Carbon-Negative Energy Machines Catching On

An anonymous reader writes "All Power Labs in Berkeley, California has produced and sold over 500 machines that take in dense biomass and put out energy. What makes the machines special is that instead of releasing carbon back into the atmosphere, it's concentrated into a lump charcoal that makes excellent fertilizer. The energy is produced cheaply, too; many of the machines went to poor nations who normally pay much more per kilowatt. '[T]he PowerPallets are still relatively simple, at least as far as their users are concerned. For one, thing Price explained, much of the machine is made with plumbing fixtures that are the same everywhere in the world. That means they're easy to repair. At the same time, while researchers at the 50 or so institutions that have bought the machines are excited by opening up the computer control system and poking around inside, a guy running a corn mill in Uganda with a PowerPallet "will never need to open that door and never will," Price said.'"

Re:Bullshit

[Smidge204]

Not ALL the chemical energy of the original fuel, though.

It's a gassifier and engine/gen pair. You heat the fuel in an oxygen-poor environment (the heat comes from burning a part of the fuel itself using what little oxygen is present) which releases volatile compounds and produces carbon monoxide. This syngas is then fed into an internal combustion engine where it's burned to completion to produce power.

Not groundbreaking technology... but proven to work and be a viable means of getting power, especially if you happen to have a lot of biowaste you can throw in there.

Sure, you CAN burn the charcoal leftovers. Might be useful as a cooking fuel, for example. Even if you did that, you're still only carbon neutral. It can also be used to improve soil quality to help grow food or cash crops... which seems like a better use IMHO.
=Smidge=

Re:Key phrase

[Zumbs]

Further down the journalist writes:

many energy sources in the developing world can cost 50 or 60 cents per kilowatt, a PowerPallet can do it for a dime

Which does not really add up with costing "less than $2 a watt", unless it should have said "a lot less" in which case $2 is just misleading. I would be interested to know which is true, though. The technology seems both interesting and useful.

Re:Bullshit

[JaredOfEuropa]

Not groundbreaking, but the company claims that their machine is reliable and very easy to field-repair. For a small-scale machine used in developing countries, this is crucial. Farms or small businesses in those countries sometimes receive high tech equipment from well-meaning charities, only to have then break down, at which point they find they lack the skill, parts or money to keep the equipment in good repair.

no thats carbon neutral

[Anonymous Coward]

So it uses fuel but generates no carbon dioxide ?? Thats not negative thats 'neutral'.

If it captured EXTRA carbon dioxide from the air and added to that lump of charcoal then it would be 'negative'

Of course to be truely exact -- IF its manufacture and materials used to make it/transport it and its fuel were all 'neutral' then it would be truely neutral. What do you think the odds of that are???

Its like those electric car people who dont bother to mention that the carbon dioxide used to create that electric car (with their high tech batteries) is so far beyond a normal cars INCLUDING its burnt fuel for its lifetime, so that electric cars are actually significantly GREATER creators of 'green house' gasses (and that is BEYOND the fuel burnt to create the electricity for that electric cars charging which these liars also dont bother to mention)

Lets not get into the toxic waste from the batteries which have to be replaced every few years (and the energy any recycling process uses -- yep - more carbon dioxide from in that part too....)

Sorry eco-tards 'smugness in ignorance' doesnt actually help the environment.

Re:Bullshit

[vikingpower]

Operational research I did for a ( very ) large Austrian farm showed that carbon intake in the form of humus can be 100-200 kg / hectare / year, in pure carbon. Adding pure carbon ( without going through the humus stage by e.g. first producing compost ) to the soil can help farmers reach that number: bacteria will fix the carbon, plants - around their own roots - will form symbiosis with the bacteria, and when at harvest time the plant or its grain is harvested, the bacteria around the root will die and be turned into humic acid. The whole humus-as-a-carbon-sink thing is, climatically, all the more interesting as the carbon remains fixed in the soil for many 10,000s of years. Humus survives ice ages and periods of global warming.

Re:Bullshit

[VVelox]

Nothing about this machine is vaguely high tech or new. Linked to is a basic how to put together by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA208249 [dtic.mil]

And during WW2, the were used in the US, UK, FR, and DE for were attached to vehicles to provide a fuel source.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas_generator#Origins [wikipedia.org]