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The
Biomass Energy Foundation-
HISTORY
The Biomass Energy
Foundation (BEF) is a 501-3-C non profit foundation
devoted to biomass energy and specializing in gasification.
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The
BEF was founded in 1984 by my good friend and mentor, Dr.
Harry LaFontaine. Harry built gasifiers
during World War II as a cover for his nighttime activities in
the Danish Underground. When the "energy crisis"
struck in 1974, Harry gave lectures and demonstrations on
gasification in many universities around the East. He
converted a Lincoln Continental stretch limo to WoodGas and
demonstrated it and lectured on gasification in many Eastern
colleges.
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Tom
Reed met Harry in 1985. In 1982 Harry set up a 501-3-C
(not for profit) foundation for his activities in biomass.
Reed was invited to be a member of the board of directors of BEF.
At that time Tom Reed began to publish books at the Biomass
Energy Foundation.
Tom in Amsterdam,
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In
1994 Harry died (at age 80) and left the BEF to Dr. Reed to
pursue its original purposes. It is used for research,
consulting, publishing and travel activities in the field of
biomass and gasification. The BEF is able and willing to
sponsor projects related to these purposes.
Currently Tom Reed
is president and his wife Vivian is secretary of the BEF.
Mr. Tom Smith is the treasurer. We have been publishing
books and developing new gasifiers and stoves, and now we are
expanding into stove manufacture and alternate fuel research.
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CURRENT
RESEARCH IN ALTERNATE ENERGY AT
BEF
I
am a Physical Chemist (PhD, U. Minn.) and I love research,
(as well as engineering, teaching, inventing, and now
manufacturing stoves). Following my extended careers at
Linde (Praxair) on high temperature research (8
years) and at MIT (18 years in Material Science), I became
interested in Alternate Energy and Fuels. I published a major
article in Science on Methanol as the Fuel of the Future in
1973 that totally changed my career.
I
have a laboratory in my garage and workshop in my basement where
I perform experiments on biomass pyrolysis and gasification,
make stoves and am measuring flame velocities.
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In
1990 I developed with Bill Mobeck an oil absorbent called "SeaSweep".
I
have been working on small
gasifiers since 1980. Starting in 1998 I have
been working on the design of small gasifiers for distributed
power with the Community
Power Corporation, CPC. In 1999 we built a
small 5 kW gasifier in my garage workshop.
In
2000 we installed a 15 kW combined heat and power gasifier in a
village in the Philippines and in 2001 another at the Hoopa
Indian reservation.
In
1985 I began work on gasifiers for cooking and we are currently
manufacturing and selling a WoodGas stove for
campers.
In
2002 I began working with the National Alternative Fuels
Foundation, NAFF.
We believe that there are important improvements that can be
made to fuels such as gasohol and biodiesel and we are building
a research laboratory to investigate these fuels.
In
2002 I built 15 of our woodgas campstoves in my shop and gave
them to various people to test. With positive results from
those tests in 2003 Shivayam Ellis produced 100 stoves to market
at our new corporation, WoodGasLLC. We now sell
these stoves through this website.
In
2004 we were selected as a subcontractor to design a stove for
army field kitchens.
Our
most recent research is described in the Biomass
Energy Foundation's new website!
Contacts:
tombreed@comcast.net
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