Small scale technologies and options for waste to energy production
a paper by Colin Stucley, Enecon Pty Ltd at Residues to Revenues 2005
The wood to energy industry is based largely upon combustion technologies to provide steam and electricity for process use and occasionally for export. Such plants are typically quite large.
Wood gasification offers the opportunity to produce useful electricity and heat at a smaller scale, however small scale projects need to be examined and developed carefully if they are to provide long term financial rewards.
Wood pyrolysis also offers small to medium scale power generation, but with quite different costs and benefits when compared with gasification.
In the longer term, liquid fuels from wood can be expected to become commercial. This will not be at the small scale, but such plants could be a major influence on waste to energy in decades to come.
Each of these issues is explored further in this paper.