Abstract
The cost of transporting wood chips by truck and by pipeline as a water slurry was determined. In a practical application of field delivery by truck of biomass to a pipeline inlet, the pipeline will only be economical at large capacity (>0.5 million dry t/yr for a one-way pipeline, and >1.25 million dry t/yr for a two-way pipeline that returns the carrier fluid to the pipeline inlet), and at medium to long distances (>75 km [one-way] and >470 km [two-way] at a capacity of 2 million dry t/yr). Mixed hardwood and softwood chips in western Canada rise in moisture level from about 50% to 67% when transported in water; the loss in lower heating value (LHV) would preclude the use of water slurry pipelines for direct combustion applications. The same chips, when transported in a heavy gas oil, take up as much as 50% oil by weight and result in a fuel that is >30% oil on mass basis and is about twothirds oil on a thermal basis. Uptake of water by straw during slurry transport is so extreme that it has effectively no LHV. Pipeline-delivered biomass could be used in processes that do not produce contained water as a vapor, such as supercritical water gasification.
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Kumar, A., Cameron, J.B., Flynn, P.C. (2004). Pipeline Transport of Biomass. In: Finkelstein, M., McMillan, J.D., Davison, B.H., Evans, B. (eds) Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals Held May 4–7, 2003, in Breckenridge, CO. Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59259-837-3_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59259-837-3_4
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