DIY electricity

http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/ ^ | 12/6/12

[Ancesthntr]

Here’s an interesting article on what may well have been a solar event that was roughly 20 times larger than the Carrington Event of 1859:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/12/mysterious-radiation-event-of-774-might-be-a-little-less-mysterious/

[RegulatorCountry]

Here's the money quote from that particular manufacturer:

When you compare the costs of solar and our thermoelectric generators based on the amount of electricity they actually produce per day, you find that our TEGs cost far less per kWh than solar. The PV (photovoltaic) equivalent of 50 watts of TEG power operating on a wood stove is 330 watts of solar panels or 1.2 kWh per day. This means using just 150 watts thermoelectric power can produce the same amount of electricity in a day as 990 watts of solar PV panels. If comparing costs, the price range for 990 watts of solar would be as much as $5,000 depending on the particular brand. Whereas the cost of 150 watts of thermoelectric power can be as low as $500. Unlike solar TEGs are not dependent on the sun to producing electric power. If you have a continuous heat source, like a wood stove, TEGs can produce power day and night, 24/7-365. Granted you will need a cheap or free source of heat, but if you already have an existing heat source such as a wood stove or hot flu gases there is no added fuel cost to run the TEG. Unlike conventional electric generators powered by fossil fuels, TEGs have no moving parts to break. They are virtually silent and rated to last more than 200,000 hours of continuous operation.

They're marketing individual units in a sort of DIY approach, and like most others push the "green" aspect. I don't give a hoot about symbolism, I'm looking for practical, affordable sources of powering a home in the absence of grid power. The excerpt above is one of the few examples on that particular site mentioning woodstoves.

I'd have to do some looking around to validate the cost comparison but if accurate, it's 1/10 the cost of solar, far less prone to failure and can be powered by any source of waste heat. Max temp and min temp to generate electricity would matter when designing an array, a "thermopile."

I'd think, given the presumed cost advantage, that a simple parabolic setup along the lines of that solar stove would work in sunny warm weather, and a woodstove or even hot water heater would work in cold. Whether an array could be designed for portability or not, for different applications given current circumstance, would be a good question to investigate.

I expect to see a lot more of these things popping up on the market in finished consumer goods. Camping is the obvious place and it's already out there in the Biolite camp stove with thermoelectric charged USB port.

It gets especially interesting to me when pondering the possibilities of being scaled up for emergency residential use, though.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

DIY ELECTRICITY

Green power Science

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

PHOTOVOLTAIC SOLAR PANELS IN ACTION SOLAR ENERGY DIY Solar Panels PV Phototvoltaic Tabbing Solar Cells. Monocrystalline Solar Modules, Polycrystalline Solar Modules, Amorphous Panels Harbor Freight Tabbing Wire, Bus Wire, Flux, Tin Solder

http://greenpowerscience.com/SOLARPANELS.html

GET TO WORK !!!!!

[alrea]

ping

[ctdonath2]

Have one. Would like the “home sized” version.

[RegulatorCountry]

I'd like to see an effort to create one with a wood stove or wood fired furnace that produced sufficient electricity to make a house habitable. In my mind, that would be well pump, refrigerator, a few lights and a few receptacles, enough to power a laptop. Hot water, that could come from the stove. Cooking, the stove. Warmer weather, there would need to be some means of venting heat from the room rather than retaining it since the heat would be undesirable.

Practical? I'm not sure, but I'm intrigued with the possibility.