Biochar Manufacturers

[Ahmabeliever]

Char with chicken manure - charred together - or amended?

[cascadiamax]

Your post raises many questions. Can you share more details?

 

In what forest region of the states is the plant located? Is a specific plant manufacturer being used? Is that 30 tons per day (TPD)? How is the pyrolysis gas collected? Where is the char sold?

 

Char from wood waste, then mixed with chicken manure - the method Christoph Steiner reports from Terra Preta test plots in Slash and Char. The added crop value from this approach is thought to be from the enhanced food (manure) and shelter (char) environment for microbes to thrive and support the soil foodweb.

 

The priority foremost priority seems to be removing CO2 out of the atmosphere. It can sit as char in a salt cave for a thousand years if necessary. If someone will pay $200/ton for that, great. Otherwise, farm and forest soils are a most sensible path for char as long as the material cost is low enough to stimulate use.

 

There are many reports of amazing results using EM with soils. Few of them, if any, have been validated scientifically in the US for general Ag production, when EM is used alone or with other chemical fertilizers. Proper tests need to be done. To do amazing things, microbes need food, shelter, air and water just like we do. A type of Bokashi mix for soils may be more appropriate than straight EM, or EM with char. That suggests the critters will fare better in intensive organic or biodynamic types of cultivation than the kind of rural agriculture best known in the San Joaquin or Willamette valleys.

[Ahmabeliever]

I'll answer what I'm allowed the company is working to secure their investment before releasing too much detail.

 

They're in california working among redwoods. They're based in New Zealand. They're also in Africa working on stove/char/water purification units.

 

I believe the units will sell for $45 000 US. They do 30 tons weight of wet wood per day. Will work with leaf litter manure etc up to large pieces (didn't get diameter sorry) of wood.

 

The nitrogen from chicken manure would certainly benefit the char alleviating the observed 'nutrient draw' char has on soils with poor OM. Using waste products like this has my greenie stamp of approval for common sense.

 

On microbes and soil biology in relation to char - you are not only preaching to the choir, you're preaching to a raving apostle.

[erich]

"To do amazing things, microbes need food, shelter, air and water just like we do. A type of Bokashi mix for soils may be more appropriate than straight EM, or EM with char. "

 

As one subscriber to the biochar list put it;

 

"Microbes like to sit down when they eat"

[erich]

October 28, 2008

 

U.S. Department of Agriculture to Evaluate CQuest™ Biochar

 

Non-Funded Cooperative Agreement Signed

The objective of the biochar research is to quantify the effects of amending soils with CQuest™ Biochar on crop productivity, soil quality, carbon sequestration and water quality. Field trials will involve incorporation of biochar in replicated field plots and on-farm strip trials with monitoring of crop yields, soil quality, water quality, emissions of greenhouse gasses, and soil carbon sequestration. Laboratory studies will involve amending soils with biochar and quantifying changes in soil quality and microbial activity during incubations.

 

Biochar will be shipped from Dynamotive's West Lorne facility to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) locations in Iowa, South Carolina, Idaho, Washington, and other ARS locations. Initial results are expected during the 2009 growing season.

 

Dynamotive Energy Systems | The Evolution of Energy

[erich]

Biochar Manufacturers About Sustainable Power Corp.

 

Sustainable Power Corp. is an international green energy total service provider focused on environmentally safe production of Vertroleum® biofuels and power generation. The company has the exclusive rights to develop and manage a portfolio of green energy plants utilizing a renewable fuel source able to be produced from non-food feed stock. For more information please visit Sustainable Power Corp. - Home.

 

The Rivera Process is a method developed by John H. Rivera to convert almost any form of biomass into three very important products - liquid fuel, gaseous fuel, and biochar. This type of process is particularly important in today's world. Because global warming is caused by the use of fossil fuels which increase the CO2 levels in our atmosphere, it is important to replace fossil fuels with biofuels that do not increase CO2 levels. It is also important to develop technologies that remove CO2 from the atmosphere and store it permanently in the earth.

 

Sustainable Power Corp. - Rivera Process

[erich]

OOps.........I didn't do my do dilegence on Mr. Rivera, and got my comeuppance

from the Biochar list;

 

Behalf Of Brian Hans

Sent: Thursday, December 25, 2008 3:29 AM

To: [email protected]

Subject: Re: [biochar] Sustainable Power Corp........The Rivera Process

 

 

 

USSE is a scam.

 

 

 

I have personally talked with this joker years ago and he had the balls to try and talk big science over me. He was making up all these large words and fantastic ideas and trying to string them together into something he had even more balls to call 'Rivera Process' after his own name.

