum--could be produced.”
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http://gtalumni.org/Publications/magazine/sum90/res.html
After investing $4.5 million to make biomass oil from wood scraps, the United States may be forced to sell the technology abroad, Dr. Daniel J. O'Neil warns.
As director of the Energy and Materials Sciences Laboratory at Georgia Tech, O'Neil encouraged the development of a patented biomass conversion process known as "entrained flow pyrolysis."
Non-polluting and economically practical, the process is believed to be the world's most efficient biomass conversion system, yielding up to 60 percent oil on a dry basis (72 percent on a wet basis), from wood scraps and other agricultural refuse. Further, the process is simple and operates at relatively low temperatures. Earlier biomass technology, also developed at Georgia Tech, produces roughly 30 percent oil.
And yet, O'Neil reports, U.S. manufacturers have expressed little interest in the technology, despite rising domestic oil prices which make the Georgia Tech process commercially attractive. Europeans are more highly motivated to perfect new energy technologies since they pay about $42 per barrel for oil--twice the U.S. price, he notes. O'Neil says Georgia Tech has discussed a technology transfer with several European organizations in Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Spain.
"This technology will probably be commercialized by a foreign entity," O'Neil says. "Five years from now, we'll probably end up buying U.S. technology back from a foreign-owned company. That's the irony."
What makes the Georgia Tech process so efficient? In a conventional biomass conversion system, O'Neil explains, wood scraps move slowly through a large, cross-sectional reactor, producing large quantities of charcoal. To harvest more oil and less charcoal, Tech researchers modified the process by pushing finely-ground wood particles rapidly through a high-temperature reactor.
Since the wood produces oil as a primary product and the oil has little time to degrade into gases or charcoal, O'Neil says, roughly 60 percent has been converted into biomass oil, which is suitable for use in industrial heaters, boilers, or kilns. The technique also generates lesser quantities of valuable charcoal and low-BTU gas. In the future, O'Neil predicts the process will be improved to produce gasoline and specialty chemicals.
If half of the unused wood residues produced annually in the U.S. were converted in a Georgia Tech system operating at just 40 percent yield, O'Neil says, about 98 billion tons of biomass oil--the equivalent of 412 million barrels of crude petroleum--could be produced.”
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