It was a historic day at All Power Labs– we had a visit from the two Toms of biomass thermal conversion. Tom Miles was in the shop getting to know the 10kW Power Pallet for a project in Alaska. Tom Reed was in California visiting his grandson, and decided to stop by to make sure the kids weren’t messing up his hard won work.
Tom Miles is the founder of www.bioenergylists.org and a well-known figure in the biomass and stoves world. Tom Reed’s work at the Biomass Energy Foundation goes back well into the 1970s when he laid the groundwork that most of us learned about gasification from. We were honored to have such forefathers of our industry on site and tickled to watch them fiddle and banter with Bear as they talked theoretical auger angles and increased microscopic surface areas. We hung on Tom Reed’s every word as he described over lunch his hopes in the 70s that someone would develop a functional and inexpensive gasifier generator kit from his research and saw his 30-year wait end as he watched us start up the Power Pallet.
I very much agree, well priced and effective gasifiers, are already becoming a solution to fuel price rises