Bio-mass gasifier

yopappamon

yopappamon

10 kW
Joined
Mar 31, 2010
Messages
825
Location
Most dangerous city in the USA, Flint, MI
I recently moved from southern California to rural farm country Michigan. I went from ebiking to work 2-3 times a week to out running farm dogs on dirt roads a couple times a month.

Out here wood is plentifull, farmers will let you cut out the dead trees free.

Last week I looked at a farm that had an outdoor wood fire boiler. It was one of the EPA phase 2 gasifier boilers. Low emissions, 92% efficient. Very nice and very expensive. The guy was heating a big house, garage and green house with free wood. Probably saving $3-4k in propane a year.

I'm thinking about getting one of those wood boilers, but in talking with my brother, he thinks if you bought a biomass gasifier, you could run a gas boiler with it but also a generator if the power goes out (which it does from storms and ice...)

Anyone have experience or insite into biomass gasifiers?

From what I've seen the wood boiler market is coming of age but gasifiers seem to still be more of an experimental product.
 
yopappamon said:
I recently moved from southern California to rural farm country Michigan. I went from ebiking to work 2-3 times a week to out running farm dogs on dirt roads a couple times a month.

Out here wood is plentifull, farmers will let you cut out the dead trees free.
Click to expand...
Well, what a switch for you moving from sunny Californication land to wintry Michigan where the snow piles up deep. Your first investment of course will be in winter apparel, huh?? So no, no experience whatsoever. Just want to say that if you've never felled a tree, sawed it up, hauled it out of the forest, stacked it to keep the water away, moved it for burning, managed a fire burn, dealt with the ashes, etc., I could see how you'd claim the fuel is "free". Hahaaa! Best of luck.
 
Yes, "free" is quite a relative term! :mrgreen:

And the winter apparel is very lacking at this point. But I grew up here, no stranger to cutting wood. And since I'm currently severely under employed, I have much more time available than money. I have about 10 cords of walnut cut up and setting in the yard that I'm working on stacking and splitting. I used to be a lot better at this kind of work thirty years ago! :lol:
 
Just Google Wood gasifier, or, wood gas. There are a LOT of guys using these, and, there is a Yahoo group that is big, also.

I can't remember names of guys anymore, but, I know of at least 3 running pickups and Farm tractors on wood gas

I can get you some names if you'd like. :mrgreen:
 
pelle242 said:
Search for GEK gasifier. The have plans and kits. Also they use the woodgas to driver a genset for electrisity.
Click to expand...

Thanks, lots of good info on their site.

Looks like the gasifiers require small biomass (wood chips...) . Probably require more attention than a wood boiler you can load with split logs and ignore for 24-48 hours.
 
GEK is an "EXPERIMENTER's KIT."
10kW Power Pallet: $18,995 USD + shipping
20kW Power Pallet: $26,995 USD + shipping
Click to expand...

What makes these formerly successful processes less attractive today is that the cost has been driven way up. No longer assembling your system from junk you have laying around, no longer feeding your own wastes into it, no longer powering it with those wastes. It's never free energy when you're powering it with gas and/or electricity. If you build one cheap, you can throw most everything in there, not just wood. The fluids that come off it are useful too, though you may not have a way to use them. People gassify old tires and run mopeds on the runoff.

http://www.ienergyinc.com/content/view/33/47/

http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/learn-to-build-a-do-it-yourself-biomass-gasifier.html

[youtube]atjd_eNxfxA[/youtube]

http://www.instructables.com/id/Building-the-GEK-Gasifier-in-seven-parts/step1/Fabrication-methods-and-standards/

[youtube]k9FsM0F3F38[/youtube]
 
Harold in CR said:
Just Google Wood gasifier, or, wood gas. There are a LOT of guys using these, and, there is a Yahoo group that is big, also.

I can't remember names of guys anymore, but, I know of at least 3 running pickups and Farm tractors on wood gas

I can get you some names if you'd like. :mrgreen:
Click to expand...

Harold, I would be curious if they thought a gasifier would be good for home heating in a cold climate or if it would require too much attention.
 
Sent messages to both guys. Here is a link of the tractor running on Wood Gas, and, a couple other videos in the article. 8)

LINK
 
This is from a link on your link Harold.

#2) Can you use woodgas to generate electricity?

A) Yes, However stationary woodgas production is much more involved than other mobile applications. In a mobile application the normal bumps in the road help eliminate fuel bridging and keep the grate shaken to keep the ash moving. Moreover running woodgas derates the HP output of a gasoline engine by at least 25% this can become a problem when trying to get the rated KW out of a genhead. Also running a woodgas generator for an hour is one thing but when you look at the feasibility of continuous use, like refueling and hot ash removal, all while working on a very WARM unit, it becomes less attractive.  In my humble opinion, I think that using woodgas for electricity production is best suited to short ( 1 or 2 hour) runs to charge low batteries on an existing wind or PV system.
Click to expand...

I think I would have the same issues trying to use it for home heating. Not great for continuous use. Where the wood boilers are set up for continuous use.
 
Here is the reply from 1st contact.
Hi Harold
I finally ran the unit from with a full fuel barrel till it stalled. It ran for about 3.5hrs and used 7- 5gal buckets of chunked wood weighing about 110 lbs. being stationary it would be fairly easy to automate the fueling,but everything would have to be air tight.
The value of the heat reclaimed would be as much as the electricity or more, you could mine it from the engine as well as the woodgas cooler and generator.I fyour friend wants any help or wants to see what I have here have him contact me I would be glad to help
Click to expand...

