OK, all you real engineers and backyard scientists.
The age-old question. How to make a backyard or basement wood burning/Pellet/Bio system that generates electricity? This topic has been discussed for decades, but now that the internet is here, perhaps we can avoid going up the wrong avenues. Seems like the choices are bad, bad and worse. Tell me what you think of this quick summary:
1. Steam Engine - these are only 5 to 8% efficient, so without numerous ways to use the waste heat (heat, dhw), this is not the way to do the job.
2. Stirling Engine, other - solid state and other similar devices - Very expensive and inefficient, and also not very powerful. You can only generate a tiny bit of power.
3. Wood gasification to drive an engine - this is promising, except for the mean time between failure of an engine. There are no reasonably priced engines that can work for thousands of hours without breaking down.
Question: Can you drive a diesel with wood gas? or must it be aspirated gas engine? Either way, the problem of MTBF exists.
4. Given current and projected future technology, it would seem that a wood gasification generator that fed the fuel gas into a fuel cell arrangement might be the best answer.
The above is my opinion from less than 1/2 hour of study on the subject.
OK, so what is the truth?
PS. I think high pressure turbines are out - they are economy of scale.
The age-old question. How to make a backyard or basement wood burning/Pellet/Bio system that generates electricity? This topic has been discussed for decades, but now that the internet is here, perhaps we can avoid going up the wrong avenues. Seems like the choices are bad, bad and worse. Tell me what you think of this quick summary:
1. Steam Engine - these are only 5 to 8% efficient, so without numerous ways to use the waste heat (heat, dhw), this is not the way to do the job.
2. Stirling Engine, other - solid state and other similar devices - Very expensive and inefficient, and also not very powerful. You can only generate a tiny bit of power.
3. Wood gasification to drive an engine - this is promising, except for the mean time between failure of an engine. There are no reasonably priced engines that can work for thousands of hours without breaking down.
Question: Can you drive a diesel with wood gas? or must it be aspirated gas engine? Either way, the problem of MTBF exists.
4. Given current and projected future technology, it would seem that a wood gasification generator that fed the fuel gas into a fuel cell arrangement might be the best answer.
The above is my opinion from less than 1/2 hour of study on the subject.
OK, so what is the truth?
PS. I think high pressure turbines are out - they are economy of scale.