 

 

 

Stuff like 'nanobacteria divide in a vacuum and that is why they have more mass in the end of the process than they do in the beginning of the process.' If I remember right, they started with a bushel of soy which is 60lbs and ended up with like 80lbs of mass, all of that 80lbs being sellable energy products ofcourse. He even had the nerve to tell me that the Dominican Republic Gov was heavly invested in him.

 

 

 

Finally the SEC got wind and shut them down. Here is a link.

 

SEC Claims Biofuel a Fraud | Investor's Watchblog

[erich]

Biochar Engineering builds biochar production equipment. We design, develop, and deploy industrial equipment that uses waste biomass, such as agricultural or forestry waste, to produce biochar. According to NASA climate scientist Dr. James Hansen, biochar is one of the key ways to remove net carbon from the atmosphere. Biochar increases soil fertility and decreases net carbon in the atmosphere. The company is currently producing small first-generation field-scale units for research in agricultural soil fertility, mine tailings reclamation and forest management. In the future these will continue to be scaled-up to shipping container-sized systems, and ultimately to large fixed installations for biochar based fertilizer production. BEC's technology mimics nature's intelligence to create valuable co-products, ultimately including biochar and process heat with or without electricity or liquid fuels.

BioChar Engineering :: Home

 

 

Their Beta product; "BiocharPlus" , $0.50 / Lb, (which has a name easily confused with CarbonChar Group's "Biochar+")

 

http://www.biocharplus.com/

[erich]

SynGest, Inc......20 TPD of bio-char new

 

 

(January 21, 2009) – SynGest, Inc. announced that its venture to manufacture bio-ammonia from biomass will be launched in the state of Iowa. Three years from now, when SynGest’s plant goes into operation, Iowa’s renewable corn stover (stalks, cobs, etc.) will help replenish its soil with organic ammonia and bio-char.

 

SynGest’s facility will process 450 tons per day (TPD) of field-dried stover to yield 150 TPD of ammonia plus 20 TPD of bio-char, a valuable soil conditioning agent. Stover will be gathered from 75,000 acres on nearby farms, while the bio-ammonia and bio-char will serve to fertilize 500,000 acres under corn. Depending upon local ammonia prices, the plant will generate annual revenues between $25 and $35 million.

 

SynGest - A BioEnergy Company

[Freerangefarmer]

Erich,

 

Could you please be so kind as to post some links to the research done at Virginia Tech?

 

Thanks,

 

FRF

 

 

I spoke with Jon Nilsson of the CarbonChar Group.

 

"Biochar+" is available now only with orders of four pallets ( 4 tons )

 

40 - 50# bags / pallet @ $50 per bag = $2000 / ton

 

He said the 2008 trials at Virginia Tech showed a 46% increase in yield of tomato transplants grown with just 2 - 5 cups (2 - 5%) "Biochar+" per cubic foot of growing medium.

 

 

An idea whose time has come | Carbon Char Group

[erich]

Research Results for CHARGROW | Carbon Char Group

[erich]

German TP production

The world’s first demonstration facility for the large scale production of Amazonian “dark soil” is under construction in Hengstbacherhof, Germany. Dark soil, also known as terra preta,

 

German Company Unlocks Ancient Secrets of Amazon “Dark Soil” : CleanTechnica

 

 

 

Barley Biochar;

In the process of developing winter barley as an ethanol feedstock, the USDA Agricultural Research Service’s Eastern Regional Research Center, Wyndmoor, Pa., and its partners realized that biomass byproducts generated in the process can be used to manufacture biomass-derived fuels and coproducts.

 

The resulting barley straw, hulls and the ethanol coproduct distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) can be used to make bio-oil and biochar through pyrolysis, according to Kevin Hicks, research leader at the Crop Conversion Science & Engineering Research Unit at the ERRC. The bio-oil can be used as boiler fuel today, and with some improvements, could someday be used by petroleum refineries to make drop-in transportation fuels such as green gasoline and diesel, according to Akwasi Boateng, ERRC pyrolysis team leader. Biochar is a carbon-rich product that can be used to improve soil fertility and to sequester carbon in the soil.

 

 

Ethanol production from winter barley generates useful byproducts - Biomass Magazine

 

 

ARS

Sustainable Corn Production Supports Advanced Biofuel Feedstocks

By Ann Perry

November 24, 2009

 

Researchers worldwide are trying to economically convert cellulosic biomass such as corn stover into "cellulosic ethanol." But Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have found that it might be more cost-effective, energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable to use corn stover for generating an energy-rich oil called bio-oil and for making biochar to enrich soils and sequester carbon.

