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FM
Former Member

Briquettes are irrelevant, GuySuCo estates not producing sufficient bagasse

Posted By Staff Writer On January 8, 2015 @ 5:05 am In Letters | No Comments

Dear Editor,

I refer to a very misleading letter in the Stabroek News of 6th January, 2014 written by Mr. Suresh S. Narine, Director of the Institute of Applied Science and Technology (IAST), entitled `The Institute of Applied Science and Technology has demonstrated the suitability of replacing firewood with briquettes in GuySuCo’s boilers’.

And all I have to say is “God help us”   because these people can’t!

The use of briquettes as a substitute for firewood was never a concern of mine, in fact if they were conducting the experiment at Uitvlugt and they were burning wood rather than bagasse it means that the supply of cane to the factory was so intermittent that they were buying wood to start up the factory after these frequent out-of-cane stoppages, since Uitvlugt, as are all estates designed to be powered using loose bagasse. Not briquettes.

The reality of the situation is that most if not all estates have a shortage of bagasse since they are just not operating as continuously as they must to conserve bagasse. Which is why I say that this briquettes story is not, in my opinion, worthy of being pursued as an industry strategy in view of the universal shortage of bagasse due to the numerous stoppages for out-of-cane reasons being experienced by the Guyana industry today.

If this scientist can take me to any factory which has surplus bagasse today, I would gladly accompany him. And I did say that GuySuCo did not inform us that they were doing this operation and on what location to compress the bagasse to briquettes and in the long letter written by Narine, I do not see where in GuySuCo it was being done. If he is thinking of going to the various saw mills to collect the sawdust to make briquettes I would probably listen and in fact some enterprising businessman could perhaps look at this possibility but everyone must understand that it is just a measure to start up the factory in cases where there is no bagasse in the logie, and as soon as the canes begin to pass through the mills the bagasse begins to come into play to generate power as the boilers were designed to do.

In any event the GuySuCo boilers are specially built and placing briquettes on the floor of the boiler and igniting it there is not efficient, we have to accept that to start the factory in the absence of no bagasse we have to use wallaba firewood, and Narine is just recommending a way to circumvent that problem, he does not address cost, just that IAST are trying briquettes instead of firewood three decades after someone else established that it can be done. But to plan for briquettes as an ongoing operation during normal grinding in view of our other problems is ridiculous, and this attempt to obscure the matter by IAST is beneath contempt. Once available, surplus bagasse can be made to do anything, I for example saw in Jamaica many years ago a block to use in the building of houses which was made from compressed bagasse.

Editor the boilers in our sugar industry work this way, as the bagasse becomes available from the mills it is put on to a conveyor belt and is taken to the top of the boiler, at the bottom of the boiler there is a 100-200 HP fan blowing air as an updraft to the falling bagasse coming in from the top, the entrance to the boiler of the air is protected by what we in the industry call a top hat, an inverted hat to prevent blockage by the bagasse falling from above, the air updraft then allows the bagasse to burn “in the air” close to the boiler tubes located at the top of the boiler, factories with inexperienced operators or boiler feeders who are burning the bagasse on the floor of the boiler rather than this up “in the air” close to the overhead boiler tubes that must happen for the system to work properly, soon run into low steam problems.

So Director thanks for telling us what we already knew, that bagasse is a fuel which most sugar enterprises use for powering the fuel hungry factory operations, remember editor that firewood is only used in extreme circumstances where there is no surplus bagasse, and that compressed bagasse cannot power our boilers unless you create a hurricane inside the boiler to allow the briquettes to be burnt overhead when we throw them in from the top.

Actually the only thing I found of interest in Narine’s letter is the following and I don’t think that even he appreciates its importance “2011 [GuySuCo] generated 1,190,667 tonnes [of bagasse]; in 2012; 1,025,439 tonnes; and in 2013, 898,406 tonnes. Anyone see a trend here? They are generating less and less bagasse since they are probably grinding less and less cane per year. So we are back to the real problem, there are no canes in the fields, that’s what we should be concentrating on! Could you people keep your eye on the ball?

Yours faithfully,

Tony Vieira

Replies sorted oldest to newest

Tony Vieira is a no-nonsense man who writes sense based on his professional scientific-agricultural training and experience.

