Pelletized Fuel Solution
The Energy Crisis
The end of the fossil fuel era is fast approaching. Our civilization has been spoiled for well over 100 years with inexpensive fossil fuels that have carried us through the industrial revolution.
Engineers and scientists around the globe estimate earth’s oil supply at 35 years or less. Global warming is one of the unexpected consequences of our reliance on fossil fuels.
We now know that we are damaging our atmosphere with excessive carbon dioxide and our earth has a limited capacity for such pollution. Couple the dwindling oil reserves and global warming with escalating energy demand of a developing population; it becomes very clear that we need an alternative solution to our energy consumption.
We must find renewable, sustainable energy options. Extensive study has concluded that there is no one single solution. Multiple solutions will be needed. Among them is the use of biomass fuel.
What is Biomass fuel?
Biomass fuel can be defined as a source of energy grown from the earth. Corn, switchgrass,
hemp, wood and wood by-
There are two major advantages of biomass fuel over conventional fossil fuel. The first is that this type of fuel has a much faster regeneration cycle, so fast that biomass fuels are considered a renewable energy source. The second advantage is that biomass fuels are considered carbon neutral. This means that only carbon dioxide consumed while growing is released in combustion. Hydrocarbon based fuels are releasing carbon dioxide which has been accumulated and stored for millions of years, creating a net increase of carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere.
In today’s industrial world, there are many opportunities to use “waste products” to manufacture biomass fuel at a minimal cost.
Pelletized Fuel Solution
We are all accustomed to the convenience in our use of traditional energy resources.
Therefore, many researchers have been working on ways to convert solid biomass fuels to gas and liquids so that this same convenience can be maintained. Unfortunately, this conversion process is energy intensive, reducing the carbon neutral benefit that biomass provides.
For energy used as heating for homes, business and agriculture, solid biomass in the form of small pellets provides an ideal compromise of energy efficiency and convenience.
The pellets are handled in bulk by auger systems and delivered automatically to heaters by computer controlled metering devices. This reduces the handling required and maintains the carbon neutral benefits of the biomass.
Whatever the biomass feedstock, the pellet manufacturing process is designed to produce pellets with consistent physical properties. Shape, density, moisture content and most importantly energy content are maintained when forming pellets. This uniformity enables pellet furnaces to maintain precise control of burn efficiency. With the exception of corn and woodchips, efficiency is simply not achievable through raw biomass combustion. Too many uncontrolled variables exist, namely density and moisture level, which prevents an efficient conversion of energy in this state.
Small, uniform, consistent pellets enable low cost transportation, storage and spill
recovery. Pellet fuels are non-
