WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2009 | LATEST UPDATE: 9:37AM

BIOFUELS

JEFF ST. JOHN 09 16 09

Syngas From Steel Mills

Sierra Energy says it can convert idled steel mill blast furnaces into trash-to-biogasreactors, saving on the cost of building a plant.

Sierra Energy wants to turn laid-off steel millworkers into trash-to-clean energy workers.

The Davis, Calif.-based company says itsFASTOX technology can convert steel mill blastfurnaces into syngas factories. It works usingsteam-enshrouded oxygen, instead of regular air,to improve the efficiency and gas output fromworking blast furnaces.

That gas can be recycled to save energythroughout the rest of the plant, CEO Michael Hart– also head of parent company Sierra Railroad – said Tuesday at the AlwaysOn GoingGreenconference in Sausalito.

It's a bit like the red-hot iron gasification technology that Ze-gen is developing (see The Iron Man ofGreentech Gets $20M), but with a twist – Sierra wants to use furnaces that are already built.

Only a few dozen of those massive furnaces are now left in the United States, Hart said. But thosecould be repurposed to take in trash and pump out syngas, perhaps offering a shot at revival forcommunities hard-bit by the domestic steel industry's woes. Sierra is looking at a U.S. Steel mill inthe iconic Rust Belt city of Gary, Ind. to test out its system, he said.

But in China, where most of the world's steel is now made, there are about 1,500 blast furnaces thatcould use the extra gas, he said. Sierra is talking with heavyweights Baosteel and Jian Steel in thatcountry, Hart said.

In either case, Sierra avoids the need to build a plant from scratch, which saves a lot of money, hesaid

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Engineer-Poet 09/20/09 4:52 AM

said.

There are numerous ways to make substitutes for natural gas from waste. Environmental Powerproduces methane and syngas from manure, and Nexterra Energy converts wood chips into syngasfor companies in Canada and the United States (see Funding Roundup: Mega Solar Deals, AlgalBiofuels and Clean Water).

But trash is an attractive fuel source, since you get paid to take it through your doors – up to $30 aton for some big city landfills and there's about 400 billion tons a year of it to get rid of somehow(see Greentech Innovations: Why Trash-to-Fuel Might Finally Work).

But landfill waste can also be a mess of biomass, metal, plastic and chemicals that can add costsand complications to its efficient conversion to a gas clean enough to burn.

Government incentives may align on Sierra's behalf, however, if its technology is proven in the field.

The Department of Energy sees a $256 billion market in making factories more energy self-sufficientthrough capturing otherwise wasted energy, and has announced some $156 million in stimulusgrants to speed up the conversions (see Green Light posts here and here).

And of course, reviving steel mills may be attractive to some of the states – say, Pennsylvania – thathave been receiving their shares of clean energy stimulus grants.

Image via Haglundc / Creative Commons

Learn how to differentiate your company through greener product lines at Greening theSupply Chain on September 17 in Boston.

1 Comments

400 BILLION tons of waste per year? That’s about 60 tons for every human being on earth. Clearly, the correctnumber is 400 MILLION tons of waste per year (for the USA), which even a little bit of checking will verify.

What IS it with “journalists” who have no grasp of numbers and can’t fact-check?

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