developbc wrote: https://odr.chalmers.se/bitstream/20.500.12380/256741/1/256741.pdf
This was great DD by MazerRR this is a MUST READ to see why these iron ore producers are falling over themselves in line to get hold of PYR plasma torches!
This document is a master’s Thesis submitted by two students at Chalmers University of Technology, in the Sustainable Energy Systems programme, in 2019. It was done in close collaboration with LKAB; Samuel Nordgren of LKAB is an assistant supervisor on the paper.
On p.19 of the paper there are some very revealing numbers about operating costs of fuel oil burners vs air plasma torches, with a 2MW torch from Pyrogenesis used in the comparison.
Those numbers show annual operational costs of $932,000 for a fuel oil burner vs $638,000 for a Plasma torch. Which amounts to savings of $294,000 for each burner replaced by a torch (savings of 23%), or $14,700,000 per plant (50 torches). I’m assuming the numbers are in USD in this report.
This amounts to significant savings, mainly due to Sweden’s low cost of electricity from hydro and the fact that LKAB through HYBRIT is partnered with Vattenfall (Swedish gov’t owned Hydro-electric company), so they’ll get the electricity at cost or near it.
If you factor in the savings made by avoiding Carbon taxes (currently 1190 SEK/ton CO2 or $121 USD/ton – the Swedish government has VERY HIGH Carbon taxes, highest in the world in fact), 7000 tons CO2 saved per torch or 350,000 tons per plant (which is consistent with the number Pyrogenesis stated in their NR on April 30th) adds up to $42,350,000 USD.
Adding the Annual Operating cost savings ($14,700,000) + Carbon taxes avoided ($42,350,000), that’s $57,050,000USD saved PER YEAR. If Pyrogenesis prices the value of their ~1MW torches at $3 million per, the cost of the contract for one plant comes to ~ $150,000,000CDN(other figures are in USD so the payback is even faster) (~the 2MW torches referenced in the report will cost more, but how much I cannot say). The savings alone will pay for the replacement of all torches in LKAB’s iron pelletization plants within only a few years!
Bio-oil:
Let's take a look at bio-oil (also called Pyrolysis/Biocrude oil). This is the alternate fuel LKAB discussed in the first article (linked at the top of this post) as a potential replacement fuel for the fossil fuels used by burners.
The heat content of bio-oil (75,500 BTU per gallon) is about 55% as much as one gallon of #2 fuel-oil. Therefore, one must burn 1.82 gallons of bio-oil to obtain the same amount of heat released when burning one gallon of #2 fuel-oil.
Using the fuel oil price listed in the thesis paper ($0.5/l), the price of bio-oil would need to be less than $0.275/l to be cost-competitive with current fuel costs. The U.S. government’s NREL lab estimates the MINIMUM selling price of bio-oil made from fast pyrolysis could eventually be made as low as $1.28 per gallon or $0.34/l. That’s the lowest number they believe is possible.
https://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2017/06/08/biomass-pyrolysis-comes-of-age/
That’s a 23% cost increase over fuel oil!
Using bio-oil would therefore cost $1,144,290 annually per burner (at the minimum possible selling price per NREL) vs $638,000 annual operating costs of Plasma torches. Scaling that up for a full 50 torch plant, adds up to > $25,314,500 in additional costs per year vs using torches.
Pyrogenesis’ torches handily win over bio-oil.
I may be missing other factors, such as the cost of the working gas for the plasma torches (and probably others things too - please indicate where the analysis is incomplete) but all indications seem to point to Pyrogenesis’ plasma torches as being the best option for fossil-fuel burner replacement!
Even without the Carbon tax savings, as long as reasonably priced electricity is available, Plasma torch systems become a very promising solution!
BUT the carbon tax savings can easily pay for the torches itself!
Hope all of you guys starting to get the grand picture here on how massive this torch division actually can be as they dominate this mkt!!