Woodgas, more green than ev?

[nutnspecial]

Hey you guys ever hear of woodgas?

[youtube]tvv9TpLiDeE[/youtube]

Actually cleaner when considering manufacturing energy of electric motors and batteries, and that wood releases the same amount of co2 whether it's burned or naturally decomps?

I want to make one for my bike lol.

Seriously though, would love one for supplemental power to solar when offgrid- true greenness.

 

[Punx0r]

I can't imagine it would do much for air quality in urban areas...

 

[dogman dan]

Good point though, I have people want to lynch me when I point out that their compost pile is a polluter. Methane's a hell of a nasty greenhouse gas. If it's being made, good idea to burn it off.

 

[nutnspecial]

Punxor, check some info on the subject- they're commonly called 'gasifiers' and are able to be purchased or build. Most effecient way to burn wood, and very little smoke.

It's old 'green tech', used back as far as 100 years ago in europe. A simpler diy than trying to fabricate your own solar panels, batteries, motors etc.

Dogman, good point- this thing reburns until there is almost no emission- co2 methane etc is burned.
Of course, we wouldn't want to burn all the compost or trees though, isn't that decomposition what keeps soil fertile?

On the subject of methane, it's said that instead of septic systems, 1 family can successfully compost and harvest their own sh8t for enough methane to cook with and end up with nice fertilizer too. They call it humanure lol. It's for real- check it out. I think it's known as a methane digester.
[youtube]3AZv6MjZylo[/youtube]

Wood gas is also just too cool not to at least know about.
This guy has some great videos on the subject- and many others. he had some where he was running his truck on it diy.
https://www.youtube.com/user/MrTeslonian/videos

 

[speedmd]

Making /using the stuff is the easy part. Compressing /Storing it up, not so much.

 

[liveforphysics]

Wood gas isn't clean.

A solar panel and a battery that lasts life of vehicle is clean.

 

[granolaboy]

poo gas is going to be HUGE...just google it.

 

[nutnspecial]

Luke, if you mean clean as in zero emissions I would would have to agree, at least for the end user.

but:

What about the source materials and energy required presently for these things. In that case wood and woodgas are 'greener' being completely renewable and even able to be harvested on their own woodgas if you want, or even by hand without expensive/ dirty mining and refining.

The gasifiers, and rocket mass heaters require mainly wood as fuel and steel to 'use' the fuel. These things can be in the 90's for effiency, and pollute no more than allowing the wood to decompose on it's own.

They don't use rareearth mags, lithium, cobalt, loads of refined metals etc. Do we think these things 'GROW ON TREES' hahaha, seriously, let's not smash old tech.
I love both, but let's be realistic what clean and green really mean.

The trees Breath c02, exhale oxygen, (cleaning the air)while using solar more effenciently than anything we've developed. Sustainably harvest and bam not only building material but fuel.

Can wood take the place of modern day tech? of course not!! can society survive without modern day tech, highly dam doubtful as a whole. (not at the rate we're goin)

So, I'm just trying to recognize importances of each and be honest with myself. Not trying to pit the two against each other-

Edit*

I'm excited about these things, they are perfect for my 'green' dream.

Yes Speedmd, I'm not sure about storing woodgas, it would possibly be the same as compressing natural gas (cng) or methane though, but that isn't practical for light use. Industrial sure.
The small methane digesters have a very simple storage suitable for home/family use, basically trapping methane in the top of a bubble over water, and using gravity for pressurize your feed line.
The only woodgas vehicles I've seen literally are like running your vehicle with a compex woodstove. Highly impractical- quite funny. Maybe more effecient/greener, but much better suited for stationary power generation when you either don't believe in gas,diesel,nat gas, propane; or you want to make your own energy and not buy it.

 

[dogman dan]

No, the soils would die without compost. As we are killing the soil, and have been doing in the USA since cheap fertilizer came along. Soil can grow a crop, dirt cannot. dirt is sterile soil, like a herbicide, like crusher fine rock for example. Seeds sprout, then die in it.

But people think their own compost pile is "green", while it's not unless they capture that methane. In a way, better to landfill it, especially if the landfill is advanced enough to harvest the methane. Here it's so dry, the yard waste carbon in our landfill is literally sequestered forever. It starts to compost, but won't finish. It just mummifies.

Ideal would be the compost factory, green waste would go there, compost in a way that catches the methane, then come out the other end to get put on the farm land. Everything not green waste in the trash stream would be recycleable, metal, plastic, glass, paper, etc.

Back on topic, wood gas will come back if we ever run out of fossil fuels, green or dirty, it will come back if there is nothing, as it did in the 40's during that war.

