- Author: Milton E McGiffen
Published on: September 12, 2016
I spoke with Bruce Apple, from Ag Energy:
The units are specifically designed to use the wheat straw generated under one center pivot irrigation set up. It turns the wheat straw into biochar, and provides energy to run the center pivot. It is not permitted here in California, but the basic concept of a mobile pyrolyzer or a smaller one that fits directly into a specific farm operation is something we have needed for a long time.
A comment from Steve Feher:
The Ag-Energy gasifier looks very promising for applications in California, especially in the Sacramento Valley rice growing region. It could use rice straw as a direct substitute for wheat straw used in the Spokane area and would probably work well also with nut shells based on my discussions with Bruce Appel of Ag-Energy. Its flexible design offering several possible uses of the syngas output, including potential direct fueling of rice or nut dryers, replacing natural gas or expensive propene currently used.
This is a good place to go for a background on biochar: http://www.biochar-international.org/biochar . You will also find a lot of links at the home page of that site for more in-depth information.
Take a look at that and let me know what other information you need.