Bioenergy + Carbon Capture and Sequestration (BeCCS)
Trollworks BeCSS system integrates four innovative technology elements to deliver a system with multiple applications, benefits and potential revenue streams.
1. Biomass waste utilization
The Trollworks BeCCS system can source a wide variety of biomass waste’s as feedstock including: wood (urban and wildland); agricultural waste (cotton, rice, grass, hemp); demolition etc.
Wood waste from both logging and urban forests can be pelletized and used as thermal fuel and biochar feedstock.
Agricultural waste can be densified into pellets rather than being burned as waste.
2. Thermal fuel production
A unique feature of the Trollworks system is its ability to take a wide range of biomass feedstocks and process them into a stable, densified thermal fuel. This fuel can be transported and stored at sites where it is used to displace the use of fossil fuels for building or process heat.
Wood waste to thermal fuel (pellets).
Converted biomass waste converted to a storable, transportable, thermal fuel and biochar feedstock.
3. Continuous Feed Pyrolysis
Unlike the majority of biochar production systems which operate on a batch basis, Trollworks systems have operationalized a continuous feed system. This enables coupled biochar pyrolysis units to existing commercial or industrial heat needs—boilers, process heat systems; HVAC systems. This dramatically increases bioenergy + biochar process efficiencies and enables substantial improvements in financial returns.
Auger-based continuous feed system enables pairing biochar system to thermal heat needs.
4. Applying biochar as a sequestration catalyst
Biochar is by itself a form of sequestered carbon. In the process of transforming low-grade biomass waste to biochar, approximately one-quarter of the carbon that would otherwise have been released as greenhouse gases is converted into a stable carbon structure that will remain inert for decades to centuries. However, the exponential power of biochar as a sequestration resource is through its application in land regeneration treatments. Trollworks is working with some of the leading research and application scientists developing organic bio-inoculums that can magnify and accelerate the capacity of soil systems to recapture and hold carbon and water as regenerative resources.
BioEnergy + BioChar + Sequestration + Regeneration = Full Ecosystem Solutions
Combining these elements together creates a transformative system capable of transforming low-value wastes into community economic activity, landscape regeneration, and climate stabilizing carbon sequestration. Each community’s ecosystem will differ depending on its resources and applications. The power of Trollworks’ solution set is its adaptive capacities—modularity, scalability, and distributed applications. Trollworks is already in active collaboration with community-based initiatives designing locally owned and managed networks of BeCCS systems. These systems integrate biomass waste resource consolidation; conversion to renewable biofuels; deployment of biofuels in fossil fuel-displacing process heating applications, and utilization of the inoculated biochar-coproduct in soil regeneration and sequestration projects.
Schematic for Trollworks’ integrated bioenergy + carbon capture and sequestration (BeCCS) network in Boulder County, Colorado. Credit Gordon West.