On a sunny Saturday afternoon in Salzburg, we took a field trip to a few examples of biomass in rural Austria. The country is over 40 percent forested, and over half of the forest is owned by small farmers with less than 40 hectares (just under 100 acres), so the government has put a priority on encouraging biomass use as a substitute for fossil fuels. It's a stable domestic industry, carefully managed with an eye toward local economic development and, as with just about everything I laid eyes on in Austria, proper aesthetics.
The first place we stopped was a biomass district heating co-op run by 18 farmers. To the right is the enormous pile of wood chips we saw in a huge, beautifully wrought barn.
The chips are continuously and automatically fed into the hyper-efficient furnace to the left, where they are burned at high temperatures. The combustion heats water, which is then fed through a network of pipes underneath the village. A system of heat exchangers uses the water to heat each house.
(That's a porthole to the furnace flames on the right.)
Obviously the farmers make more money during the cold winters, but the co-op provides a stable, predictable supplemental income throughout the year.
The next place we visited was a biomass digester::
Instead of burning pure wood, it feeds a mixture of wood, straw, and godknowswhat from that yellow bin in front (it was stinky!) into the huge tank to the left, where it ferments. The gases released by the fermentation are captured, fed into the building to the far right (not quite visible), and burned to create electricity, which is fed into the grid. The leftover sludgy stuff is distributed as mulch. The hot air created by the generator is piped into a building next door and used to dry wood chips, which are then shredded and used to make compact wood pellets.
Delightful! Both these facilities were so ... I don't want to say low-tech. Analog. They were like fantastic Rube Goldberg machines, squeezing every bit of useful energy out of local, renewable material. This stuff is heavily subsidized by the government, but it has helped (along with tourism) revive several local economies.
Let's keep going! Stop No. 3: a brand new town hall, just built for a small Austrian village, the name of which I do not quite recall:
The guy on the far left is the mayor, who entered his town into a contest and won the services of the guy next to him -- the architect who designed the building. Note that the roof pitch and overall shape echo the traditional architecture of the town. Its walls, however, are a total of 45cm thick, with layers of insulation, air, wood, metal, and concrete. That kind of thermal mass makes heating and cooling easy.
In the basement of the (gorgeous, spacious, well-lit) building is a small biomass furnace. Wood chips are blown from the delivery truck into one room and fed continuously from there into the furnace to the right, where they are burned, and the heat distributed throughout the building.
One of us asked if the biomass furnace was more expensive than the alternatives. Our tour guide -- Christiane Egger, deputy manager of the Upper Austrian Renewable Energy Agency (Oberösterreichischer Energiesparverband) -- snorted. "No one would ever think of heating a building like this with a non-renewable system today!" Perhaps her American friends haven't told her that cost is the alpha and omega!
(Nice side note: The old town hall is going to be torn down and converted into an open town square.)
Finally, last but not least, we come to a residential system. A kind Austrian couple allowed us to tramp around their house for a few minutes. To the right is the hole in the wall through which wood pellets are fed (excess sawdust -- there are regulations -- is sucked out of the hole on the right).
To the left is the furnace in the basement, along with the guy who installed the system, who looks eerily like Inspector Clouseau. The furnace heats water both for radiant heat and showers, etc. I was standing next to this appliance for a while, listening to him explain how pellets are fed in automatically based on a programmed thermometer, when he casually mentioned that it was on and running.
I was taken aback. There was no heat coming off it at all, no noise, not so much as a vibration. But he opened the gray door and sure enough, there was another porthole through which we could see dancing flames.
I came away from the day utterly charmed and impressed. Like so little in day-to-day American life, these systems are simple, resilient, and predictable, locally owned and run, and of appropriate scale and character. They fit.
Making buildings more efficient: rationalizing retrofit markets
Making buildings more efficient: looking beyond price
Comments
View as Threaded
Jon Rynn Posted 4:28 am
16 Jul 2008
It's too bad that in the US, as soon as you talk about biomass, everybody starts thinking about fuel for cars, instead of fuel for heating.
Permalink
Millstone Posted 5:04 am
16 Jul 2008
I'm intrigued by biomass, mainly because as a resident of the SE US since it is perhaps our most abundant renewable resource, but I don't see utilities building it any time soon.
I'm also curious as to whether or not this town was unique or if this is a model being pursued across the country(side)?
Permalink
sunflower Posted 5:13 am
16 Jul 2008
Our biomass thermal mass home near Seattle has 55 cm thick walls. Its easy, guilt free, and very economical.
