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Alphakat Plant Sizes and Volumes
Prior to describing the phased GEI solution, a summary of the Alphakat plant sizes and volumes are included below. The amount of dry MSW processed and the amount of diesel produced are directly correlated to the size of the turbine(s) installed. While scale is critical to produce commercially viable diesel production amounts, the non-turbine components are virtually the same and the technology is the same. It is the size of the turbine which drives the scalability of the diesel production.
At Cerro Patacon, Alphakat recommends the first plant to be large enough to demonstrate a proof of concept with sufficient volume to justify the investment (i.e., KDV 1000). This unit produces 1,000 liters (250 gallons) of diesel per hour with an intake of 2.6 dry tons of MSW. With the assumption that the waste is 50% water, the unit can process 5.4 tons of MSW per hour. The unit operates for approximately 8,000 hours per year, thus producing about two (2) million gallons of diesel per year. Based on the above baseline, the KDV 1000 will process 63 dry tons (or 130 wet tons) of MSW per day.
Alphakat also produces a KDV 2000 which is the unit currently installed in Spain, as mentioned in the Technology – References section previously. The above numbers increase by a factor of four, thus this unit produces 2,000 liters (500 gallons) of diesel per hour with an hourly intake of 5.2 dry tons of MSW, totaling 125 dry tons of MSW per day. The KDV 2000 produces four (4) million gallons of diesel per year.
Alphakat includes all of the pre-processing equipment necessary for MSW separation, dehydration and shredding for all feedstock input including plastics (including the desulfurization required when processing plastics). This is a package arrangement also includes technology upgrades as they occur for no additional charge. The units take 4-8 months to deliver and install depending upon the size and type of feedstock to be processed.
Lastly, it is important to note that the production of one ton of diesel from MSW results in a savings of 3.2 tons of CO2 being released into the atmosphere.
Model, Size and Production Volume Based upon Operations of 8,000 Hours/Year
