None. The "tree huggers" and spotted owl fans will torpedo the whole plan as soon as somebody does the math and figures out how many acres per year you'd have to cut down...

The production process for torrefied pellets will probably not be based on wood feedstock. The preferred feedstock is perennial grasses such as Switchgrass and Giant King Grass.

What I would like to know is this: When you deduct all of the energy inputs for producing the feedstock, transporting it to the processor, and manufacturing the pellets, how may BTUs per acre does the entire process yield? Surely this obvious question has an answer.

It sounds like another case of promoters taking something which is suited for a small "niche market" and proclaiming it to be the next miracle cure to our energy supply situation. It reminds me of how the home biodiesel brewers sing the praises of used deep-fat fryer oil to power their cars -- that doesn't scale up too well either.

Last year, American Scientist published an article about how various proposals for new energy sources compare to the actual magnitude of the problem:

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/2011/3/global-energy-the-latest-infatuations

The text-book scientific approach would be to conduct test burns of the new fuel on a modified 2719 and/or 261 (ala 614/ACE3000) instead of simultaneous full-scale firing and running gear modifications. Successful firing mods would guarantee funding for the running gear design and refit.

(Note: This got lost in the other thread.)

Conversely they could initially keep the locomotive oil-fired and do the running gear & boiler modifications (apart from the firebox). Once the fine-tuning was accomplished with that, they could convert it to bio-coal firing.

This reminds us of one of the reasons steam was replaced by diesel. Each region burned a slightly different fuel. On the boiler end of things you needed custom design to adjust the grate area, furnace volume, and air flow vs a single out of the box locomotive that runs most anywhere. Not to mention the fuel, water, and ash handling vs simple diesel fuel.

The whole switchgrass/king grass/any kind of grass is a red herring if there ever was one. They are playing on suburbanites' impression that grass grows for free. It will have to be cultivated, fertilized, irrigated, and harvested just like any other crop, and at great cost. So the question still stands, in an AVERAGE growing year, lets say a 100mw plant, how many acres are required to make it sustainable-this should include 'farmers usage', processing, and transportation energy needs too.

Robert

OK, read back through the proposal as it was posted and I don't see any mention of starting switchgrass farms in it. Can you point it out to me please?

dave

There is nothing in the CSR modern locomotive proposal that says they will start switch grass farms. What does that have to do with the topic of this thread?

Robert said: "They are playing on suburbanites' impression that grass grows for free " in the context of a posting on switchgrass. Much like your turbines, I couldn't find any factual basis for his assertion in the proposal itself, and asked him to clarify. I think if we are accusing people of misleading the public, we shouldn't be misleading them ourselves in the process. Don't you agree?

dave

Dave,

I assume the proposal you are referring to is the Coalition for Sustainable Rail group’s proposal for converting the ATSF engine into a modernized, carbon neutral locomotive.

Neither this thread nor what Robert said about the perception that switch grass is free have anything to do with the CSR proposal. I believe that comment by Robert has merit, but that is just my opinion. In any case, switch grass is not part of the CSR proposal, but nobody said it was.

In another site liked to a post in this thread, it is said that the preferred biomass for production is switch grass or giant king grass. I then asked what the energy content is per crop acre of these grasses after converting them to torrefied fuel pellets.

The whole thing is kinda screwy and probably off-topic here. The website seems to indicate the main goal is a practical steam locomotive to use their new fuel. Other sources seem to indicate that the steam loco is just a playboy bunny to drape over the bio-pucks. I'm going with a personal theory that both of them are unproven and undeveloped, and want to know the most basic thing-assuming this meets it's goals, how many acres will have to switch to 24-7-365 to produce biomass to make this to begin with. I'm no farmer or rancher but I did stay in a holiday inn once, and I'm suspicious that the KW-per-acre-per-year on a conservative basis might be unrealistic.

Robert