While IAST has done some valuable research throughout the years, it has also erred in some studies. This briquette-fuel project has serious question marks, according to expert assessments by Vieira and Dr Janette Bulkan.

FM
Tony dispatched of this fool with absolute efficiency.

The man sidnt even have to think to get rid of Narine.

This is what I speak about, the PPP do not surround themselves with people who have any track record or established resume they love mediocrity.

Like this ***** anus pretending he knows about Telecoms and wireless networks.

These *****s are dunces.
FM
Originally Posted by HM_Redux:
Tony dispatched of this fool with absolute efficiency.

The man sidnt even have to think to get rid of Narine.

This is what I speak about, the PPP do not surround themselves with people who have any track record or established resume they love mediocrity.

Like this ***** anus pretending he knows about Telecoms and wireless networks.

These *****s are dunces.

Creativity at its best, NOT!!

Nehru

Tony Veira is a racist. The PNC should do well in dumping him. And if the AFC merges with APNU, Ramjattan should demand that this putagee racists be kept out of the government.

 

This man publicly dehumanize Indos and their culture. He refused to transmit anything indo on his TV station when he had it.

 

He thinks, Indos have no rights as citizens of Guyana. He din think that one day Indos goan run the country.

 

This putagee fool will always think he is an Afro in disguise.

 

He hates everything Indo, he even try to disprove when Indians first landed in BG. He complained about a few hours. His pettiness demonstrates his hatred for Indos.

 

Briquettes are used world wide to feed boilers. It could be begasse, wood sawdust or woodchips. The Key is to compress the medium.

 

Veira juss dislike Narine-ofcouse he would. Narine is an East Indian with smarts. 

S
Last edited by seignet
Originally Posted by seignet:

Tony Veira is a racist. The PNC should do well in dumping him. And if the AFC merges with APNU, Ramjattan should demand that this putagee racists be kept out of the government.

 

This man publicly dehumanize Indos and their culture. He refused to transmit anything indo on his TV station when he had it.

 

He thinks, Indos have no rights as citizens of Guyana. He din think that one day Indos goan run the country.

 

This putagee fool will always think he is an Afro in disguise.

 

He hates everything Indo, he even try to disprove when Indians first landed in BG. He complained about a few hours. His pettiness demonstrates his hatred for Indos.

 

Briquettes are used world wide to feed boilers. It could be begasse, wood sawdust or woodchips. The Key is to compress the medium.

 

Veira juss dislike Narine-ofcouse he would. Narine is an East Indian with smarts. 

Veira wife is mix east indian

FM
Originally Posted by warrior:
Originally Posted by seignet:

Tony Veira is a racist. The PNC should do well in dumping him. And if the AFC merges with APNU, Ramjattan should demand that this putagee racists be kept out of the government.

 

This man publicly dehumanize Indos and their culture. He refused to transmit anything indo on his TV station when he had it.

 

He thinks, Indos have no rights as citizens of Guyana. He din think that one day Indos goan run the country.

 

This putagee fool will always think he is an Afro in disguise.

 

He hates everything Indo, he even try to disprove when Indians first landed in BG. He complained about a few hours. His pettiness demonstrates his hatred for Indos.

 

Briquettes are used world wide to feed boilers. It could be begasse, wood sawdust or woodchips. The Key is to compress the medium.

 

Veira juss dislike Narine-ofcouse he would. Narine is an East Indian with smarts. 

Veira wife is mix east indian

Does he beat her daily???

Nehru
Originally Posted by Nehru:
Originally Posted by warrior:
Originally Posted by seignet:

Tony Veira is a racist. The PNC should do well in dumping him. And if the AFC merges with APNU, Ramjattan should demand that this putagee racists be kept out of the government.

 

This man publicly dehumanize Indos and their culture. He refused to transmit anything indo on his TV station when he had it.

 

He thinks, Indos have no rights as citizens of Guyana. He din think that one day Indos goan run the country.

 

This putagee fool will always think he is an Afro in disguise.

 

He hates everything Indo, he even try to disprove when Indians first landed in BG. He complained about a few hours. His pettiness demonstrates his hatred for Indos.

