How does charcoal made out of poplar perform in a gasifier? its a very light wood…
l am planing to cut down some black alder. Those are alsow great. Grows fast, a bit denser wood than poplar, and when you cut one down it shots new trees from the roots. The only downside is it only grows around watter so not good for planting it on dry land. Wonder if it gives good charcoal…
l have read romans grew laburnum (cant find english translation) for goats and sheep, supposed do be very high in protein. It alsow fixes nitrogen in the grownd (black alder does too).
Kristijan, I don’t know if it’s relevant but up here I would vote for birch. It’s denst and fairly easy to handle. It’s char doesn’t cruch and turn to fines.
Down by the river where I have most of my land there are also lots of alder. It’s bulky but grows twice as fast. Extremly easy to split and contains almost no tar. Burns with a clean flame from start but produces quite a lot of ash.
I didn’t see anyone suggesting Box Elders. They grow like a weed around hear and are not used for lumber, but fire wood is fine. I could go look at the leaves on mine but I’m not any good at telling what a tree is— by leaves, bark, wood, or anything. TomC
“Acer negundo is a species of maple native to North America. Box elder, boxelder maple, ash-leaved maple, and maple ash are its most common names in the United States; in Britain and Ireland it is also known as ashleaf maple.”
I’d guess that, as a maple family, it’d work out pretty nicely.
Pepe, I planted some of those a long time ago and they did grow good. About five years ago I tried them again and they did not take. In the 80’s I saw their wood gas truck in Waterford. They also ran a co-gen for the green house.
We are banned, have high import tariffs, or trade limits for exporting cereal grains in 180 countries. We can’t even sell it to other countries for food unless they change their laws. We -were- paying for MTBE from Quatar as a fuel oxygenate as MTBE leaches into the groundwater at a very fast rate, and the price wasn’t very consistent. We were also paying for price support to help keep farmers in business or paying them not to grow crops. So we switched the subsidy to ethanol producers and they have improved their technology so we are slightly energy positive. And the bonus is the proteins left in the distillers grains are not covered under most cereal grain import restrictions, because it is processed and typically intended for animal feed supplements.
As far as trees, popular and the european birch can and are coppiced in colder regions in europe.
Right. The particulate emissions are what is the big knock against burning biomass, and coal. Coal is far worse because of the heavy metals, but biomass is on the list too because of air quality. In California, they are shutting down some of the older biomass generation units because of their particulate emission laws.
Bon fires are open fires and emit far more particulates and have a more incomplete burn then what most people are doing here. Not to mention a lot of people who have open fires don’t think twice about throwing plastic into the fires which the chlorinated plastics are turn into some really nasty crap if it is burned which is initially why they started cracking down on burner barrels, incinerators, etc.
In developing or 3rd world countries, the open fire is how they cook. There are some efforts to get them to change their habits, and thus the rise of the “rocket stoves” and such to reduce pollution as well as use less fuel.
Does not seem to be a fair way to present the "total cost " of some of these methods, such as solar or wind, as your examples are the overall cost of building the methodologies ( i.e.: solar panels etc) but compared to only 100 units of energy output, where the solar panels will produce for a very long time without producing a bit of co2 from being put on line at day 1. However, that is not to say that gasification isn’t critically important as a practical back-up power production method (albeit with far more user-required participation) for local/homestead use when the sun isn’t recharging the batteries.
euh Robin…
Those are the numbers per each 100 units… no joke, so if you multiply the energy units, then also the Co2 units increase with the same factor,
Sorry to be responding so late. I would say short rotation, small diameter willow is the best potential biomass crop for gasification in temperate zones.
On paper hybrid poplar performs better, but in actual practice it often doesn’t meet expectations. I suspect that is due to its need for nitrogen. It needs quite good land. Hybrid poplar has been developed to fully perform only under exceptional conditions much like modern field crops that only reach full potential with soil fertility additions. I suspect that also hybrid poplar may not form effective symbiosis with mycorrhizae existing in the soil, being effectively an alien species, a man made creation.
It is my observation that willow grows almost equally well on poor soil, hinting at good symbiotic activity.
Willow is propagated very easily lending itself to thick field planting. If intercropped with a legume like clover or alfalfa artificial inputs should be limited to some mineral supplements. Small diameter willow harvesting should be very amenable to standard agricultural practice and equipment. Standard sickle bar mowers will easily cut small stems, where it will readily dry, far quicker than other wood. Once cut and dry it could be baled or bundled. The resulting wood will be readily chopped with minimal energy into short length material for gasification or central heating systems.
Once established willow is quite tolerant of cutting to the ground. I believe I read that established stands can be expected to last decades under intensive harvesting. Also, the rotation between harvests will be very short, between 1 and 3 years. Considering all the above I believe that willow will significantly outperform other temperate biomass crops in terms of energy inputs for maintenance and harvesting and processing, and pounds of woody material extracted over time.
Willow is one of the trees that can be coppiced (cut off and will regrow) and grows fast. I have seen biomass research for it. It grows fast, but typically requires a LOT of water, and takes longer to dry out. I also don’t think it has a strong enough root system for heavier clay soils. The root system grows out instead of down thus it doesn’t penetrate the clay pan. The wood itself is fibrous instead of straight grained.
Popular has a stronger root system and can penetrate heavier clay soils and penetrate the clay pan which has been packed down from row crops so weaker root systems can go deeper. It is a benefit when you switch back to row crops, or wish to improve the land for better hardwood growth later.
You can intercrop with both, but I don’t think it is done very often unless you are doing like a 10 year growth stand. Eventually the clover gets shaded out.
Willow actually has a growth hormone you can use for cuttings in the bark. I think black willow is especially high in it. But if you grow a lot of cutting, you can extract it and use that instead of buying the commercial stuff. Honey supposedly works well too.
Paulownia actually grows faster but it doesn’t work well in the northern climates. I think Wayne said he was going to try to grow it.
Switchgrass gives you more biomass, and it is drought resistant.
There are a couple of others like bamboo, and another tree that just go nuts but are more for other parts of the world and/or extremely hard to keep under control.
The types of willow I have in mind are quite wet soil tolerant, wet to well drained, and seem to do well in clay soil. I have observed that often quite poor soil will grow excellent trees, which has to be due to symbiotic relationships in the soil microbiome.
The type of intercropping I envision is to plant the willow in strips, and in between legume / hay. Otherwise the willow stubble would likely wreck ordinary tractor tires. Also the willow would rapidly crowd out interplanted forage.
