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  1. arghdos
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    Interesting idea, particularly treating char as a carbon sink / value added product (i.e., fertilizer). Using pyrolosis likely resolves a lot of the issues you'd typically run into with fermented...

    Interesting idea, particularly treating char as a carbon sink / value added product (i.e., fertilizer). Using pyrolosis likely resolves a lot of the issues you'd typically run into with fermented bio-alcohols (e.g., the waste fiber issue touched on in the article, yields, large-scale production, etc.) as pyrolosis is pretty simple: remove O2, add heat, sit and wait for a few hours. Further, Steisdal is correct that Syngas is already a huge industry (this is what he's referring to w.r.t. " existing refineries and conversion units").

    The main concern I'd have regarding feasibility of this is the quality of the generated bio-oils. You tend to have to be pretty picky about your input waste streams for bio-reactors, otherwise the gas you get coming out of the back might have lots of nasty things in it, e.g., Siloxane, H2S, SO2/Nitrates etc. The statement:

    According to Stiesdal, there is enough “sustainable waste biomass” — that which is not used for food, clothing or any other value-creating purpose — to yield about a third of the world’s current energy consumption in the transport sector, or several times the world’s consumption for aviation purposes.

    probably needs a few asterisk's in it.

    3 votes