Power Plant Fueled By Nut Shells 297
sbszine writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is running an article about a green power plant that runs on the discarded shells of macadamia nuts. The power plant, located in Gympie, Queensland, is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by around 9500 tonnes in its first year of operation."
Re:Reduction in Co2? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's like when I break into your house and leave gifts. I could have robbed you blind. Aren't you glad I'm such a nice guy?
Energy in/Energy out. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Efficiency? (Score:2, Insightful)
This article is entirely too vague... frustratingly vague.
The first thing I thought was that they would burn the shells. But, how would that help? You're still putting CO2 into the atmosphere. Maybe the macadamia nuts burn clean?
Re:Reduction in Co2? (Score:5, Insightful)
so there's no 'extra' co2 introduced from millions of years back like when you burn oil/coal.
so it does reduce the total amount of co2 coming to the atmosphere, provided that somebody plants some more of those nuts(and doesn't chop some rainforest/something else that binds huge amounts of it to plant those nuts for few seasons and then chop more of rainforest).
Is the concept really that unclear? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Reduction in Co2? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Energy in/Energy out. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Reduction in Co2? (Score:5, Insightful)
Similarly, I fail to follow your example of a plant in a box. OK, while the seeds are actually aflame CO2 will be produced faster than it's being absorbed. But overall, the amount of carbon in the system is constant: anything which is not in the plant is in the atmosphere. Therefore so long as you burn the plant no more quickly than it grows, you'll never end up with a higher CO2 concentration than when you started.
Your argument only applies if you start burning something which has been growing for decades -- eg old-growth forest -- in which case you're releasing CO2 that took decades to remove from the atmosphere. But so long as you burn material grown only over, say, the last year -- eg fast-growing bamboo -- then the net amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere over that year must be zero.
Dumping and decomposition? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Efficiency? (Score:3, Insightful)
Contrast with Oil and Coal where you're putting CO2 into the atmosphere that was fixed out millenia ago.
Re:Reduction in CO2? (Score:3, Insightful)
The real problem is that fossile fuels are very cheap compared to non-fossile fuels, such as solar, wind, and hydro energy. Although these are free, large installations are needed to harvest them. And to construct those installation you need energy. And most of the time this energy comes from fossile fuels. These kind of installations are often more like batteries than like clean sources of energy, because often it cost more energy to produce them than that they will produce during their lifetimes, otherwise alternative sources of energy would have been cheaper than fossile energies.
Re:Energy in/Energy out. (Score:1, Insightful)
So you folk (the person who posted the parent and the persons who modded the post up) actually think that they're going to set up a totally new process to grow the nuts, harvest them, transport them, hull them, shell them and then use the shells to generate power and throw the nuts away?
Common sense, like my 5th grade teacher used to say, is definately not very common.
Re:Reduction in Co2? (Score:1, Insightful)
There is no unsolvable problems putting the solar panels up there, the issue is how to route the power cable back to earth.
Re:doesn't anything that you can burn... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Efficiency? (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of it like this:
macadamia = shell + nut
Old equasion:
profit = sale of nut - disposal of shell
New equasion:
profit = sale of nut + electricity generation from shell
This, of course, assumes that the electricity produced from the shells can be sold at a profit that is greater than the cost of disposing of the nuts. From everything I've heard here, the power plant is relatively inexpensive to construct ($3 million), as such, the cost of electricity generation probably won't be that great. However, we'd need more data to say that for sure.
As an added bonus, the CO2 output is neutral over a single year. Ie: shell takes 1 year's worth of CO2 in as it grows, we then burn it, and 1 years worth of CO2 is released. Comparatively, coal takes in X number of years (thousands of years ago), we burn it, and it releases it into the atmosphere now, resulting in a gain in CO2 in the atmosphere.
Keep in mind that this means we won't be powering the entire country with macadamia nut shells. This plant only powers 1200 homes. The brilliant aspect of this is that its powered off of waste that was already present in the region. This would be similar to a facility that produces corn creating a power plant next to it that is fueled by corn husks and the unedible parts of the corn. Its simply just a comparative advantage. Its fuel that you have here and now, so there are little to no transportation costs. Even if another biomass is more efficient, you'd have to transport it to the generation facility, decreasing its overall efficiency.
Ideally, for something like this, you'd build lots of smaller facilities, wherever burnable bio-waste is produced. 1200 homes here, 1200 homes there, mix it with some solar and wind generation, and other alternative energies, and eventually the fossil fuel habit might be kicked.
Re:Other biomass/CO2 neutral examples (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Reduction in Co2? (Score:2, Insightful)
But when I have to choose from nut shells or coal, the choice is easy but in fact there's a lot more options to choose from and ignoring them - is utterly stupid.
Re:Reduction in Co2? (Score:3, Insightful)
The article (you've read it, right?) was about burning macadamia nut shells. Which means "waste" used for CO2 neutral energy production.
What's wrong about that?
Bye egghat.
Re:Reduction in Co2? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're missing a fairly big hole in your arguement. Burning the nut shells will release C into the atmosphere, so will the rotting process. However burning the shells will mean that you will need to burn less oil and coal (C removed a very long time ago when there was a greenhouse effect in place due to the high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere) so you are reducing the overall amount of C released by putting the inevitable release of C due to the nut shells to use and reducing or eliminating the need to burn oil and coal.
If we assume that qualtity of C released from the nut shells (N) is the same for both burning and rotting, that the quantity of C removed from the atmosphere growing the nuts (P) is costant in both cases (we are talking about using a waste product of an existing industry here, not about growing the nuts as a fuel source) and the the burning of the nuts will provide the same energy as burning oil and coal that would release a quantity of C we label F then the quantity of C released to the atmosphere (A) will be for each scenario):
Rotting: A=(N+F)-P
Burning: A=N-P
Stephen
Allergy concern? (Score:3, Insightful)
But I now know several people with fatal allergies to tree nuts. So I wonder - what is the effect on any allergic people nearby of vaporizing nut shells and injecting the vapor into the atmosphere?
sPh