Geothermal Vs. Biomass

Richard Ha writes:

How Geothermal would work:

• Drill
• Bring up steam
• Turn turbine
• Make electricity
• Put in electric wires

A 35-acre footprint makes 25 megawatts/hour.

No emissions, and no fossil fuels are used to produce electricity.

Geothermal costs approximately 11 cents per kilowatt hour.

How Biomass would work:

• 50 to 60 big dump trucks all day long, seven days per week, hauling firewood
• Four hundred dump trucks per week bringing firewood from 20 miles away
• Burn the firewood
• Boil the water
• Spin a turbine
• Make electricity

A 20-acre footprint generation plant, with a 10- to 20,000-acre footprint firewood forest, produces 25 megawatts/hour.

CO2 comes out of the stack. All the trucks, harvest machinery, chippers, the planting and fertilizer use fossil fuels.

Biomass costs approximately 18 cents per kilowatt hour.
 
Farmer-grown bio-diesel:
 
Farmers are not interested in growing biofuels. They went to HECO’s meetings three years ago, and HECO would not say how much they would pay farmers.

Likely they did not know themselves. All they knew was that the farmers would do it cheaply.

NOT!

Farmers are practical – they figured it out and so they never attended another meeting. Here is how they did it:
 
Farmers know that one barrel of oil weighs approximately 286 pounds. And if oil is $80 per barrel, each pound of oil is worth 28 cents/pound.

Obviously, farmers knew they would get less. How much less?
 
If it takes four pounds of stuff to squeeze out one pound of liquid, the farmer cannot make more than 7 cents/lb. for the stuff they grow. It does not matter what the stuff is.

Farmers figured this out after the first meeting. It did not take a task force or field trials to figure this out, but nobody bothered to ask the farmers what they thought until just recently.
 
The conclusion: Forget about small farmers growing biofuels. It is not going to happen for 7 cents/lb.

Out of curiosity, how much would oil have to be for farmers to farm biofuels? Let’s say the farmer would do it for 28 cents/lb. or four times the 7 cents/lb. rate. That means the price signal would have to be four times the $80/barrel price of oil, or $320/barrel. Farmers might grow a biofuel crop if the price of oil was $320 per barrel.
 
Maybe HECO is intending that the rate payer – you – would subsidize that cost. I am absolutely against that when we have the option of cheap geothermal.

Comments

[Gary Petrison]

Exactly --- the math just doesn't work. All of the opponents of Hu Honua are wasting their time complaining about increased traffic and the like --- instead, they should be demanding specifics regarding biofuel stock viability and long-term sustainability.

[Chalie Maas]

Not all Biomass is the same. Downdraft gasification uses 2 lbs of biomass for every KW. Place small units at the source and tie into the grid. High bred clumping Bamboo can yield 50 tons per acre. A self sustaining program.

[Olin Lagon]

I wonder if what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico would somehow factor into the cultural debate about geothermal. What are worst case scenarios for drilling geothermal wells?

[Richard ha]

Although respectful, I am not qualified to weigh in on the cultural debate. As far as worse case scenarios, I asked these questions -Earthquakes? They are not likely to damage the well, since the whole profile moves back and forth together. Many earthquakes in the last twenty years.
Lava coming up the well? They did hit lava several years ago. The lava came up a few feet then solidified, because the side walls were cool. There are no explosive gases. These were the main questions I asked and Don Thomas--geologist at UH answered to my satisfaction. Mahalo, Richard

[Richard ha]

Aloha Chalie:
Sounds intriquing. Is there a way of harvesting the bamboo in a labor efficent way? My friend did intensive cultivation of california grass for hay. He got 22 dry tons per acre. But, to get this he needed to apply 1,800 lbs of fertilizer annually. Ten years ago, he got $50 a bale. Which is the equivalent of $200 per ton. Today, its $300 per ton. Second generation biofuels need to get their feedstock between $40 and $60 ton to make everything work. Farmers aren't going to sell at $40 to $60 if they can get $300 per ton. Was it dry tons you were referring to? Aloha
Richard

[Chalie Maas]

Aloha Richard:

Bamboo program is via drip irrigation to control fertiliser, water etc. It has been reported to me that the cost is around $1,800 per acre per year. Under intensive cultivation with the population of 1000 plants per acre, the biomass yield starts from 3rd year @ 30 tonnes per acre and increases to 40 tonnes in the next year and stabilizes at 50 tonnes from 5th year onwards. Due to planting of genetically superior clones and following the precision farming practices, the biomass yield of bamboo is so high that the area required for energy plantation is reduced to 1/3rd, in other words biomass available from 3 acres from regular plantation can be obtained from 1 acre of energy plantation of bamboo. A well grown bamboo plantation is able to sequester close to 60 tonnes of carbon-di-oxide in every acre annually which is 60 CER for carbon trading.

[Paul Rose]

Hemp and giant reed grow 25 tons per acre with no fertiliser, only climate and water are important. A major expense is transport of fuel. Biomass is low in calories per weight.

Has anybody seen a small 10-50 kwh boileer-turbine-generator assembly that would work well for the small land owner who could harvest and convert fuel to power with little expense?

Bluegreenpurplesilver@yahoo.com