process Whether to choose cofiring, gasification or direct combustion becomes a site specific decision, Irving says. He visited a 200-megawatt coal-fired plant in Lahti, Finland, that added a 40-megawatt thermal fluidized bed gasifier, which allowed them to burn peat, wood, tires and trash. “They take low Btu (British thermal unit) gas from the gasifier and blow that into their coal-fired boiler and turn it into electricity that way,” he says. There are a half a dozen gasifiers in different configurations continuing the work of creating a better system, according to Glenn Farris, president and CEO of Biomass Gas and Electric LLC. “We believe it’s the future of the biomass business,” says Farris who worked on the pyrolysis project at McNeil. Atlanta, Ga.based Biomass Gas and Electric took the first concrete steps in developing two pyrolysis-based power plants when it signed power agreements for plants in Tallahassee, Farris
The latest annual statistics analyzed by the Energy Information Administration show renewable power other than hydro grew 5 percent in 2005, compared with the previous year. Fla., and Forsyth County, Ga. Using advanced pyrolysis systems with combined-cycle turbines can generate electricity with 40 percent efficiency, he says, compared with direct combustion of biomass that generates power with efficiencies in the mid-20 percent. Florida State University in Tallahassee is starting a sustainable energy program to integrate hydrogen gas and fuel cell technologies with gasification. “These configurations might take the efficiency up to the 60 percent range,” he says. Biomass Gas and Electric is developing projects choosing whichever gasification technology works best for the situation, Farris says. The company is planning its first commercial application based on advanced pyrolysis gasification and steam reformation, to supply the city of Tallahassee with 38 megawatts of electricity for its municipal power system and 60 decatherms of methanated bio-
mass process gas for its natural gas pipeline. In Forsyth County, Biomass Gas and Electric will use an updraft gasifier to deliver 28 megawatts to the grid in a power contract with Georgia Power Co. The plant will be located next to a construction and demolition landfill which will supply clean woody waste to the gasifier. Farris points out that Georgia has more commercially managed forests than any other state. Because of the loss of pulp and paper production overseas, he says, “we have a surplus of that type of woody material.”
Biomass Power Grows Nationwide, renewable electrical power from sources other than hydroelectric dams is slowly but steadily growing. The latest annual statistics analyzed by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) show renewable
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