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News Service - Technical supplement
March 1999 Biomass Supplement

In this edition ...

Foreword
Problems in biofuels utilisation: A Swedish Perspective
Biomass combustion technology in Finland
Biomass combustion in Germany
Wood energy in Switzerland
The Authors

IJmuiden,

Foreword
Ref.: 9903tech00

This is the first edition of the IFRF Industrial Combustion Magazine, presented as a supplement to the Monday Night Mail – published by IFRF NET as part of its industrial combustion news service.

To quote Björn Zethræus, chairman of the Swedish Flame Research Committee, and one of the contributing authors to this first edition, "Most people are now aware of the risk of global warming……..".

This must be true as the effects are evident in ever more serious weather related extremes, ranging from gross ocean warming in the Pacific, to the experience of severe ice storms in January 1998, centring on Quebec, Canada but also strongly affecting Ontario and Maine in the USA.

Super-cooled rain re-freezing on cold objects – trees, twigs etc – this can look very innocuous – even beautiful – but the effect can be disastrous for power pylons, as the people of the province of Quebec will endorse when, in January 1998, there were "1.4 million customers without power, some for more than 4 weeks."
Sources:
Phil Kall – Brockville Recorder and Times
Martin Chamberland – La Presse

We are aware of the deliberations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol (http://www.unfccc.de/) with its agreements upon carbon dioxide emissions reduction.

But most of all, as combustion engineers and scientists, we are aware that one important way to combat carbon dioxide concentration increase in the earth’s atmosphere, is to increase the rate of biofuel conversion for primary energy generation. This is what this first edition is all about.

The IFRF Research Station and Biofuels firing
The IFRF has been involved in such research for 15 years primarily within programmes undertaken at the IFRF Research Station. These have ranged from pulverised wood firing R&D [SCH 86/2] in the mid-1980s to the co-firing of shredded straw with pulverised coal in the 1990s [MOR 95/3].

In all cases the research has had strong components of fuel preparation, semi-industrial scale firing tests and fuels combustion characterisation.

Comparisons of the heat release profiles from flames fired with a commercial pulverised wood biofuel fuel, with flames fired with crude oil and natural gas in similar firing conditions.
	Raw straw and shredded straw prepared for firing in suspension with pulverised coal.
An example of a flame in which shredded straw is co-fired with pulverised coal.	The burner mouth is to the right of the photo – igniting straw particles can be seen in the flame tail.

The IFRF Members and Biofuel Firing
With respect to the IFRF, it is not only the Research Station that is concerned with biofuel firing. Many of the IFRF Members are involved in such R&D. These activities covers much wider spreads of:

Conversion techniques, including fluidised bed and grate stokers;

Biofuels, including wood pellets, black liquor, etc..

The object of this Technical Supplement is to review a list of activities in a number of European Countries prepared by authors working for IFRF Members in Sweden, Finland, Germany and Switzerland.

Where do we go from here?
The information presented is by no means exhaustive; for example, we have not included sewage sludge as a "biofuel" in this edition – but this is our first attempt at such electronic publishing and if we find it to be successful, we will certainly continue. We certainly would like to hear your reaction.

Thus there may be plenty of opportunity to expand the information pool later. But in the meantime, the Editor of this edition would like to thank all authors for their enthusiasm and co-operation.

Peter Roberts
Editor – IJmuiden, 15^th March 1999

The IFRF accepts no liability for the views and opinions expressed in this publication. These views and opinions are those of the individual authors.

This periodical forms part of the group of publications owned by the IFRF
The IFRF Monday Night Mail is published by:
IFRF NET, P O Box 10,000, The Netherlands
Edited: Peter Roberts
ISSN 1562-4781