Posted on 04/17/2009 11:03:00 AM PDT by fella
Gasification
Gasification is the use of heat to tranform solid biomass, or other carbonaceous solids, into a synthetic "natural gas like" flammable fuel. There are a wide variety of processes which fall under this general term- but all share the characteristic of transforming solid hydrocarbon material into simple hydrocarbon gases. The resulting gaseous fuel is usually called: "syngas", "woodgas", "producer gas", "generator gas" or "suction gas".
Through gasification, we can convert nearly any solid waste biomass into a clean burning, carbon neutral, gaseous fuel. Whether starting with wood chips or coffee grounds, municipal trash or agricultrual waste, the end product is a flexible gaseous fuel you can burn in your internal combustion engine, cooking stove, heating furnace and/or flamethrower. Upmigration to liquid fuels is also possible with some additional effort and common catalysts.
Sound impossible?
Well, over one million vehicles in Europe ran onboard gasifiers during WWII to make fuel from wood and charcoal, as gasoline and diesel were rationed and/or unavailable. Long before there was biodiesel and ethanol, we actually succeeded in a large-scale, alternative fuels redeployment-- and one which curiously used only cellulosic biomass, not the oil and sugar based biofuel sources which famously compete with food.
(Excerpt) Read more at allpowerlabs.org ...
With the appeals court ruling against off-shore drilling in Alaska it may be time for those with the where with all to look into this although it may be illegal to do so.
The guy who sells the Woody Gasifiers also has a TON of nifty stuff up on his site. Just follow the links for the Woody.
Tons of content on both sites. Guy seems fairly libertarian - quotes Ayn Rand - but also has a lot of environmentalist drivel, too. Overall great site for info on the process.
Somewhere I’ve got a book that shows how to modify a car to run on wood or charcoal. Granted, that book was printed in the 50’s, so it might be a little outdated, but the basic principle is there.
There was talk of a plant like this being built in Port St. Lucie Florida for a time. Not sure what ever came of it, but they did say in 2 years after plant complete we would be able to charge other areas to take their garbage, there were almost no emmissions, and the purpose of the plant was actually energy generation, not garbage disposal, it just happened to be an excellent 2fer.
Oh - he also runs a pretty detailed comparison of the Woody versus the GEK. His data seems pretty convincing over which is the better product.
I believe it was called Geoplasma, or some such thing.
You paid your taxes to the King with it for all the King's men to make rope, sails, etc.
Cannabis = canvas , get it?
Also the seed oil has the perfect amino acid profile for humans, gee, maybe that's why the it's in the Bible.
Anyway, it is the answer, no matter what anyone's prejudice allows.
It's a great soil builder too.
Grows pretty much anywhere w/o petro chems, oh, no, yet another reason for gov/industry bully to poo poo it.
Well, poo poo on them, and tea bag , too!
This is pretty cool! Thanks for posting it.
>> although it may be illegal to do so
I don’t understand; can you elaborate please?
Coal, the best start point for making gas ... Coal gasification is real, we have a demonstration power plant in Florida outside of Tampa now running. It is considerably more efficient than standard coal plants.
It's been around for at least 100 years. The town I live in used gas produced from coal in the early 1900’s to provide street lighting. The process back then was highly toxic, however. I'm sure it's been cleaned up since then. The site of the coal gasification plant here was an EPA superfund clean-up project in the 1980’s. The civic center is there now.
Thanks for posting. Every once in a while I post about this subject. Mother Earth News has details about it also http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Transportation/1981-05-01/Woodburning-Truck.aspx The first time I read the article on the site all the comments were like “No way dude. Tree huggers shouldn’t be using trees to power their cars” but now they seem more intelligent. Tarpon is right though. Coal is really the way to go for national production of gas.
In many communities across this "Land of the FRee" It is illegal to burn wood or charcoal to heat or cook with. Any agenda driven liberal prosecutor could bend those laws into stopping an individual from gasifying fuel.
>> In many communities across this “Land of the FRee” It is illegal to burn wood or charcoal to heat or cook with.
Thanks. I thought that was what you meant and was hoping it wasn’t something even more onerous.
I’m interested in the concept of running a tractor on biofuel or gasification or something similar. (Quite half-baked at this point; I don’t even know what I don’t know.)
What you have to understand is that for Syngas to be viable you have to artifically create a high price for natural gas by preventing drilling. All of the so-called green energy needs artifical price fixing to be viable. And I am sure that the people involved are people like Boone Pickens who buddy up to the Democrats in order to make more money off the backs of the masses.
Yeah, everything old is new again.
But this Florida power plant is the first large scale coal power plant to use it. I read one status report where they had nearly doubled the efficiency of standard coal plants.
With all the talk about fuels, coal to liquids and coal to gas is the best alternatives besides nuclear there are.
But liberals prefer energy rationing to rational thought.
The first cars ran off ethanol, the first diesels were designed to use peanut oil. They switched because the fuel cost too much.
A guy I worked with was a young boy living in Austria during WWI. Fuel for cars was very tightly rationed. He recalled being very jealous of the neighbors whose father had built a wood gasifier for their car. On the weekends, the kids wood gather up some wood, and the family would drive off into the country for a picnic.
Gasoline was once a waste product and dumped on the ground ( the thinking was it will go back where it came from).
Good one ... The fact that methane has been found on planets with no life forms means the oil only comes from dinos theory is not operable. So it follows, oil must be a renewable resource.
It’s weird how things change. Now we say ethanol is an alternative fuel and a Fascist was a Democrat.
You might think that liberals change the word usage to suit their current goals.
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