 

 

Sustainable Corn Production Supports Advanced Biofuel Feedstocks / November 24, 2009 / News from the USDA Agricultural Research Service

[erich]

CHECH OUT Jim Mason's All Power Labs,

The BEK+ 10kw Honda Gen-set , skid mounted

This is what Haiti needs all over the place

 

Cheers to Jim,

Erich

 

 

Feb 19-21: Next Workshop Weekend- 10kw Gasifier genset skid and BEK biochar maker - GEK Gasification Forum: Pushing wood gas beyond the Imbert

[erich]

Chip Energy Biomass Furnace

500 lb chips / day = 180,000 BTU / hr + 85lb Biochar / day

The price of chips and / or pellets would be more than off set by bagged char sales of $50 / day

500lb wood pellets cost = $40

500lb Hogfuel / wood chips = $10

In other words; Free Heat

Home

 

This to the Biochar list from Dr. Paul Anderson;

 

 

 

Dear Kelpie and all,

 

You seek a heat generation device at household or institutional sizes

that leaves the charcoal after pyrolysis in completed. You specify

pellets, but decent wood chips would also be a desirable fuel.

 

Such a device already exists, and is available to be incorporated into

projects that further its development and applications. (It is not

yet for public sale as a commercial product because the necessary

corporate structures and permits require further R&D and investments).

 

The device is the Chip Energy Biomass Furnace. See the basic info at:

Home

The unit shown is currently used daily for supplemental heating of

Paul Wever Construction Equipment, Inc (16,000 square feet industrial

space) in central Illinois. It produces approximately 180,000 Btu per

hour, is fully automated, and in a 24-hour period uses about 500

pounds of pellet fuel and produces about 85 pounds of biochar (17%

yield by weight of raw fuel). It can be adjusted to remove the char

faster, which would increase the biochar yield but reduce the

heat-per-pound delivered to the heat exchanger. The biochar is being

sold for 25 cents per pound to research institutions. All analytical

reports about the biochar properties have been highly favorable.

 

That furnace was developed with assistance from a US EPA SBIR grant of

$70,000 as a prospective replacement for the outdoor wood boilers. We

have documentation on the EPA project and the highly successful

outcome, including very favorable emissions tests. It can operate

unattended as long as there is a fuel supply and the biochar collector

is periodically emptied; control is by a PLC and an array of sensors

plus safety systems.

 

The unit is based on updraft gasification, as explained in the

published document--- "Micro-Gasification: What it is and why it

works." (Anderson, Reed and Wever, 2007):

http://www.hedon.info/docs/BP53-Anderson-14.pdf

 

It is scalable smaller (see the Chip Energy Biomass Grill at the same

website), and can be made larger with multiple gasifiers (but one

control system and fuel hopper) to approach one million Btu per hour,

and can be scaled larger as single units (a topic of current R&D).

 

The Chip Energy Biomass Furnace as currently configured sends its heat

to a flash boiler (avoiding the high pressure issues of steam

boilers). Entities that desire the heat to go to steam boilers simply

need to participate with that expertise in a project with Chip Energy.

Chip Energy welcomes any possible projects into which the Biomass

Furnace could be incorporated.

 

Discussion of the issues raised by Kelpie can be on this Listserv.

But business inquiries should be addressed off-list to Paul Wever at:

[email protected] or phone him at 309-965-2005

 

Paul

--Paul S Anderson, Ph.D. -- aka Dr. TLUD ("Dr. Tee-lud")

Biomass Energy Consultant with BEF, & Partner in Chip Energy.

Specialist in micro-gasification. Office & Res: 309-452-7072

Home

Construction Plans for the “Champion-2008†TLUD Gasifier Cookstove | BioEnergy Lists: Improved Biomass Cooking Stoves

[erich]

New Bagged Biochar;

 

Soil Reef Biochar Soil Enhancer, EcoTechnologies

Soil Reef Biochar, Soil Amendment, Green Gardening, Enhanced Plant Growth

 

 

Commodity Size Orders;

 

E-Char New Earth Renewable Energy

60 tons avaiable now.

E-Char | NewEarth Renewable Energy Inc.

 

Landscape Ecology,

Josiah Hunt will sell by the yard , ( Hawaii only, )

http://www.landscapeecology-hawaii.com/

 

Full List of Biochars on the Market;

Products | BioEnergy Lists: BioChar (or Terra Preta)