From Wood Chips to Electricity

By Chaney Ferguson
The Times of SWLA




If seeing is believing, then many Lake Area residents became believers in
biomass technology. Farmers, city officials, and even a local principal gathered at the McNeese Farm on June 18th to watch as switch grass was burned and converted into enough electricity to power lights.

“Basically we have a system that converts any carbon based biomass into energy,” said Heath Barnett, Ph.D. Chemistry.

That energy can take the form of electricity, liquid fuels, propane, diesel, or methanol. It can become heat to produce steam to provide heating purposes.

“So we can take in wood chips, switch grass, banana peels. Basically, if you can burn it in a bonfire we can run it. We can make a marshmallow based gas fire if we wanted to. It would burn and produce gas and we could turn it into energy,” said Barnett.

Skeptics believe it is either too difficult or not economically feasible.

Barnett says those reasons are a myth and not true at all. He does admit there are pros and cons, just like with any other technology.

“Today we are trying to get away from fossil fuels and 80% input of foreign oil, well this is one of the solutions we can have. We have tons of landfill waste, the wood industry is dying, and we are becoming a paperless society,” said Barnett.

Proponents of this technology believe it will provide America with cheaper energy prices.
Dr. John Sutherlin, Spokesman for Renewable International Fuels, LLC believes areas that are used to having power knocked out by hurricanes can benefit from the technology.

“You chop up some wood, power up the BTE unit and it produces electricity,” said Sutherlin.
“Imagine a unit like this working side by side with FEMA trying to restore our gulf coast after hurricanes Rita and Katrina. Instead of going and chipping up that wood and putting it into a landfill use it to re-power the city,” said Sutherlin.

There are a couple of limitations.

“You need to be in an area, obviously a rural setting is best, or if you are going to be in an urban setting something that isn’t congested. This is never going to be a unit that will be downtown in the middle of a city,” said Sutherlin.

“You want this where you can bring in the wood and have it automated where it is continuously feeding into the BTE, but that’s it,” said Sutherlin. “The limitations are getting your feedstock to the BTE, and the electricity you produce.”

Sutherlin said the reason they like producing electricity is because they can produce it as needed.
If you are producing a fuel you have to store it. With electricity it is an optimum system,” said Sutherlin.

Barnett said the technology has been around since World War II when the Germans used it to produce liquid fuel to power their war machine.

Now, as technology is constantly changing the same technology can be used as a clean renewable resource.

For more information check out Renewable International Fuels LLC website at www.stumptopump.com.