US at BBEP (Cornell University): Day 7 - Bioheat & Power (Day II)

On Monday we heard from three speakers and took two field trips, all focused on heat and power.

The speakers were:

Dr. Mingxin Guo of Delaware State University who we had heard from before concerning biodiesel
Mr. Guillermo Metz, Green Building and Renewable Energies Coordinator from Cornell University's Tompkins County Extension
Ms. Catherine Spirito of Cornell University

Dr. Guo began the day by looking at a broad overview of energy from a comprehensive context. Basically, it was an overview of energy in terms of physics, biology, and chemistry, all in a few PowerPoint slides.

He continued his talk by looking at the semantic differences between all the biofuel designations. Specifically he laid out the difference between biopower, bioheat, biogas, and syngas.

Bioheat: Direct heating of biomass for the purposes of heating a structure.
Biopower: Biomass that is burned for the purposes of generating electricity.
Biogas: Biologically derived methane from anaerobic digestion in a landfill capture or on a farm.
Syngas: Heating biomass in the absence of oxygen yields carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas (gasification), other wise known and syngas. The process also yeids charcoal or biochar. This gas can then be burned, yielding carbon dioxide and water.

Biofuel options from biomass

The second speaker of the day, Mr. Guillermo Metz, spoke specifically about the usage of biomass for heat, or bioheat. He is the Green Building and Renewable Energies Coordinator for an extension of Cornell. One of his focuses is on getting residents of Tompkins County to participate in a subsidized energy audit and then consider applying for a low interest loan to improve the efficiency of their homes. The program Mr. Metz discussed was the Upgrade Upstate initiative. One of more interesting components of Mr. Metz's talk concerned the usage of biomass for heat. As was stated in a previous post, the Vernon-Verona-Sherrill school district is working to switch the fuel they use to stoke their maple syrup production facility from an oil base to a biomass based fuel stock.

My interest was peaked as a result of Mr. Metz's talk because my town, Lakewood, Ohio, has chosen to legislate against future installations of biomass based furnaces.

Lastly, Catherine Spirito, as Masters Degree candidate at Cornell, presented some of her research concerning anaerobic digestion of cow manure as a viable biogas (methane) production method. Specifically she is looking at how a feed additive affects the process of anaerobic digestion.

In the afternoon we set up a small scale anaerobic digester that could be set up and run in a classroom. It began with a 4.00-L vacuum flask (I would use a 5 Gallon Home Depot Homer Bucket with a PVC gasket and connector) attached via tubing to a smaller 2.00-L vacuum flask with a two hole stopper. The connection from the digester to the collector is through a pasteur pipette to allow the biogas to bubble through a .1M NaOH solution (to remove CO2 and H2S). The two remaning holes are used to confirm the working of the digester. One is a ball valve that can be lit to confirm biogas production, and the vacuum tube is connected to a balloon that will inflate as biogas is produced.

Classroom Anaerobic Digester Setup

Dr. Guo then took food scraps from the week's lunches and blended them in a blender. He added them to the 4.00-L flask and inoculated the sample with about 500-mL of untreated sewage so that a viable bacterial presence would be available.

Dr. Guo adding pureed food scraps to the digester

After the lab we loaded up the vans and travelled to Cornell's Combined Heat and Power station on campus. The plant runs on natural gas and provides both electrical power to the campus as well as the local electrical grid, and it provides heating to the campus through the capture of heat from the water used to run the electrical generation.

Cornell Combined Heat and Power Plant

The plant has two boilers, rated at 15MW each and then utilizes a heat recovery steam generator that uses the "waste" heat to generate heated water for use in heating the Cornell campus.

Lastly we traveled to an anaerobic digester that is located on Sunnyside Farm in Scipio Center, New York. We were led around by Ms. Jenny Pronto, and Dr. Tim Shelford. Both Tim and Jenny are involved in anaerobic digestion of manure from farms. Sadly, my camera malfunctioned while at the farm and I lack any quality pictures. The following pictures are courtesy of Diane Wuest of the University of Delaware.