Woodgas Gasifiers - Page 4

 
They do have a good point that the messy and dangerous process  
requires intelligent closed-loop monitoring and supervision. Do you  
want to be a full-time power plant engineer?

I know a guy who owns a small, old hydroelectric plant that needs  
frequent attention. The last time I saw him it was generating $
0  
worth of wholesale-rate electricity per hour for him.

Currently a Home Depot job will pay for about 3 gallons of gasoline  
per hour.

-jsw  

  On 5/25/2015 9:44 AM, Jim Wilkins wrote:

The entire point of building these projects is to offset my normal usage  
of power, not to sell anything back to the grid. Where I live, I am  
limited to making 5kw, before I am required to pull permits. If I must  
pull a permit, then I must hire licensed contractors to install it  
all...that's the catch in my area.

I consume 1.5kw 24 hours a day. Everything I have runs on AC power. My  
summer time bill is $
50 per month, even with the 4 Ton air conditioning  
on 24/7. All my appliances are less than 5 years old. I have 2  
refrigerators, 1 stand up freezer, washer & dryer that run 2 loads  
daily. I have 3 adults, and 3 children in my home.

If I can generate 2Kw to offset my constant 24 hour usage, that would  
easily reduce my bill to half. I would make 2 to 4 small units, and run  
them each a week straight. This would then give me plenty of time for  
maintenance. If I need 4KW to 5KW during the summer months, I can run 2  
at a time. A larger gasifier is not always better, I live on a 1/4 acre  
lot. Solar is out of the question because of 2 giant trees, and there  
isn't enough wind all year long to make that an viable option.

$
6,995 would pay my electric bill for the next 10 years. The money I  
save off my normal usage would allow me to make a unit out of stainless  
steel with a full payback in a year. It would also allow me to purchase  
several more plug and play 1200 watt grid tie inverters.

Jim Rojas

 
Do you know electronics, programming and chemistry well enough to make  
it run unattended?

-jsw  

 On 5/25/2015 12:37 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:

Other suppliers sell the electronics which is run using Arduino boards  
and are easy to program. $
00-$
00 for a ready made unit off the shelf,  
which includes the auto adjusting intake manifold.

I understand the chemistry needed, and the moisture content required for  
using biomass. I will also be adding an optional waste oil source which  
can be drip metered into the biomass, or ran separately in a secondary  
gasifier.

I won't be heating my house with the gasifier or the waste oil source,  
so a small 5 gallon waste oil setup can provide several weeks of fuel  
when my biomass runs out. I live in Florida, so we never run out of  
biomass of anykind. My neighbors throw the stuff out every week within a  
few blocks of my home. Landscapers and tree cutting services will  
deliver any amount you need free of charge to avoid paying disposal fees  
at our country yard waste facilities. My county yard waste facility  
offers free mulch to its residents by the cupful or trailer load, which  
is only 10 miles away. My trailer can easily hold 2000 pounds of mulch  
if I need it.

Since most of my fuel will be biomass, I have a 55 gallon drum that I  
will add the fresh biomass into in order to get the moisture content  
down to an acceptable level. The biomass will be dried by the exhaust of  
the generator, or sunshine, whichever is easier.

The ashes from the biomass can be used as plant & lawn fertilizer, or  
placed in a sealed cardboard box to give away free to neighbors, or  
placed in our recycle bin for the county to recycle.

Jim Rojas

 What is APL?