All Power Labs

Jim Mason and Jessica Hobbs founded APL in 2007 on the site of, and based on, the work of the former Shipyard. The Shipyard was a collaborative art-development space established in 2001 by Mason in a dozen shipping-container workspaces assembled around a small machine shop in West Berkeley. Containers were rented out to a mix of artists, engineers and scientists he selected mostly from among his collaborators on art projects for the Burning Man festival.[4] Unable to get approval for a grid-power connection due to zoning issues,[3] the Shipyard community assembled an off-grid power system combining 2 kW of used photovoltaic panels, a 4000 amp hour surplus telecommunication battery bank, a pair of used diesel generators running on biodiesel made in an on-site biodiesel-reactor facility, and began experimenting with Biomass Gasification as a potential power source.[5][6]

APL's initial goal was education and experimentation in open-source alternative energy technologies in an attempt to create a do-it-yourself (DIY) power-hacking culture. Within the first year, the company limited its focus to the open-source development of biomass gasification technology,[5] and began to design and manufacture a range of open-source DIY Gasifier Experimenters Kits (GEK), whose plans and cad files were made available online.[1]

During a 24 hour period ending on September 29, 2018, at the APL facility in Berkeley, California, APL along with the Skysource/Skywater Alliance, successfully won the $1.5 million Water XPRIZE by producing over 2,000 liters of water in one day at a final cost of less than 2 cents per liter using only renewable energy.[7] An APL PP30 Biomass Gasifier Genset powered three Skywater 300 atmospheric water generators to extract water from the atmosphere and the additional residual moisture generated by the drying of the woodchips used to fuel the gasifier.[8]

In 2010, APL began to manufacture an integrated biomass gasifier-genset named the Power Pallet in 10 kW and 20 kW ratings. By the end of 2013 the GEK kits and 10 kW version were abandoned along with the company's open-source ethos with its release of a 20 kW unit using a proprietary gasifier design based on Mason’s patents.[2] In late 2016, the company’s principle product was the PP30 Power Pallet 25 kW biomass genset which included Combined Heat and Power (CHP) and Grid-tied Electrical System features as standard equipment[9] as well as optional accessories. A principal segment of their market is directed at addressing energy poverty in the developing world.[3][6] In 2015, using a California Energy Commission (CEC) grant intended to incentivize forest-fire remediation in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains, APL continued development of a 150 kW version of a shipping-container-based genset named the Powertainer[10] that was initially built as a 100 kW rated prototype in 2012 with the assistance of a US Department of Energy grant.[11]

All Power Labs also began to produce the Biochar Experimenter’s Kit which focuses on producing biochar, which also produces wood gas to run an internal combustion engine.[12][13]

Material and Process Flows in a GEK Gasifier

Biomass Gasification uses high temperatures in an low-oxygen environment to covert woody feedstocks into a Syngas fuel composed predominantly of flammable hydrogen (H2) and carbon monoxide (CO) gases. When waste biomass is used as the feedstock and the biochar byproduct is sequestered, such as when used as a soil amendment, the operation results in Negative carbon dioxide emission.[14][3][15] APL's gasifiers use a variety of lignocellulosic biomass (woody biomass) such as wood chips, nut shells, and other agricultural bi-products as feedstock,[3] at the rate of approximately 1kg/kWh.