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Imagine sitting around a campfire at night.
As the wood burns, it releases its chemical energy as heat and light. You
can roast marshmallows over the fire and see your friends’ faces
as they tell ghost stories. The energy from the fire changes the composition
of the food—which you then eat—and the energy illuminates surfaces,
angling off into the dark. So in the open arrangement of the social campfire,
the energy moves outward in infinite directions. What would happen if you
put that campfire into a closed environment? Where would the energy—the
heat and the light—go? It would build up and build up and would need
to escape somehow. If you created an outlet for the built-up energy—perhaps
you could release the energy through a machine—you could power that
machine. That’s essentially the process used to transform biomass
energy into electricity
The Zilkha Biomass Unit uses high-pressure combustion technology fueled
by burning biomass to generate electricity.
- The wood fuel is introduced into a high-pressure environment
in the separate wood burner.
- The wood is combusted into a hot gas.
- The hot gas is sent to the turbine.
- The expanding high-pressure gas turns a turbine engine
that is connected to an electricity generator by a fixed shaft.
- The turning electricity generator creates electricity.
- That electricity is then used by the wood facility
hosting the Zilkha Biomass Unit, or the electricity is sold to the grid.
- The unused energy not sufficient to make electricity exits
the turbine as exhaust and can be used in a variety
of industrial applications, like drying out materials or making steam.
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