Economic Analysis of Gasification of Cotton Gin Trash for Power Production

Potential EPA regulations of greenhouse gas emissions may reduce availability of power for agricultural operations. Cotton gins have the opportunity to produce sustainable energy by using gin trash through the process of gasification. Benefits attained by this conversion are onsite electricity generation which ensures a stable and cost effective supply of energy in case of rising energy costs in the future. The two primary requirements that can be replaced are electrical power and drying energy during cotton ginning. A 40 bale per hour gin operating for 1500 hours uses approximately $300,000 of electricity. Onsite gasification would reduce or eliminate this expense. Additionally, gins can benefit from bioenergy economic incentives while staying competitive and mitigating potential energy shortages that will result from the proposed greenhouse gas regulation.

Another benefit of gasification of gin trash is the production of char as a byproduct. Approximately 20 percent of the gasification byproduct  is char removed from the biogas. For a 40 bale per hour facility, approximately 2 million lbs of char would be produced in a year. Char is high in carbon content and has commercial potential as activated charcoal. The char produced from raw cotton gin trash has an iodine number of 300 but the a mild steam application could raise the number to 600 to make it commercially acceptable.