Permalink
David Roberts Posted 5:23 am
16 Jul 2008
This town was something of a model, but from my understanding this is happening all across Austria at a pretty rapid clip.
grist.org
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 7:32 am
16 Jul 2008
The manure would combine with carbon in the environment if it were allowed to run off or put directly on fields, producing methane (biogas) that is released into the atmosphere. By trapping and burning the gas in this energy system that methane emission is halted. Thus offsetting 20 times the CO2 that is released by burnin the gas.
Combustion of wood chips just releases CO2, no offset occurs. It's not carbon neutral just because it's from biomass, this is a myth.
If only 5% of the combustion energy used came from biogas it would offset all the rest of the CO2 produced from combustion energy.
This is why I keep harping on the plan to backup renewable (solar, wind, water, plugin hybrids) power systems with natural gas/biogas, with 5% biogas (from the waste stream) in the mixture.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 7:59 am
16 Jul 2008
The GHG effect prevented is equal to 2/3 of the CO2 uptake of the crop fertilized.
Farms scattered all over the US are using biodigestion, it has around an 8 to 10 year payback at current electric rates, with the biogas turned into kwh sold onto the grid with ICE generation.
Solid oxide fuel cell/turbine generation reduces the payback by tripling the efficiency. likewise economy of scalwe by combining manure from 10 to 100 farms instead of manure and biomass from only one farm.
Furthermore, if government subsidized this to the tune of 5 to 10 cents per kwh, it could revive the small farm economy. Through the energy sold and subsidized and chemical fertilizer costs defrayed.
We the people would get clean renewable backup for a renewable/conservation energy revolution and a huge reduction in GHG.
This process could offset all the CO2 produced by a renewable/conservation energy economy, relying mainly on wind, solar, water, plugin hybrids, renewable electric mass transportation, ground source heat pump heating/cooling, and natural gas as the ultimate emergency backup fossil fuel component.
And of course all this would fight inflation with lower energy costs and it would revive the economy with a manufacturing stimulus, powered by increased productivity and efficiency. With oil and coal and nuclear eventually phased out over 20 years or so.
Great article DR, as usual! It was well worth the trip.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 9:31 am
16 Jul 2008
Biodigestion
Using the leftovers as fertilizer
Cogen to make bioheat pellets adds a nice touch too.
I'm pleasantly surprised to see that this is one of the few caveats I have in my general antipathy towards biofuels.
(As long as they aren't going out of their way to harvest wood at a high rate)
-David Ahlport
Permalink
acschwim Posted 10:35 am
16 Jul 2008
While I'll agree that forest industry wastes are the way to go, given the circumstances, if the materials used in the project cited in the article weren't wastes, it doesn't seem too detrimental in this case. In other situations, alternatives should be considered.
Source:
http://www.biobasednews.com/node/15047
"Biomass Heat and Electricity Plants on the Rise in Europe"
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 2:43 pm
16 Jul 2008
Home heat should not be derived from combustion, it should come from ground source heat pumps.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
bglahn Posted 2:51 am
17 Jul 2008
The cost of the district biomass heating facilty was about €1.2 million on the initial investment, and generally speaking, you can expect a subsidy from the federal government of up to 30% of the investment costs. Once the initial investment is made, the farmers are on their own.
With the biogas CHP plant, I don't know the initial investment cost, but the subsidies are the same. There is also a feed-in-tariff for the electricity produced, which i believe is guaranteed at €0.14 over 12 years. Don't quote me on that.
The name of the town where the municipal office building and home pellet sytsem was located is Nußdorf am Attersee, which is more or less a completely typical town in Upper Austria, although perhaps somewhat more well to do since it is next to one of the most beautiful lakes in the country.
The subsidies are the same on the home installation as well, 30% of the installation cost, and the installation companies will often pair up with pellet producers and offer reduced rates on fuel if you sign a long term delivery contract.
Here's a brief overview of biomass diffusion in Upper Austria:
14 % of total energy consumption
> 30,000 biomass heating installations
250 district heating plants
30 % of the municipalities mainly use biomass for heating
They are ahead of the rest of the country in this area, and if you want more facts and figures check this link: http://www.salzburgseminar.org/mediafiles/PRES1141.pdf
Permalink
Biodiversivist Posted 4:50 am
17 Jul 2008
I am familiar with efforts in Germany and Canada to promote burning dried corn instead of wood pellets back when corn was dirt cheap. Certainly, using biomass for home heat makes far more sense than throwing away so much energy converting it to liquids for transport. And of course, using local sources makes it much more feasible.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
Permalink
biggav Posted 9:46 pm
17 Jul 2008
Did you see any of these strange hydro devices ?
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/06/gravitational_vor ...
Those Austrians seem to have the knack for low impact energy technology - guess its to be expected in Schauberger territory.
Permalink
Backcut Posted 12:32 am
18 Jul 2008
Orwellian, ya say?!?
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
Permalink