A potential solution

[gtill]

While we're talking guavas, has anyone heard how the Beaumont Guava trees are faring, these guavas grew 20'plus high and had apple size fruits they were touted as an ag crop in a lot of subdivisions! The best were in HPP, where some nice stands took off. But more common was like in FFVE, 3-9 acres clear grubbed, everything shoved to the side, strings pulled the depth of the lot and kekei dropped every 20', with 30' spacing.
A nice seed sprout, literally dropped on black barren lava. One in 20 made it, and those did poorly!It seems the red sreawberry, with useless fruit does better, and until now, never saw a possible use for it!

The kinky shaped, yellow skinned guava was the charcoal stock, it used to be common, and people picked the yello fruit wild, to sell to fruit makers in Hilo and Honolulu! Beaumont was a hybrid off the wild! The strawberry is newer!

[mgeary]

First, JWFITZ, I am very respectful of what you're doing. You're not satisfied with the status quo, you've done some research, gathered information and ideas, and most importantly, you're DOING something to change the way you use energy.

Secondly, all of what you said as the obstacles or impediments to the development of a hydrogen economy are true. They are many, and they are huge.

What I was trying to say is that, for a lot of reasons, burning carbon is something we need to get away from, particularly in Hawaii. Most importantly, the cleanliness of burning hydrogen is unquestionable. Decreasing our reliance on foreign energy sources is important. Developing the renewable, cleaner, greener energy sources to extract hydrogen to burn cleanly is going to be good for us all, on several levels: We've exported much of our manufacturing capacity overseas, this is a whole new chunk of our GDP that we can devote to our young people as engineers and researchers, manufacturers and technicians, infrastructure (power grid, filling station, fuel cell recycling, etc.), construction, and on and on. I see it as huge as the conversion a century ago from hay-burning horse power (not horsepower) to the combustion engine.

There is a movement to develop a hydrogen economy, with for-profit corporations, non-profit organizations, and a variety of governments all on board, around the globe. The ball is rolling. It will take years to develop to fruition, perhaps a decade or more until you see as many hydrogen vehicles on the road as you now see hybrids, perhaps several decades until all the petrochemical automobiles, refineries, and infrastructure is gone. But I believe it will go. And the sooner, the better.

Hybrid vehicles are a good parallel. A decade ago, there were none. 5 years ago, you saw a couple, with only one or two manufacturers even offering a hybrid model for sale. Now, there are many on the road, and even Ford, General Motors, and Dodge/Chrysler offer several models. Here is an interesting timeline. In the near future, perhaps 5 years or so, most passenger automobiles (not trucks) will be hybrid.

Hydrogen will follow a similar path, only it's twenty years or so behind hybrid technology.

Until then, good luck on the Holtzman gas thing, and anything else you can come up with to combat Exxon, Venezuela, and Ford.

Aloha! ;-)

[JWFITZ]

Thanks all, I want to say that I APPRECIATE criticism of all sorts. I'm not here pulling of some Sierra Club stunt, I'm a guy of moderate meaning hoping to survive what I believe to be forthcoming. So, obviously, if someone can show be a better way, I'll drop it in an instant and switch. I used to be an ecologist. Today I'm a survivalist: I expect in 5 years there is chance, not a certainty, that I'd be the only person with power. We live on diesel here in Hawaii, and that could get gastly expensive very quickly.

But still, hold my feet to the fire. I've got no agenda except to survive and win.

Still.. . Hydrogen

Yup, totally on that, but don't believe that the world economy will hold together enough to ever develop it. I really don't. That is where we disagree on that score. Otherwise, in a futuristic world with : fission power, superconducting wire, and ceramic fuel cells: wonderful. Add warp drive and transporter beams while you're at it.

Holtzman gas is a PROVEN technology, and an accessible one, and it has driving a large part of the world. It is not without problems. Frankly, it's a hassle. Still, in the world I envision, having power, uninterruptedly, to run machinery, is so unbelievably valuable that it's actually unimaginable, and no other alternative fuel source even comes close. There is nothing theoretical about this at all. At this point, having run gensets and the like I'm down to the niceties of where the waste heat goes, etc., before I weld it all together and forget about it. My biggest problem with the system is I built it bombproof, out of massive steel, so it doesn't burn out. It generates ferocious temps and if you build it light it will burn up quick. Especially, as hydrogen is generated, ie, previous conversation, you need to really overbuild or you will have problems. For mobile units, in a world where you don't mind breaking the thing down once a month and putting it back together; and frankly with a powered sawsall, skill, and a wirefeed welder isn't really even an hours job, still, to power a genset and with no concern with warmup time(long, one hour) build the thing really massive. You must maintain heat or the reaction quits. As well, you fry the tars out, which hurt motors, and even the dust burns up. It's a lot of heat, maybe nearly 1600 degrees. We're pushing what steel can handle. The only way you get away with it is is by having enough thickness--for me 3/8 minimum in the fire tube, that it carries it away by thermal conductivity, which is all good and helps the reaction. All in all, we're still talking a unit that weighs less than 200 lbs for 10 kw, as I can lift it and lug it with a lot of grunt. But, thats not tons, for sure.