 

Briquettes are used world wide to feed boilers. It could be begasse, wood sawdust or woodchips. The Key is to compress the medium.

 

Veira juss dislike Narine-ofcouse he would. Narine is an East Indian with smarts. 

Veira wife is mix east indian

Does he beat her daily???

i know veira and his wife both seems like nice people 

FM
Originally Posted by warrior:
Originally Posted by seignet:

Tony Veira is a racist. The PNC should do well in dumping him. And if the AFC merges with APNU, Ramjattan should demand that this putagee racists be kept out of the government.

 

This man publicly dehumanize Indos and their culture. He refused to transmit anything indo on his TV station when he had it.

 

He thinks, Indos have no rights as citizens of Guyana. He din think that one day Indos goan run the country.

 

This putagee fool will always think he is an Afro in disguise.

 

He hates everything Indo, he even try to disprove when Indians first landed in BG. He complained about a few hours. His pettiness demonstrates his hatred for Indos.

 

Briquettes are used world wide to feed boilers. It could be begasse, wood sawdust or woodchips. The Key is to compress the medium.

 

Veira juss dislike Narine-ofcouse he would. Narine is an East Indian with smarts. 

Veira wife is mix east indian

Good for a ????. He juss marry dem and leave dem.      

S
Originally Posted by HM_Redux:
Stick to the issue at hand and what Veira is discussing.

Refute what he has to say vs what he put on his TV station or didn't put.

It's irrelevant to this issue.

Veira's point of view is bent on stupidity of Narine. 

S
Originally Posted by seignet:
Originally Posted by warrior:
Originally Posted by seignet:

Tony Veira is a racist. The PNC should do well in dumping him. And if the AFC merges with APNU, Ramjattan should demand that this putagee racists be kept out of the government.

 

This man publicly dehumanize Indos and their culture. He refused to transmit anything indo on his TV station when he had it.

 

He thinks, Indos have no rights as citizens of Guyana. He din think that one day Indos goan run the country.

 

This putagee fool will always think he is an Afro in disguise.

 

He hates everything Indo, he even try to disprove when Indians first landed in BG. He complained about a few hours. His pettiness demonstrates his hatred for Indos.

 

Briquettes are used world wide to feed boilers. It could be begasse, wood sawdust or woodchips. The Key is to compress the medium.

 

Veira juss dislike Narine-ofcouse he would. Narine is an East Indian with smarts. 

Veira wife is mix east indian

Good for a ????. He juss marry dem and leave dem.      

how you know the man leave his wife

FM
Originally Posted by warrior:
Originally Posted by seignet:
Originally Posted by warrior:
Originally Posted by seignet:

Tony Veira is a racist. The PNC should do well in dumping him. And if the AFC merges with APNU, Ramjattan should demand that this putagee racists be kept out of the government.

 

This man publicly dehumanize Indos and their culture. He refused to transmit anything indo on his TV station when he had it.

 

He thinks, Indos have no rights as citizens of Guyana. He din think that one day Indos goan run the country.

 

This putagee fool will always think he is an Afro in disguise.

 

He hates everything Indo, he even try to disprove when Indians first landed in BG. He complained about a few hours. His pettiness demonstrates his hatred for Indos.

 

Briquettes are used world wide to feed boilers. It could be begasse, wood sawdust or woodchips. The Key is to compress the medium.

 

Veira juss dislike Narine-ofcouse he would. Narine is an East Indian with smarts. 

Veira wife is mix east indian

Good for a ????. He juss marry dem and leave dem.      

how you know the man leave his wife

How do you know of all the kaka you write here?

FM
Originally Posted by skeldon_man:
Originally Posted by warrior:
Originally Posted by seignet:
Originally Posted by warrior:
Originally Posted by seignet:

Tony Veira is a racist. The PNC should do well in dumping him. And if the AFC merges with APNU, Ramjattan should demand that this putagee racists be kept out of the government.

 

This man publicly dehumanize Indos and their culture. He refused to transmit anything indo on his TV station when he had it.

 

He thinks, Indos have no rights as citizens of Guyana. He din think that one day Indos goan run the country.

 

This putagee fool will always think he is an Afro in disguise.

