Gas to wood chips offers clean green energy securityFriday 4 Nov 2011 In the wake of the rupture of the northern pipeline from the Maui gas field in New Zealand, major industries, hotels, hospitals and large schools in the central North Island should be seriously considering forest residues as an energy source, say forest owners.Both the government and Fonterra are carrying out post-mortems on the security of energy supplies. Fonterra says it will be looking at all its options after 15 of its northern milk processing plants had to shut down because of the gas outage. Forest Owners Association senior policy analyst Glen Mackie says vast quantities of forest residue, including branches, reject logs and stumps are available – a by-product of the normal forest harvesting cycle. At present, the burning of wood chips involves conventional boiler technology. However, wood gasification is just round the corner. EECA (the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority), Waiariki Institute of Technology and Wellington company Windsor Engineering are working on a pilot plant in Rotorua, using technology developed in Norway. This involves burning wood in an atmosphere low in oxygen to generate syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The objective is to develop a highly automated process for generating syngas so that it can be used in existing industrial heat plants and boilers as a direct substitute or back-up for fossil gas from the Maui field. Although gasification is not a new technology, until now the fuelling process has not been automated. Wood gasification allows biofuels with higher moisture and ash content to be burnt, with no smoke and minimal residues. It is also more efficient, burning less fuel for a given thermal output. Source: NZFOA |
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