Green (Renewable) Gasification, Electric/CHP Power

[Greg Manning]

Greetings Everyone.

I realize that this forum is mainly "wind/solar" based, however, biomass gasification falls "near this area", in that, the by-products of gasification/engine driven, heat and electricity generation are CO2, and water vapor, and is a renewable method. (Biomass, being waste straw/grasses/wood, etc.)

For those that are intrested in cheap reliable :D (night and cloud, and no wind, NOT affected setup):D , please see the link to my pages on downdraft gasification.

Regards,

Greg Manning,
Brandon, Manitoba, Canada

http://www.inetlink.ca/a31ford/cgcmb/

.

[Rob Beckers]

Interesting stuff Greg!

If others are interested, I'll be happy to create a forum for Biomass discussion. It's a topic one doesn't hear all that much about, though interest seems to be picking up. The last issue of Home Power Magazine had an article on building one.

-Rob-

[James Jarrett]

I'll have to try and dig it out, but I have an old issue of Mother Earth News that tells the story about a guy who had a small farm that a few acres of which was just "left to nature" It had scrub grass, small trees and the like.

Every year, about september, he would get out the old bush hog and mow it the ground and haul it next to his house. He'd stack it all up and dose it with a few bottles of Cheap soda to get the composting process going. He'd then wrap it with a few orbits of heavy duty water hose and cover the whole thing in dirt.

During the winter the heat of that stuff breaking down was circulated via a small pump through the slab of his house as bonus heat. He claimed it provided about 75-80% of the heat for his house over the winter.

Come spring he would carefully dig out the hoses and put them away and use the now nicely composted mass for his fields.

Kinda a cool way to use biomass really.

James

[Greg Manning]

James, I gota say, that sounds somewhat intresting, However, I have a funny feeling that even that method would not work in the minus 40 temp's we get here.....

Greg:eek:

[Kareem Shihab]

Id like to learn more about this "pump" that would take the heat from the compost to heat a home. Smell might be an issue as well. However I never thougt about harnessing that heat before, worth looking into. This is something those permaculture people would be interested in.

[Rob Beckers]

Since it was Greg that originally asked for a biomass forum, and Kareem who asked me for a biofuel forum, this seems to be an appropriate place to post this: I've changed the forum name from 'biomass' to the more general 'biofuel'. This made more sense to me than adding a separate biofuel forum, since biomass is also very much a biofuel. So this forum is now also the right place to talk about biodiesel, ethanol and all other biofuels.

In case things get too busy (A 'problem' I wouldn't mind having! :D ) we can always split up the forum at a later date, or create more specific sub-forums.

-Rob-

[Robert Harder]

Every year, about september, he would get out the old bush hog and mow it the ground and haul it next to his house. He'd stack it all up and dose it with a few bottles of Cheap soda to get the composting process going. He'd then wrap it with a few orbits of heavy duty water hose and cover the whole thing in dirt.

During the winter the heat of that stuff breaking down was circulated via a small pump through the slab of his house as bonus heat. He claimed it provided about 75-80% of the heat for his house over the winter.

I don't remember where I saw but I remember an article on a house that was designed with hollow concrete walls, the threw all the organic scraps in through openings fairly high in the walls and removed completed compost from openings at the bottom, all the while heating the house, although i'd think you'd want a very tall vent pipe for the system due to odors, and how you'd cool the place off in the summer i don't know

[Roy Lent]

I have always liked the simplicity of gasification. And it's old, off-the-shelf technology. But it has a couple of bad defects that date it.

1) It produces carbon monoxide as a fuel. This is a very poor fuel; in fact its original name in the early 1800s was "poor gas". This makes the system rather ineficient.

2) The combustion of any biomass in a gasifier releases 100% of the fixed nitrogen contained back to the atmosphere. So the ashes may contain the potassium, phosphorous and such, but the nitrogen is lost. Thus it must be replaced, I hope not using chemicals.