Market sought for waste fuel heater

A Perth man believes an unconventional heater is great for the environment and would be a godsend for people in developing countries. An Australian-developed heater, which burns moist, low-grade fuels without generating dangerous emissions, could supply cheap and readily available energy for developing countries facing chronic shortages, while at the same time reduce green-house gas emissions, says its local builder Frank Scott. He says his system can easily combust biomass waste with a moisture content in the vicinity of 70% and attain temperatures in excess of 1000° C without producing smoke emissions. Mr.. Scott has been trying to commercialize the Cremasco Biomass Heater, which uses a variety of fuels that would normally never be considered in conventional heating systems. The biomass heater, which resembles a square potbelly stove, was first developed in the 1960s by Father Dominic Cremasco at the Catholic Divine Word Mission in New South Wales, Australia. In about 1965, Father Cremasco read of a British inventor who found away to run his car on gas from chicken manure. Since one of his duties was tending the mission's poultry, he realized he had plenty of fuel for heating his big chicken house. Using his skills as a former black-smith, he devised a three-stage combustion system which could incinerate wet chicken manure fast enough to generate high combustion temperatures to produce space heating and hot water for the chicken house. In 1975, Father Cremasco moved to Perth, Western Australia and, following a rapid rise in the price of fuel oil, built a second heater for a presbytery using shredded tires and wood shavings for fuel.

In 1982, Father Cremasco's efforts were recognized in Australia and internationally when he received an Australian federal grant to exhibit his biomass heater at the International Exposition of Inventors in Switzerland, where he was awarded a silver medal. In 1986, he built a bigger heater for a Catholic mission in Papua, New Guinea. This heater was moved to the country's University of Technology where methods were being tested to dispose of green coffee pulp, a serious environmental pollutant. It converted the pulp to useful heat. Producing little residue, it recorded combustion temperatures of up to 1200° C.

Mr. Scott became aware of the heater when Father Cremasco built a domestic unit at Mr. Scott's neighbor's house in a Perth suburb.This unit was able to provide all the household heating requirements in the form of hot water and ducted air heating using food scraps and other biomass waste as fuel. "I said to him one day if he ever needed someone to have a go at commercializing it, I would because I saw how it worked and how brilliant it was" recalled Mr Scott. Mr. Scott purchased all rights to the technology and designed a prototype which was used as a demonstration unit. The uniqueness of the Cremasco Bioheater lies in its ability to process what are considered low-grade biomass fuels having low heating value due to very high moisture content, in some cases approaching 70% by weight water. Wet feed materials can be successfully processed because the unit is designed to sequentially dry and partially pyrolyze the biomass feed material in a primary chamber followed by complete combustion of the pyrolytic gases and remaining solid material in a secondary chamber directly below it. From such wet fuels, the bioheater has demonstrated that it can sustain combustion at temperatures of 1,000 to 1200° C with no visible smoke emissions due to incompletely combusted organics. The ash is collected at the bottom of the secondary combustion chamber and is removed through a door at the front of the heater. In the early 1990s, Scott en-listed the assistance of two US based experts in the field: Ralph Koenig, an engineer with more than twenty years experience in designing incinerator systems, and Frank Hetzler, an engineer and a former consultant to the International Atomic Energy Agency with more than ten years experience project managing low level, radio-active incinerators. They recognized the simplicity and efficiency of the combustion system and the international implications in reducing greenhouse gases. As a team, they completed a submission to an Australian Senate Standing Committee examining waste disposal in Australia on Frank Scott's behalf. Unfortunately, no assistance was provided by the Australian Government despite numerous attempts to obtain a Federal Government Grant. As a result Mr.Koenig, in liaison with Scott, took it upon himself to fabricate and test a unit at his premises in Colorado. The results of these combustion tests were presented at an International Incineration Conference hosted by the University of California and held in Seattle in 1995.Both Mr. Scott and Koenig had hoped the heater could eventually be built in big enough numbers to benefit countries short of expensive, high-grade fuels. After the Seattle conference, Koenig wrote to Mr. Scott: "I remember seeing pictures of Nepal where whole forests have been torn down to get wood for heating. "There is plenty of vegetation there that won't burn at all in a conventional stove but would make perfectly adequate feed for your heater." Much of the groundwork for further development of the heater has already been laid. In March 2003, Scott had a feasibility study performed by the Rocky Mountain Process Group, who are a team of combustion experts from New Mexico. This feasibility study and the research conducted to support it produced and uncovered a significant amount of information concerning the Cremasco Bioheater and its potential applications. The study concluded that coffee processing appears to be an excellent opportunity for commercialization of the Cremasco Bioheater. The use of a Creamsco Bioheater to consume coffee pulp as a fuel to generate heat to dry wet green coffee beans offers many significant advantages and no obvious technical drawbacks:

•The potential for the solution of multiple environmental problems

•Contributes to the concept of sustainable communities

•Encompasses an enormous international market

•Reduces risks related to coffee spoilage (more rapid drying than solar drying)

•Ash produced from the bioheater can be used as fertilizer to return minerals to the soil for coffee growing

Among the conclusions reached by the study were:

•The Cremasco Bioheater concept has been around for over three decades and approximately a dozen units have been built and operated.

•The feature which makes the Creamsco Bioheater unique amongst biomass combustion devices is its ability to process very high moisture content materials while maintaining high combustion temperatures and low gaseous emissions.

•The only documented test data from a Cremasco Bioheater are from the work of Bernard Cassellin Papua New Guinea and Ralph Koenig in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

•A demonstration system will be critical to the commercialization of the Cremasco Bioheater.

•To maximize the probability of success in the near term, only applications that utilize the uniqueness of the Cremasco Bioheater, i.e., the ability to process very wet biomass, should be considered.

•The best near-term applications will be those that minimize development required, do not introduce scaleup issues, and utilize the uniqueness of the Cremasco Bioheater.

•The most appropriate near-term application for the Cremasco Bioheater is the only one that met all of the selection criteria: coffee processing, whereby coffee pulp is used as fuel to produce heat to dry wet green coffee beans. No technical drawbacks were identified with this application.

•The coffee processing application simultaneously addresses two environmental problems, has a widespread market, and is consistent with the spirit of maintaining sustainable communities.

•Other promising applications for the Cremasco Bioheater include the coconut oil, palm oil, citronella oil, and domestic farm animal industries.

This study has come at an opportune time as the world coffee industry is in crisis. Coffee is produced in some 50 countries in four continents and represents the main income to 25 million people. It is the second highest commodity traded after petroleum and over the last several years the price of coffee has traded at about 60% below its previous levels. This has had a tremendous impact upon the livelihood of the coffee growers throughout the world, and most of the International governmental and non-governmental organizations such as the EU, UN and the World Bank have contributed to finding a solution to the coffee crisis. A Worldwide Sustainable Coffee Fund has been set up to improve the quality of production and has focused on specific programs of agricultural measurements and methods of processing coffee in producing countries. Special attention will also be given on the environmental and social sustainability and to the economic stability to the entire coffee industry. Among the projects the Worldwide Sustainable Coffee Fund supports are the use of renewable energy resources for the drying process of the coffee beans in order to avoid deforestation. Frank Scott is confident that his biomass combustion system could greatly improve the lives of the impoverished coffee farmers throughout the world. He is undoubtedly passionate about the biomass thermal heater. Considering the time and effort he's expended promoting it thus far, all without any governmental or business support, it is hard not to at least applaud his tenacity.

Powerhouse Magazine August 1998

Australian invention destined for overseas development

By Paul McLean.

Frank Scott is a man on a mission. For almost ten years now, he's been trying to drum up support for an invention he believes could drastically reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. He's conferred with both local and state politicians, lobbied federal ministers, and has also done the rounds of government bureaucracies. But while most have listened attentively, none have even acknowledged the project's merits, let alone offered any concrete support. Is the Australian government really serious about improving the quality of our air? Frank Scott thinks not.

So far it comes in just one colour- black. Hardly an elegant looking piece of machinery, it could be a replica of an early steam engine. The item in question is billed as the Australian Biomass Thermal Heater. It burns biomass waste, from food scraps to sewage cake, generating heat energy for a multitude of space-heating and process-heating applications.