The proof is in the puddin' and anybody who sees this run wouldn't ever buy anything else. We're talking about a tech that as a backup, at least, for PV, can make 10kw for the price of 3 panels at 70 watts.

[JWFITZ]

Oh and before I shut systems down. Burning gasoline tonight! What a hassle!

Hybrids are neither the most fuel efficient nor the most ecological types of cars you can buy. They're actually, as far as I can see, a very carefully marketed joke meant to cater to a market that wants to be, ahem, "ecological" but is still affluent and is unwilling to make any compromise in lifestyle.

Honda Civic, I forget the model.
VW golf diesel

There's a few other, gutless cars, but if you want the top performers in mpg, they're all conventional combustion.

Where the hybrids pay is in city traffic, as you spent a lot of time parked. On the road they're no good really. I've driven Insights and Priuses' both a bunch. My Dads '87 Jetta Diesel was a vastly better car, mpg, for half the money.

[JWFITZ]

Oh and Damon, fair question. . .I missed that somewhere

ok let's assume I've 3 acres of forest, which I do.

Let's assume it's fully forested, which it is.

Mostly nice ohia, which I'd rather not cut, but an arseload of guava as well, a lot of it mature and large, like 6, 8 at the butt, as it's never been cleared. You clear it, and you'll have guava like crazy. It's invasive because people are. It needs light to germinate, and in a natural state can hardly compete with the ferns.

So, I'm way ahead of the game, yup, out of beer too.

I'm assuming a a two step forward one step back relationship. If I generate 5 tones of biomass in amalgam per acre, which is very likely even very conservative, I'm way ahead. The only goal, really, is to move the biomass into a more convenient form, like eucalyptus, rather than whack tones of quava, but I must say the guava is nearly perfect as the diameter is good and it's the least work of any fuel I've fiddled with. I'd have to chip the bigger stuff, and it may not pay actually.

Good night all.

As I say the proof is in the puddin'. If this machine is running on guava permanetly by the end of the month--well, come take a look and there's the argument. Elsewise. . .I'm full of crap. But, I wouldn't be even here if that were the case. It works. The question is rather whether it will work for you.

[mgeary]

One thing that I can say with fair certainty is that the consciousness of the (U.S.) automobile consumer is changing. Whether it's hybrid-electric, all-electric, biodiesel, Holtzman gas, or hydrogen, cars are changing. There is demand for a change to the status quo, where the Big Three (used to be Ford, GM, and Chrysler, now Ford, GM and Toyota) dictate what kind and how much of energy our cars use.

That's good news, as far as I'm concerned.

Keep plugging with what you've got going, and let us know how it turns out.

Aloha! ;-)

[Guest]

Hey JW -

What happened with your Holtzman Experiment?

Well, I'm effed.

Prophecy. The fed drops rates next week .50. Gold goes to 1015, oil to 116, and the dollar loses two percent against the euro and the yen. Does anybody else read the news?

And by the way, a Holtzman gas generator doesn't work worth a damn on wet wood.

You said it yourself!!! But I'm still down to have a beer with you sometime. [8D]

I was just reading your blog...and it appears you didn't count on what I was talking about earlier in the drying time of the wood...etc.

-------
Damons Digest

[JWFITZ]

It's hardly an experiment, it runs. This is a proven technology, not something I'm dreaming up.

I'm fabricating a can that the engine exhaust runs through to pre-dry the material. That will take care of the problem. The wood doesn't have to be real dry, but under 18 or so percent. But, mostly I've been hiking up at the volcano, so that's been on hold for now. I also want to redo the burner to try to get the pre-start smoke down and get it to heat up faster. People cared less about that sort of thing in 1930.

Here's pictures of the device.
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cf...D=26473965

[glennoid]

If only there was some kind of tree that grows super fast that people don't want... Hmm, Albizia, anyone?

[mgeary]

Just saw a commercial last night, the first one I've ever seen, for a production hydrogen vehicle, the Honda FCX Clarity. Without looking too hard, BMW and Chevrolet also have production models, although I haven't seen an ad for those. I'm totally stoked.

I'm hopeful for your Holtzman gas option, too, Fitz, and anything else that can help us get away from reliance on OPEC. We're still a long, long way away from a robust hydrogen economy, but large-scale commercial production of hydrogen vehicles is here, now. Unlike, say, fusion power, warp drive, and transporter beams. ;-) We're somewhere between those kinds of pie-in-the-sky pipe-dreams and where we need to be, but it seems like we're on the right path.

Hopefully, I'll be able to trade in the Prius in a couple of years.

Aloha! ;-)