 

[nutnspecial]

Thanks for the informative post Dan.
Agreed, it's tit for tat what's greenest I suppose.

From what I've seen of the digesters they can be as big or small as you want- there's plenty of examples and how-to's. It would be possible in even a community size, and smarter at least to supplement natgas or propane use, if it couldn't replace it.
I looked into cng for my car a while back- seems like alot of south america and europe already use it- One would think possibly harvested methane from composting waste could be used similarly.

I usually spend a few hours a day trying to absorb new things- maybe I'll focus on learning more about producing and using woodgas & methane 2day.

 

[Punx0r]

Dogman, we have that sort of system in the UK. Compostable food waste goes in a separate bin for the weekly refuse collection, which then goes for "anaerobic digestion". The methane produced is used to generate electricity, the remaining stuff is pasteurised and used as fertilizer.

 

[nutnspecial]

Awesome- and europe uses are large percentage of cng (still fossil, but a cleaner step) for vehicles too, right? I think I read that the rest of the world uses up to 40 or even 60% cng over petrol.
Why don't we do these things in america.

I for one plan to do what I can on a personal scale.

 

[speedmd]

Best use for this gas is to turn it direct into heat. Cooking/ heating/ domestic hot water. For transport, it's time we moved to pure battery/EV's. Does not look like the fuel cell will ever compete on a mobile platform and piston engines should no longer be supported with public infrastructure dollars in any fashion. As they say in the old fishing village, the tide has turned.

 

[Punx0r]

CNG for vehicles is rare, but there are a few. LPG (liquefied Petroleum Gas) which is mostly propane/butane is much more popular, especially in Holland and Italy.

 

[Dauntless]

We have threads on gassifers here. They were on the market in the late 1930's for trucks, a company operating a fleet could save money even in those days with their own system. They became common on both sides of the Atlantic during WWII.

My one question is, at 1.6mpp, (Miles Per Pound) how many people have enough access to free wood to make this viable? If you're paying firewood prices I'm not sure it'll work out.

On the subject how clean compared to an electric, you can put power plants in the woods, run them on NONcoal, the local trees deal with some of the emissions immediately with no real population around, etc. When you're driving this in the city, everyone downtown is breathing it that instant.

 

[nutnspecial]

It appears to me that when proper gasification is properly acheived, there is little (similar to nat gas) air pollutants- whether for cooking or ice.

But yes, it is ridiculously impractical for travel, unless the syngas (woodgas) is stored like lpg or cng to use in ice.
But as you say, the wood itself has far less energy density than already processed syngas or sequestered dino juice, so even if you compress the syngas product for travel use it may require more than one acre for sustainable harvest just to support a typical family structure's travel 'needs'.

Yep, you wouldn't want to have to 'warm up your car' by stoking the complex woodstove, and then what happens on short trips or stop and go? The gas continues to be produced until the system winds down.

So unless you can produce it from your own land and compress/bottle it for ice, it is far too impractical.

I was trying to be funny about putting it on my bike- while hopefully bringing attention to how great it is for stationary power- ie generators, cooking-anywhere you could use natgas/propane.
And of course there's also great potential for methane being used for at least power if not travel, and is achievable with diy lowcost relatively simple third-world-country tech.

 

[Punx0r]

It appears to me that when proper gasification is properly acheived, there is little (similar to nat gas) air pollutants- whether for cooking or ice.

Methane (natural gas) is just one of hundreds chemicals produced by the thermal decomposition of wood. Here are just a few:

formic acid
acetic acid
propionic acid
butyric acid
valeric acid
caproic acid
crotonic acid
angelic acid
methylamine
isoamyl. alcohol
a-methyl P-ketopentamethylene
pyromucic acid
methanol
allyl alcohol
acetaldehyde
furfural
methyl furfural
acetone
pyroxanthene
methyl formate
methyl propyl ketone
pyridine
methyl ethyl ketone
ethyl propyl ketone
dimethyl acetal
methylol
valero lactone
methyl acetate
pyrocatechin
ammonia
isobutyl alcohol
ketopentamethylene
methyl pyridine

Copy and pasted from this paper: http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/929/FPL_738ocr_rev.pdf?sequence=1

 

[nutnspecial]

That's a long list- and it appears to be out of context here.

There isn't a more applicable source to cite after 1956, that directly applies to what we're talking about here?

What even are your experiences with syngas, natgas vs petrol.

 

[Punx0r]

The paper made be old, but the destructive distillation of wood is an old and antiqicated process. The 1950's were hardly the time of alchemy. Btw that paper has a section specifically addressing wood gas.