I asked for an email address, so you guys can discuss this further. I wouldn't give up just yet. :mrgreen:
 
$5k for propane is pretty absurd. somebody needs to invest in modern propane boilers.

i would recommend just burning the wood in a higher quality wood stove like the cawley lemay that i use. big door and very effective vents for keeping the fire hot and well supplied with air, and they have a reheat grate above the fire to reburn the smoke.

never burn wet wood. let it dry for one year at least. if it only has one summer to dry, make sure it is split early in the summer and stacked loose enuff and then bring it inside to dry next to the stove for as long as possible before burning.

you can use the propane for cooking and hot water and heating backup to keep the cost down, propane has been really cheap until recently so you should buy it now before the winter comes on yet. gonna go back up.

you should invest in insulation and effective thermopane windows too but usually that is not something you can control unless you own the property. even $1k/year is steep imo.
 
This one looks like it could handle continious use to me:

energy_biodiesel_2.jpg


Yes the fuel must be homogenious and in small chunks or chips but is it unreasonable that a woodchipper is part of the setup?
 
dnmun said:
$5k for propane is pretty absurd. somebody needs to invest in modern propane
Click to expand...

I'm guessing $2500 to 3500 this winter for this place. It has good quality windows, good insulation. But an older boiler, probably 30 years old. We just filled the tank. 250 gallons since May, $1.79 per gal. The bill was around $450. Mostly domestic hot water and cloths dryer, with a couple weeks of light heat use.

It's a lot of money, that's why I'm looking into alternatives.
 
pelle242 said:
This one looks like it could handle continious use to me:
Click to expand...

Yeah, you need the rest of the system with it:

kearns2.png


But since he's not a miner, he'll want something smaller and simpler. Gotta hand it to that Kearns Waste Sciences Group. I'm a big proponent of pyrollysis, but it's an uphill battle with the public.

. . . .disposes of waste by Thermal Disintegration achieving 100% combustion of waste materials. This not only results in the plant being auto-thermic, but these units produce more energy than they consume (An Innovative and Sensible Waste-to-Energy Solution, 2011). Furthermore, this efficiency allows the Kearns Disintegration Units to operate without water. Comparatively, incinerators, which do not achieve complete combustion, require a quench tank.
Click to expand...

Moving back to something more practical, here's the FEMA system, they'd LOVE to have you build this and become a local expert. If I was better at navigating the government grant world, I'd go find for you the way to get the government to pay for your experimenting; I feel certain they would. Too bad high school activist Arlo is in Canada, I KNOW there's money for programs to teach energy to students in the U.S.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/61900096/FEMA-Emergency-Gassifer

http://www.woodgas.net/links.html
 
yopappamon said:
pelle242 said:
Yes the fuel must be homogenious and in small chunks or chips but is it unreasonable that a woodchipper is part of the setup?
Click to expand...

The budget is the only limit. So a chipper would not be to of the question of the total cost was good.

Is there a seller of those units?
Click to expand...

As dauntless pointed out that picture is of an big industrial setup. The point I was trying to make is that with a screw adding chipped fuel and an ash removal at the bottom as in the picture I dont see why continuous use would be impossible.

Again the GEK is pretty much designed to do just what you want. And you can build it from scratch, the plans are free:
http://gekgasifier.com/wood-gasifier-plans/

They also have tons of videos on building and the theory: http://www.youtube.com/user/allpowerlabs/videos?view=0
 
coal fired furnaces use a similar auger in order to deliver the crushed and pulverized coal to the grate.

a friend owned an old hotel here with one of those and the they hated it because it was always getting jammed and clogged so they had to work on it constantly.

proving to be very expensive to attempt to find cheap heating. eh? i bot my cawley lemay for $800 in 1980, most money i spent in one spot remodeling this place. proved to be the most valuable and useful, so easy to light and keep going. but the size of the door and air vents are what made it so valuable.

i also got a used jotul 116 for $125 and a croatian stove called Amity for $80, with a top that opens to feed big logs and it even has front doors that open so i can put huge knots inside that otherwise i could never use since they can't be split.

free wood is a curse, wood heat is so much work, especially since gas is so cheap. but i am condemned to cheap and reuse so i scavenge every time the opportunity arrives. when they built a new house up the block i got so much free wood from the framing crew it will last 2 years as kindling split from all the dimensional lumber they tossed. and then another neighbor had the arborist take down a huge tree, i only got another cord and a half from that. my shoulder aches from splitting wood. too old for this.
 
I'm currently leaning toward an indoor pellet boiler. Probably a bit safer than a full wood boiler for indoors. Some cheaper too. My brother and i would buy a pellet mill. Seems a lot less work than dealing with logs.

http://www.harmanstoves.com/en/Products/HydroFlex-60-Pellet-Boiler.aspx
 
It's really not all that difficult. Google up Wayne Keith. He's the guy that travels the USA show and tell, using his Dodge pickup, with a very refined gasifier. Actually looks like bed rails on the top sides of his pickup.

All the info about guys I sent you, use roughly 2 X 2 X 2 wood blocks for fuel. That's pretty easy to come up with, along with tree branches sliced up, etc.

Still waiting for my Buddy to chime in. I will put up a link to his build thread for you.

Well, you ready for a LOOOONG read, yopoppa ?? :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

There IS a build thread, after we get done solving the energy problems in the beginning of the thread :roll: :roll: :lol:

LINK
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

RustyKipper
25000 mile club
Replies
10
Views
692
thundercamel
thundercamel
TylerDurden
Everyone Agrees: ARPA-E Is a Fascinating Experiment
Replies
1
Views
1,029
torqueon
T
jondoh
Peak Oil Porn (or why you should have an ev TODAY!)
Replies
10
Views
3,398
sabrewalt
S
Back
Top