Encyclopedia Of Biomass Thermal Conversion
From the foreword by Dr Tom Reed:
In 1973-74 there was a brief shortage of oil in the U. S. and a perception that we needed to produce other forms of fuel. I became interested in alternate fuels (particularly methanol) at that time and in 1977 I moved to Golden, Colorado (from Massachusetts) to work at the newly formed Solar Energy Research Institute, SERI. (SERI has since evolved into the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL.) Initially we had no facilities, and so my first assignment was to edit a book on biomass gasification, assembling known data and existing processes and calling on experts in the field to write various chapters.
The result was the 3 volume report, A Survey of Biomass Gasification, published in July 1979 (SERI/TR-33-239) with 15 authors of the various chapters. I wrote the Excecutive summary and several chapters in the book and edited the remaining 375 pages. A team of mostly local experts from SERI and the Colorado School of Mines wrote 7 chapters on the quantities of biomass available, the properties and beneficiation of biomass, the thermodynamics and kinetics of thermal processes, and the pyrolysis of biomass. The third volume then surveyed the types of gasifiers available, a database of gasifiers then current, a closer look at 0 a number of systems then being developed, the economics of retrofitting with gasification, the production of fuels and chemicals from synthesis gas, governmental aids to commercialization, and recommendations for future R&D.
The report was very well received, and a commercial company, the Noyes Data Corporation republished the book in 1981 as a single volume with a new title: Biomass Gasification: Principles and Technology ISBN: 0-8156-0852-2 listing me as the editor. The book was out of print after a few years, and those lucky enough to have a copy of either first or second edition often call me with questions.
In the intervening 22 years I have used this book constantly as a source of biomass information, and received many requests for Xerox copies. I woke this morning with three questions in mind, went to this book and found the answers. Even though I have many other sources and have written a number of other books more specifically directed at gasification, I believe that this is the most concentrated source of information on both the principles and technology of biomass thermal processing - pyrolysis, gasification, and combustion - available. For this reason, I am happy to hereby republish it from the Biomass Energy Foundation Press. I look forward to having a shiny new copy, full size and spiral bound for easy reference on my birthday, January 2.
I apologize for the lack of an index, but the Table of Contents is an accurate list of where to find what you want. Sorry about the encyclopedic weight, but better than 3 loose volumes.
Full size (21 MB):
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://dev.driveonwood.com/library/encyclopedia-biomass/