I've limited experience with the subjects you ask about, but my car runs on propane and I've thermally decomposed wood to make charcoal and seen the flammable gases as well as sticky, tar shit that comes off.

 

[nutnspecial]

by Punx0r » Fri Apr 10, 2015 4:31 pm

The paper made be old, but the destructive distillation of wood is an old and antiqicated process.

That's what she said??
That's cool you made woodchar- the tar byproduct can be refined into a diesel, or you can bury it and in a million years it'll be oil for them to drill up lol. The gas, char, and tar are all processed into the fuel we are talking about- burns with a blue flame like natgas or propane. There is distillant waste, but how much, and is any form of wood waste more dangerous than fossil powered ice or perhaps lithium, cobalt or the like?

Here's my understanding:
For decomposition to fertilize or sequester much of this must happen anyway, ie while decomposing organics are releasing methane/co2 into the into atmosphere. It is not being turned into energy by us, and '''may''' be dangerous to the atmosphere.

But this IS necesary to replenesh the soil. The world is a big balance, a self-correcting living thing.

The point is, you can:
#1 take some of that decomposing-anyway fuel, thus stopping the '''harmful''' offgassing
#2 speed up the decomp and convert the gas into energy, instead of using up already sequestered fuels.

People need to travel and heat their homes. I disagree that solar/electric is a feasable complete replacement, and question the heavy use of nonrenewable resources to create these devices (especially batteries) when compared with simpler things.

I don't not think there is promise, but blindly calling for or forcing use of only electric wind solar is just another system of control coming down the pike and at least another polarizing catalyst for society imo.

Take it or leave it?
Syngas is awesome, I like it better than natgas or propane for many reasons, and wish I could use it realistically for my vehicles. Electric wind solar is cool and useful too, it is a great go to for energy self suffiency.

 

[Drunkskunk]

woodgas produces a large amount of CO2. The chief byproducts are CO2 and H2O. That's carbon that would have stayed in the biomass when the tree died and returned to the soil.

There is nothing Green about a Gasifier. it's "greener" than some other forms of combustion, but it's still combustion.

As for your take away points, please do. The Earth's idea of self correcting would be to warm up enough to wipe out almost all life on earth, then let some bacteria that were heat and CO2 tolerant take over and evolve into the next stage of earth's biosphere.
If we can't fix the damage we've done as a species, we die as a species. We happen to be at the point where corrective action right now could insure a reasonable quality of life for all future generations as they try to maintain balance with the needs of humanity VS keeping the environment stable. The more we let things slide, the worse things will be for the future generations.

As for burning off decomposing materials, that presents a problem. the environment needs the biomass produced by decomposing organics. It's food for the micro flora and fauna that make up the base of our ecosystem. While at this stage of fixing the environment, it's a good idea to capture as much of the methane as we can, we can't improve anything if we're taking the food source away from a section of the environment.

Solar, Wind, tidal, geothermal, and nuclear are all viable alternatives to burning our biosphere and previously sequestered fuels. Down here in Oil country, Deep in the Heart of Texas, we're embracing wind energy. We're up to 10.6% of all our power is now wind, and that number is steadily growing. (source) and that's not because it was forced on us, but because people want it.

The Wood Gasifier is neat tech, and certainly a more efficient way to get energy out of wood. But the environment is too far gone for burning anything to be a relevant conversation when discussing green energy.

 

[Arlo1]

Luke, if you mean clean as in zero emissions I would would have to agree, at least for the end user.

but:

What about the source materials and energy required presently for these things. In that case wood and woodgas are 'greener' being completely renewable and even able to be harvested on their own woodgas if you want, or even by hand without expensive/ dirty mining and refining.
.

Hold on.
You missed the most crucial part. What ever you use to make the wood gas has emissions as well. I mean are you using an ICE to try to harness torque from the fuel being burnt? How about the chain saw you used to cut the tree up? How about the oil changes in the ICE?
Batteries and Solar can be produced in as clean of manner as the producer wants to make them. And when the can last as long as some of what we have now its hands down cleaner. Not to mention where were headed!

 

[dogman dan]

Hell, is anything at all on this earth really green?

That was sort of my point when I mentioned the compost pile. People think it's soooo green, but it farts methane. A digester that catches the methane, then put the composted material back on the land is perhaps greener, but then you have the trucks toting the garbage around, tractors spreading the compost, the factory that made the truck, the tractor, the compost factory, away we go.

 

[LockH]

Wood gas isn't clean.
A solar panel and a battery that lasts life of vehicle is clean.

