Chinese wood gas producers

[chrisfallis]

Yesterday I saw an Eb*y advertisement for a two part Chinese wood gas generator, a generator not of electricity but of “wood” or “producer” gas. The cost would be about USD 1,200 delivered. These are currently being used in their country of origin to generate cooking gas as a substitute for a smoky wood cook stove or open fire. I was jazzed when I saw that it produced 5 cubic feet of gas per minute and pulling out a bill from last winter, I saw that my natural gas usage was about 1800 cubic feet per day. This generator could pump out 1800 cubic feet of wood gas in about 6 hours of hard running a day, not a huge amount of time. Then my hopes came crashing down. I found that wood gas only has about 10% of the heating value of natural gas, so I could only dent the heat load on my house. Maybe I could pipe the gas into the existing furnace and supplement my pilot light. Oh, well… It seemed like a nice use for crappy pine chunks and the mountain of wood mulch I can get locally for free.

Has anyone ever considered such a low cost solution for wood gasification? I’d love to get a Garn in my garage but it would be 10 times the cost of this generator. Maybe 10 times the heat output as well. Damn those pesky laws of thermodynamics. And economics.

 

[Nofossil]

Yesterday I saw an Eb*y advertisement for a two part Chinese wood gas generator, a generator not of electricity but of “wood” or “producer” gas. The cost would be about USD 1,200 delivered. These are currently being used in their country of origin to generate cooking gas as a substitute for a smoky wood cook stove or open fire. I was jazzed when I saw that it produced 5 cubic feet of gas per minute and pulling out a bill from last winter, I saw that my natural gas usage was about 1800 cubic feet per day. This generator could pump out 1800 cubic feet of wood gas in about 6 hours of hard running a day, not a huge amount of time. Then my hopes came crashing down. I found that wood gas only has about 10% of the heating value of natural gas, so I could only dent the heat load on my house. Maybe I could pipe the gas into the existing furnace and supplement my pilot light. Oh, well… It seemed like a nice use for crappy pine chunks and the mountain of wood mulch I can get locally for free.

Has anyone ever considered such a low cost solution for wood gasification? I’d love to get a Garn in my garage but it would be 10 times the cost of this generator. Maybe 10 times the heat output as well. Damn those pesky laws of thermodynamics. And economics.

I calculated that the EKO fan pushes through about 25 cfm of air. I don't have the associated volume of wood gas, but I'll bet it's a good deal more than 5 cfm. Did you find a BTU/cf rating for wood gas?

 

[pybyr]

I am aquainted, in the virtual sphere at least, with people who have played with those chinese units; I hear that they are crude but that they work.

here is something that would appeal to me a lot more if I had the time and funds to head off in that direction:

(broken link removed to http://www.allpowerlabs.org/gasification/gek/index.html)

 

[chrisfallis]

Yesterday I saw an Eb*y advertisement for a two part Chinese wood gas generator, a generator not of electricity but of “wood” or “producer” gas. The cost would be about USD 1,200 delivered. These are currently being used in their country of origin to generate cooking gas as a substitute for a smoky wood cook stove or open fire. I was jazzed when I saw that it produced 5 cubic feet of gas per minute and pulling out a bill from last winter, I saw that my natural gas usage was about 1800 cubic feet per day. This generator could pump out 1800 cubic feet of wood gas in about 6 hours of hard running a day, not a huge amount of time. Then my hopes came crashing down. I found that wood gas only has about 10% of the heating value of natural gas, so I could only dent the heat load on my house. Maybe I could pipe the gas into the existing furnace and supplement my pilot light. Oh, well… It seemed like a nice use for crappy pine chunks and the mountain of wood mulch I can get locally for free.

Has anyone ever considered such a low cost solution for wood gasification? I’d love to get a Garn in my garage but it would be 10 times the cost of this generator. Maybe 10 times the heat output as well. Damn those pesky laws of thermodynamics. And economics.

I calculated that the EKO fan pushes through about 25 cfm of air. I don't have the associated volume of wood gas, but I'll bet it's a good deal more than 5 cfm. Did you find a BTU/cf rating for wood gas?

From Wikipedia: "The heat of combustion of producer gas is rather low compared to other fuels. Taylor reports that “producer gas” has a lower heating value of 5.7 MJ/kg versus 55.9 MJ/kg for natural gas and 44.1 MJ/kg for gasoline. The heating value of wood is typically 15-18 MJ/kg. Presumably, these values can vary somewhat from sample to sample."

I used the 5.7 woodgas versus 55.9 natural gas ratio as the basis for my speculation on the heating value of this wood gas applicance. The appliance comes with a small burner that looks a bit like something that you would find in a Coleman camping stove. Probably enough heat for a pot of rice, but not necessarily enough for space heating.

 

[EricV]

Could you post the ebay item number? I can't seem to find it.

Thanks
Eric

 

[chrisfallis]

Could you post the ebay item number? I can't seem to find it.

Thanks
Eric

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-PRODUCER-GA...1753310QQihZ001QQcategoryZ92021QQcmdZViewItem

The same text is used on another site:

(broken link removed to http://www.utterpower.com/gasification_plant.htm)

USD 995+ shipping

 

[pybyr]

Could you post the ebay item number? I can't seem to find it.

Thanks
Eric

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-PRODUCER-GA...1753310QQihZ001QQcategoryZ92021QQcmdZViewItem

The same text is used on another site:

(broken link removed to http://www.utterpower.com/gasification_plant.htm)

USD 995+ shipping

I am pretty sure, having at one point been in touch with George at Utterpower about my hopes of a low speed combined heat and power, that the particular ebay seller referenced above is a guy named Joel who may be, or may once have been, a business acquaintance of George.

Concidentally -- The book that George/ Utterpower is selling- something like "Home Power Producer's Guide to Electrical Reality is truly an excellent crash course in electrical physics, including some pretty sophisticated (and actually important) stuff, like reactive power, for anyone who may want to dabble with generators.

also -- check out and contact Ken Boak in England, who I think is dabbling with one of the chinese gasifiers and all kinds of other interesting stuff--

http://www.powercubes.com/listers.html

 

[jebatty]

Wood gas generators are pretty simple, for a start, and then get complicated and expensive to get quaility gas. The gas output is very dirty, and both cooling and filtering is needed, plus as mentioned above it does not have the btu content of NG due to the impurities. Expense comes as quality goes up.

 

[heaterman]

In terms we can all understand......wood gas or bio gas is usually rated at 200-250 btu/cubic foot. About 20-25% of normal natural gas.

 

[pybyr]

Wood gas generators are pretty simple, for a start, and then get complicated and expensive to get quaility gas. The gas output is very dirty, and both cooling and filtering is needed, plus as mentioned above it does not have the btu content of NG due to the impurities. Expense comes as quality goes up.

the "GEK" set-up that I referenced above looks like an effort to put out something reasonably close to usably clean gas, or at least headed in that direction- and at a not-unreasonable price compared to the far-eastern ones

also, for those of you who are into this topic, check this out--

around sweden with wood in the tank
http://www.vedbil.se/indexe.shtml

I have no Swedish ancestry, but I sure admire the nordic ingenuity that yields things like this! and the craftsmanship that the nordic cutlures tend to put into designing and making stuff

 

[jklingel]

I have no Swedish ancestry, but I sure admire the nordic ingenuity that yields things like this! and the craftsmanship that the nordic cutlures tend to put into designing and making stuff

I have no Swedish ancestry, but I sure admire those Nordic gals, myself.