In my mastersdegree in economics i'm researching the opportunity of a mobile pyrolysis reactor.
Pyrolysis is a clean and sustainable technique to convert waste into different energycarriers; Bio-oil, BioChar and some gas-fraction. Bio-oil can be used to generate energy at a specified time/place. BioChar is a carbon rich by-product which can be used to fertilize ground for a long time. The gas fraction finally can be used to keep the pyrolysis reactor running.
No greenhousegasses are released because the biomass is not combusted, instead pyrolysis heats the biomass without the use of oxygen and the biomass divides itself into little particles. a gas is formed and will be condensed to a liquid.
In practice, mostly woody biomass is used, but pyrolysis has the potential to even convert householdwaste into energie. A perfect solution for a city who wants to efficiently manage its wasteproblem as well as its energyproblem.
As for now, pyrolysis is a promising technique, but still has some inefficiencies. The Cost for biomass is high due to labour cost to produce and gather biomass, which falls away in your city concept.
Another problem is the logistic cost. But for this problem i'm doing my research to optimize the logistic problem. When i'm done, i'll keep this forum posted!
Really a topic to get into.
For more info, visit:
www.pyne.co.uk/
Greets!