 

He hates everything Indo, he even try to disprove when Indians first landed in BG. He complained about a few hours. His pettiness demonstrates his hatred for Indos.

 

Briquettes are used world wide to feed boilers. It could be begasse, wood sawdust or woodchips. The Key is to compress the medium.

 

Veira juss dislike Narine-ofcouse he would. Narine is an East Indian with smarts. 

Veira wife is mix east indian

Good for a ????. He juss marry dem and leave dem.      

how you know the man leave his wife

How do you know of all the kaka you write here?

you like spreading rumour like a real estate women 

FM
Originally Posted by warrior:
Originally Posted by skeldon_man:
Originally Posted by warrior:
Originally Posted by seignet:
Originally Posted by warrior:
Originally Posted by seignet:

Tony Veira is a racist. The PNC should do well in dumping him. And if the AFC merges with APNU, Ramjattan should demand that this putagee racists be kept out of the government.

 

This man publicly dehumanize Indos and their culture. He refused to transmit anything indo on his TV station when he had it.

 

He thinks, Indos have no rights as citizens of Guyana. He din think that one day Indos goan run the country.

 

This putagee fool will always think he is an Afro in disguise.

 

He hates everything Indo, he even try to disprove when Indians first landed in BG. He complained about a few hours. His pettiness demonstrates his hatred for Indos.

 

Briquettes are used world wide to feed boilers. It could be begasse, wood sawdust or woodchips. The Key is to compress the medium.

 

Veira juss dislike Narine-ofcouse he would. Narine is an East Indian with smarts. 

Veira wife is mix east indian

Good for a ????. He juss marry dem and leave dem.      

how you know the man leave his wife

How do you know of all the kaka you write here?

you like spreading rumour like a real estate women 

How do you know real estate women spread rumors? Are you one of them? I see!!!

FM

Briquetting technology potentially can reduce GuySuCo’s dependence on firewood

 

Posted By Staff Writer On January 9, 2015 @ 5:07 am In Letters |

Dear Editor,

 

Once again permit me to offer a response to Mr Tony Vieira’s letter in the Stabroek News ‘Briquettes are irrelevant, GuySuCo estates not producing sufficient bagasse’ (January 8). In this response, I am choosing to ignore the intemperate language and unnecessary resort to ad hominem commentary.

 

Editor, permit me also to acknowledge the balanced, respectful and carefully reasoned letter written on this subject by Mr Ken Norman in the Kaieteur News, titled ‘Let’s avoid another GuySuCo white elephant’ (January 8). As with some of Mr Vieira’s points, I agree fully with all points raised by Mr Norman. I hope that in perusing my response below he will appreciate that the installation of the briquetting technology has the potential of reducing the corporation’s dependence on and costs for firewood in the short term (until sugar supply to the industry is hopefully addressed) and the potential of revenue generation through co-generation of electricity for supply to the national grid in the long term.

 

In Mr Vieira’s original letter to which I responded he made the claim that energy briquettes from bagasse are an unworkable technology and additionally sought information on whether this technology had been tried at GuySuCo. Since energy briquettes are used in many places around the world to generate energy and since the IAST had indeed conducted two tests at GuySuCo, I sought in my previous letter (SN, January 6) to address both concerns expressed by Mr Vieira. My letter dealt with facts, not conjecture, and I carefully avoided other issues raised by Mr Vieira. I also very carefully indicated that I was restricting my response to only these two issues, as I retain no ability to respond on diverse issues affecting GuySuCo itself. I therefore am quite stunned to have my letter described as misleading. Every single thing I recorded in my letter is completely factual and verifiable.

 

Had my invitation to review our reports and the video footage of the tests been accepted, then Mr Vieira would have been able to ascertain for himself all the details of what was recommended. It would also have avoided him having to make some of the arguments he puts forward in his latest letter, for they have been taken into account. I would like to earnestly suggest that science and technology solutions cannot be debated in short letters in the dailies without commentators investing time to understand what is being suggested, Editor. If individuals wish to offer criticism, they must invest the time to understand the entirety of what has been done.

 

Had Mr Vieira taken the time to peruse our proposed solution he would have appreciated, and probably agreed with what is being proposed, as it takes so much of what he has written into consideration:

  1. GuySuCo currently utilizes a significant amount of firewood for frequent start-ups of its furnaces to power its boilers. One of the main factors causing this is the intermittent supply of canes to the factories.

