06-11-2008, 05:02 AM
I wish people out there who advocate PV panels would have more experience with them and would fully describe the ups and downs of the things before they advocate. They work well, but are very expensive, you'll be lucky to even hit 2 bucks a kw with an array--they don't work when the sun doesn't shine--and storage capacity is the big problem. If you're willing to live very minimally as I have on my boats, they're great to to keep a light on and to listen to the radio. Will they power a tablesaw? You must be kidding.
As for the woodgas. It works. It's a hassle. Will it keep a homestead running? Yes. The ideal fuel on the island is strawberry guava. It's actually very very good. Is it a clean green fuel? Well, THAT depends on you. It's smoky, and off-gasses a fair bit of methane, which you're going to burn, but you'll lose some too. So, with my concern about global warming, that's a problem and why I wouldn't really advocate the process. But, the question is, does it work? Sure it does. It's proven, and ran most of the world prior to WWII. We've just forgot about it.
Another issue that I'm working with is scalability. I want to run small powerplants of less than 5kw. That's a problem, because it takes a certain amount of critical internal heat to keep the reaction going. Once you get small, that's a pain, and fires go out. The solution is to make your fuel in a two stage process. First, you make charcoal, then you burn the charcoal in the gas producer. This works very well and seems to be the answer, but ultimately it is less efficient as you lose a good amount of energy in the charcoalization process. Ultimately, that's what I'm doing, as I'm perpetually dealing with wet wood and crap fuel and that eliminates the problem completely. As well, you will burn up a lot of tars and crud that plug up modern motors, and that's all to the good too.
So at this point I run on the stuff when I feel like it, confident that the system works. I'll tinker with it but it all works. It is a tinker'ers system and there is no way about that, as the quality control of a lot of factors depend on you and only you. And you'll need to be enough of a motor-head to diagnose and figure stuff out. Will it work? Yup. It's cheap, versatile, and proven. Will I teach you? Sure. It's pretty simple really, in theory at least. Could I run a truck on it? Easy.
As for the woodgas. It works. It's a hassle. Will it keep a homestead running? Yes. The ideal fuel on the island is strawberry guava. It's actually very very good. Is it a clean green fuel? Well, THAT depends on you. It's smoky, and off-gasses a fair bit of methane, which you're going to burn, but you'll lose some too. So, with my concern about global warming, that's a problem and why I wouldn't really advocate the process. But, the question is, does it work? Sure it does. It's proven, and ran most of the world prior to WWII. We've just forgot about it.
Another issue that I'm working with is scalability. I want to run small powerplants of less than 5kw. That's a problem, because it takes a certain amount of critical internal heat to keep the reaction going. Once you get small, that's a pain, and fires go out. The solution is to make your fuel in a two stage process. First, you make charcoal, then you burn the charcoal in the gas producer. This works very well and seems to be the answer, but ultimately it is less efficient as you lose a good amount of energy in the charcoalization process. Ultimately, that's what I'm doing, as I'm perpetually dealing with wet wood and crap fuel and that eliminates the problem completely. As well, you will burn up a lot of tars and crud that plug up modern motors, and that's all to the good too.
So at this point I run on the stuff when I feel like it, confident that the system works. I'll tinker with it but it all works. It is a tinker'ers system and there is no way about that, as the quality control of a lot of factors depend on you and only you. And you'll need to be enough of a motor-head to diagnose and figure stuff out. Will it work? Yup. It's cheap, versatile, and proven. Will I teach you? Sure. It's pretty simple really, in theory at least. Could I run a truck on it? Easy.