New Bedford Waste-To-Gas Test a Success, Ze-gen Says

Providence Business News
NEW BEDFORD – Preliminary data from its proof-of-concept facility in New Bedford confirm the efficacy of Ze-gen Inc.’s waste-to-energy model, the company says.
“Our positive test results are arriving at a time when fossil fuel prices are reaching historical record levels, and this offers one more renewable energy source to meet the energy requirements of the country,” Ze-gen President and CEO Bill Davis said in a statement yesterday.
Ze-gen’s New Bedford gasification facility – which received final approval for operations in January 2007 from the solid waste and air divisions of the Mass. Department of Environmental Protection, and began operating in October – converts biomass from construction and demolition debris, municipal solid waste and old automobile tires into a mixture of carbon monoxide and volatile hydrogen gas.
Data presented at the recent 16th North American Waste to Energy Conference in Philadelphia by Scott Fraser, Ze-gen’s senior vice president of engineering, indicate that the demo plant is consistently producing synthetic gas with a combined carbon monoxide and hydrogen content of more than 70 percent.
That high-quality “syngas” is suitable for a variety of renewable-energy uses. The company says it can be used in place of natural gas or residual oil in industrial burners and boilers; it can be used to generate electricity; and it can be processed into biodiesel or other liquid fuels.
The nation’s biomass potential – estimated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Department of Energy (DOE) at more than 1.3 billion tons per year –“represents an enormous domestic renewable resource that is currently underutilized as an energy supply,” Ze-gen added. The company and its technology were the subject of a recent feature on the Science Channel.
Ze-gen Inc. – a Boston-based renewable energy company with a demonstration facility in New Bedford – is developing gasification technology for the conversion of wood debris and other solid waste into “syngas,” a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas that can be burned in place of natural gas in conventional boilers and generators. For more information, visit www.ze-gen.com.
Posted June 25, 2008
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