Biomass researcher works on pipelines for green goldAlberta is missing out on one of the simplest and most abundant fuel sources that exists on Canada’s fertile prairies, says a University of Alberta researcher. And the only real barrier to development is transportation, he says.
Working under Amit Kumar, the associate industrial research chair in energy and environmental systems engineering, Mahdi Vaezi is studying how best to pump biomass — in this case the waste from the processing of crops such as wheat or corn — directly from farmers to biorefineries through pipelines currently reserved for more traditional energy sources.
“There is no large scale bio-based facility operating in the world,” Vaezi said. “The main reason is because of the transportation and logistical issues.”
Vaezi has been testing the viability and economic feasibility of a biomass pipeline, formulating the dilution mixtures, monitoring fire hazards, assembling and reassembling pipes in search of clogs, and creating a technical picture of why biomass pipeline transportation needs to become common.
He is conducting his research in a custom-built closed-loop pipe 25 metres long and five centimetres in diameter. Vaezi has spent so much time in the lab that he can no longer hear the near-constant, deafening hum of the engines that pump his green gold in a way that might be just feasible enough to adopt.
edmontonjournalLargest biomass project of its kind underway in MOConstruction is underway on an $80 million renewable energy project that is said to be the largest biomass project of its kind by the developer Roeslein Alternative Energy, LLC (RAE).
Crews are currently installing impermeable covers on 88 existing lagoons to harvest biogas, or RNG, from Murphy-Brown of Missouri, LLC (MBM) -- the livestock production subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, Inc. The project utilizes manure from one of the biggest concentrations of finishing hogs in the Midwest to create several hundred million cubic feet of RNG annually for regional distribution.
Impermeable synthetic covers will be placed on existing nutrient treatment lagoons where barn scraper technology will deliver raw nutrients of livestock manure to covered lagoons. The covers turn the lagoons into anaerobic digesters, where naturally occurring microorganisms decompose the manure in an oxygen-free environment. Biogas rises to the top where it will be collected and cleaned of impurities. What remains is more than 98 percent methane with approximately the same chemical composition as natural gas that can be used for vehicle fuel or injected into the natural gas grid system. The indigestible solid residue can be used by local farmers as a natural fertilizer and the water can be safely used for irrigation.
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Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.