HM3 Energy, Inc.
Torrefied biomass to replace coal: TorrB™briquettes
HM3 Energy’s proprietary TorrB™ torrefaction technology takes biomass energy to a new, cleaner and more energy efficient level. It converts biomass such as wood waste and agricultural residue into clean fuel suitable for co-firing in coal-fired electric power generation plants. HM3 Energy has demonstrated the technology using woody debris as feedstock to produce our TorrB™ torrefied biomass briquettes. Essentially, the process receives biomass from urban wood waste collection, forest thinning, logging slash, and agricultural residue. The biomass feedstock is ground in a horizontal grinder, dried then heated at high temperature by torrefaction, then pulverized and pressed into TorrB™ torrefied briquettes.
The TorrB™ briquettes have many advantages over standard pellets:
- They are completely dry and dense, therefore inexpensive to ship and store.
- They do not absorb water, so can be stored and shipped outside.
- They are easily crushed into a powder, just like coal is before firing in the coal-fired boiler.
- They have a similar heating value to coal.
- Switching to HM3 Energy's TorrB™ torrefied biomass briquettes requires no modifications to the existing coal-fired power plant.
Utilities will find torrefied biomass the least expensive way to reduce their carbon footprint and act responsibly to keep their baseload coal plants running. The levelized cost of co-firing HM3 Energy's TorrB™ briquettes is less than the cost of installing carbon capture and sequestration or toxic emissions controls, and less than paying carbon tax penalties.