This is acknowledged as an issue in the work we did. GuySuCo as an industry obviously needs to address this urgently, but this is the situation currently. Questions on what is being done to address cane supply are best directed at GuySuCo.

  1. The cost for firewood accrues measurably towards the cost of converting cane to sugar currently at GuySuCo.
  2. Firewood is used for the start-up of the furnaces so that the furnace can be heated up to the temperatures required for loose bagasse introduced into the furnace from the top to combust in the upper third of the furnace.
  3. If loose bagasse is used instead of firewood to achieve the required temperature range in this start-up phase, a large amount of bagasse must be used as the combustion is inefficient. Therefore, firewood is used. This, of course, is exacerbated if the factory is not processing a sufficient volume of cane to produce either excess or sufficient bagasse.
  4. Since it is a fact that some sugar estates such as the one at Albion generally have excess bagasse (Editor, your staff can verify this by sending a reporter to take a photograph of the giant pile of excess bagasse stored at Albion, or by reviewing our video of the process), conversion of this excess into briquettes allows for complete eradication of the use of firewood.

Our tests have demonstrated that it is simpler to load the briquettes into the furnaces for the start-up phase (particularly if some simple conveyors are installed), and that the time for the required temperature ranges to be achieved is significantly reduced. There is also less potential damage to the furnace walls when briquettes are used as opposed to firewood. Furthermore, the briquettes have between 2-4 % moisture content, whilst the firewood typically has between 45 to 50 % moisture, so that a significant amount of the energy generated by using firewood is spent in the latent heat of vaporization for the moisture in the wood, creating steam that is simply exhausted and therefore wasted.

  1. The cost of producing briquettes, at for example Albion, and transporting them to Uitvlugt is a fraction of the cost of purchasing firewood, not to mention the environmental degradation caused by deforestation.
  2. Our recommendation is not to supplant the ongoing feeding of the furnaces by loose bagasse once the required temperature ranges for combustion have been achieved, but to start up the furnaces using this cheaper source of fuel (briquettes).

 

  1. It is a fact that if the sugar factories at GuySuCo are fed uninterruptedly with canes to their fullest capacity (obviously a very desirable situation which GuySuCo must work diligently at or face the inevitable), feeding loose bagasse into the system will still not consume all of the bagasse created.

The energy conversion ratios and the required energy of the plant is simple enough to calculate to demonstrate this is factual, and this is exactly what obtains at many other locations in the world. Some of the industry’s best practices for use of this excess bagasse relate to:

  1. Utilization in digestors to produce organic fertilizers
  2. Processing into briquettes for generation of energy (co-generation), or, if the factory is large enough to support an on-site electricity facility selling into the grid, gasification of the bagasse without briquetting.
  3. Use of excess bagasse in particle board and plastic composites (this latter is also a project which has been used at IAST to produce roofing shingles).
  4. A variety of other uses which it is not efficient to enumerate in a letter to the editor.
  5. Investing the relatively small sums in briquetting technology given the current issues faced by GuySuCo will without question allow it to generate significant savings by replacing costly firewood. If GuySuCo is willing to share its business plan for this technology, the public can be informed about the economic feasibility of the process.
  6. What happens to this investment (which is much less than US$100, 000) when (hopefully) the corporation has begun to address its cane supply issue? The excess bagasse generated by the corporation will be even larger when this state of affairs has been achieved (as is the case in every sugar factory with similar systems and an at-capacity supply of cane around the world), and it can begin to generate income by co-generating electricity for the national grid.

I should also inform your readers that the efficient burning of renewable fuels such as bagasse is considered to be climate-neutral, as successive crop cycles sequester the carbon released from the combustion of crop residues. In fact, in some countries, the combustion of crop residues attracts carbon rebates.

 

Editor, I wish to assure Mr Vieira that my letters mean no disrespect to him; I am a science and technology professional whose responsibility it is to represent the work done in this arena by IAST on behalf of the taxpayers of Guyana. And I hold no brief to defend GuySuCo. I am simply doing my job.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

Professor Suresh S Narine

Director

IAST

FM

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