Yah. OK, energy storage in plants ("woodgas") bad, my current fav energy gathering via wind (Savonius rotor that unlike solar cells can operate "in the dark" "better"... sometimes, and is technically "solar" also) and storage via gravity (pumping water up hill for use later aka "hydro"), converted/distributed via the "electricity" that we all know and love w/temp "end user" storage via chemistry (see "Lithium"). Nasty lead stuff maybe, for stationary applications.

(Re "biogas" see also "night soil". )

All energy tech is "lossy" to some degree.

 

[nutnspecial]

Arlo1 : Hold on.
You missed the most crucial part. What ever you use to make the wood gas has emissions as well. I mean are you using an ICE to try to harness torque from the fuel being burnt?

Well, I admitted it's extremely impractical to use for transport unless it is used like natgas or propane, so you're not hauling the gasifier with you.
I at least plan to use it for stationary power (cooking and supplementing solar& wind)
But bottling it would be awesome.

Then it would make sense because you're using existing ice vehicles instead of making brand new ones. And when we need more, how is manufacturing of new ice vehicles worse than manufacturing ev's? (expecially taking the large amounts of copper and battery metals)

I sincerely question the impact of having even 90% converted to ev. I think there would be problems with the sheer amount of scarce things like neodymium, lithium, cobalt, even copper. Not only problems of cleaner manufacture, but diminishing resources over time with recycling losses.

Drunkskunk : As for your take away points, please do. The Earth's idea of self correcting would be to warm up enough to wipe out almost all life on earth, then let some bacteria that were heat and CO2 tolerant take over and evolve into the next stage of earth's biosphere.
If we can't fix the damage we've done as a species, we die as a species. We happen to be at the point where corrective action right now could insure a reasonable quality of life for all future generations as they try to maintain balance with the needs of humanity VS keeping the environment stable. The more we let things slide, the worse things will be for the future generations.

As for burning off decomposing materials, that presents a problem. the environment needs the biomass produced by decomposing organics. It's food for the micro flora and fauna that make up the base of our ecosystem. While at this stage of fixing the environment, it's a good idea to capture as much of the methane as we can, we can't improve anything if we're taking the food source away from a section of the environment.

Solar, Wind, tidal, geothermal, and nuclear are all viable alternatives to burning our biosphere and previously sequestered fuels. Down here in Oil country, Deep in the Heart of Texas, we're embracing wind energy. We're up to 10.6% of all our power is now wind, and that number is steadily growing. (source) and that's not because it was forced on us, but because people want it.

I love wind and solar for power generation, they make sense on a small and large scale.
I question the batteries necessary to use for transportation or storage though.

I think it will escalate proposed 'earth reset' the deeper we tinker in the name of science and tech,
I would gladly trade modern day for 100 years ago and live like my ancestors without the concerns or responsibilties of poisioning the earth with the things that we have devised of late.

-like nuclear waste, or when one melts down and ruins all around it.
-or other highly manipulated things like rocket fuel and other industrial waste causing harm
-trash island
-aluminum, barium, strongium particulates reported to be destroying fauna at the microbial level
-genetically modifying food by way of virus'

To me, it seems like tech is probably speeding up the process of calamity. And to most it's a race against time for tech to save us from it. Vicious circle?

All things we know atrophy and die eventually. Until the earth and sun wear out or reset, we all worry about our impact on it, and rightfully so.
I don't mind chopping wood by hand, eating a little dirt, and even living half as long if it comes to that-

Did you know the habitable areas of earth have three acres for every living person currently? More than enough to live completely differently than the way we do now if so chosen.

Or if the infrastructure was in place to support them, earths' pop could all fit and live comfortably in Texas alone? (to show the real ratio of earth vs pop)

To me it seems there is plenty of space to go around, there is plently of earth to support us.
It also seems that more tech= more dangerous. All in the name of progress.
I will 'cherry pick' the safest things I perceive, but the truth remains that there is some really dangerous stuff, and I don't think it's lawnmowers and ice.

"they called it paradise, I don't know why, somebody laid the mountains low, while the town got high-

Who will provide the grand design? What is yours and what is mine?
Because there is no more new frontier We have got to make it here
We satisfy our endless needs and Justify our bloody deeds
In the name of destiny And in the name of God
They call it paradise I don't know why You call someplace paradise Kiss it goodbye"

Sometimes you just 'get' a song you've heard many times before. I never realized how much sense it made to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdx6oyBOVj0

Ps, thanks for the comment LockH-

My real goal was to draw attention to old tech like syngas and methane digestion. Coupled with simple things like wind and solar, these are what I opt as I live out a simple life, hopefully forgoing as much connection to non-renewable and highly dangerous tech and lifestyles.