Lee Reese (left) listens as Paul Wever talks about a biomass gasifier during a tour of Freedom Field at the Rock River Reclamation District for International Bioenergy Days on Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2010.ROCKFORD — Chip Energy’s furnace turns plant waste into a burnable gas.
By Brian Leaf
BUSINESSROCKFORD.COM
Posted Oct 09, 2010 @ 10:45 PM
When it is permanently installed this month at Freedom Field, heat from burning the gas will warm sewage eating bacteria to an optimal temperature for turning human waste to methane gas. The methane gas will be burned to create electricity.
While free energy is the holy grail of bioenergy, celebrated this month at International Bioenergy Days in Rockford, Kurt Hannson’s visit wasn’t about energy. It was about soil and how a byproduct from the $50,000 furnace, a charcoal-like product called biochar, can improve the land.
“We want to make a more fertile soil,” said Hansson, of Gasilage AB based in Sala, Sweden, which plans to buy a furnance.
Swedes are experts at producing energy from biomass — plant and human wastes. About a third of the country’s energy is created from biomass, according to the Swedish Bioenergy Association.
But Sweden’s biomass furnaces turn fuel into ash, which can be used to fertilize soil. And Chip Energy’s biochar can help create new soil.
Paul Wever, president of Chip Energy, said when biochar is mixed with wastewater from sewage treatment, it absorbs nutrients. When mixed into the soil, the enriched biochar helps grow soil-building microbes thrive in Sweden’s glacial till and clay.
The result: Land with better soils in which to grow crops.
In Illinois, Wever hopes to use his furnaces and his company, based 20 miles east of Peoria, as a community development tool. He envisions a statewide network of three-acre, six-employee recycling centers that turn wood and other waste, much of which is now buried in landfills, into fuel pellets, animal bedding, erosion control socks and other products.
Some of the material would be fuel for Chip Energy’s biomass furnaces, creating free energy that could be used by municipalities.
“The plan is to put a recycling center in every county,” he said.
Mark Podemski, vice president at the Rockford Area Economic Development Council, said seeing technology in action and sharing information is what made last month’s event a success for the 156 attendees.
“We need to bring people together to learn from each other,” he said. “We live in a complicated world and can get information, but often the right answers aren’t out there. (The conference) allowed people to explore issues in a relaxed atmosphere. You never know where the connections will take you.”
Podemski said bioenergy is one of the greatest wealth building opportunities before the nation. And a bioenergy conference is unique because “only at a bioenergy convention do you get people excited about going to the wastewater treatment plant.”
Reach staff writer Brian Leaf at bleaf@rrstar.com or 815-987-1343.
BUSINESSROCKFORD.COM
Posted Oct 09, 2010 @ 10:45 PM
When it is permanently installed this month at Freedom Field, heat from burning the gas will warm sewage eating bacteria to an optimal temperature for turning human waste to methane gas. The methane gas will be burned to create electricity.
While free energy is the holy grail of bioenergy, celebrated this month at International Bioenergy Days in Rockford, Kurt Hannson’s visit wasn’t about energy. It was about soil and how a byproduct from the $50,000 furnace, a charcoal-like product called biochar, can improve the land.
“We want to make a more fertile soil,” said Hansson, of Gasilage AB based in Sala, Sweden, which plans to buy a furnance.
Swedes are experts at producing energy from biomass — plant and human wastes. About a third of the country’s energy is created from biomass, according to the Swedish Bioenergy Association.
But Sweden’s biomass furnaces turn fuel into ash, which can be used to fertilize soil. And Chip Energy’s biochar can help create new soil.
Paul Wever, president of Chip Energy, said when biochar is mixed with wastewater from sewage treatment, it absorbs nutrients. When mixed into the soil, the enriched biochar helps grow soil-building microbes thrive in Sweden’s glacial till and clay.
The result: Land with better soils in which to grow crops.
In Illinois, Wever hopes to use his furnaces and his company, based 20 miles east of Peoria, as a community development tool. He envisions a statewide network of three-acre, six-employee recycling centers that turn wood and other waste, much of which is now buried in landfills, into fuel pellets, animal bedding, erosion control socks and other products.
Some of the material would be fuel for Chip Energy’s biomass furnaces, creating free energy that could be used by municipalities.
“The plan is to put a recycling center in every county,” he said.
Mark Podemski, vice president at the Rockford Area Economic Development Council, said seeing technology in action and sharing information is what made last month’s event a success for the 156 attendees.
“We need to bring people together to learn from each other,” he said. “We live in a complicated world and can get information, but often the right answers aren’t out there. (The conference) allowed people to explore issues in a relaxed atmosphere. You never know where the connections will take you.”
Podemski said bioenergy is one of the greatest wealth building opportunities before the nation. And a bioenergy conference is unique because “only at a bioenergy convention do you get people excited about going to the wastewater treatment plant.”
Reach staff writer Brian Leaf at bleaf@rrstar.com or 815-987-1343.
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