When electricity prices peak during the winter, buying firewood becomes cheaper than electric heating. This got me thinking, would it be viable to use the heat generated by burning wood to generate electricity as well?
A steam engine doesn't have a great efficiency in turning heat into motion, but if heating is the primary reason of burning wood, the amount of heat "lost" to the building around the engine isn't really lost at all. And with heating taken care of, a 2 horsepower engine producing 1 kilowatt of power would be enough to run the rest of the household appliances as a bonus.
I looked into steam turbines as well, but apparently the steam would have to be extremely hot to avoid reducing their lifespan. Steam engines on the other hand are way less picky about the heat and moisture, and have greater tolerance for manufacturing imperfections. The main issue I can think of is how to get the pistons tight enough that no steam gets out, because any moisture escaping the closed loop of boiler-engine-condenser could cause moisture damage to the building. So, what do you think?
Yeah, same with the polar outposts and their diesel generators heating them
Damn are you planning on buying an old mothballed steam engine?
Even when these were used, they still leaked a bit of steam. You would probably need some fresh air ventilation to keep the humidity down but that might be a feature instead of a bug. Free humidifier right?
But back to your question, I don't think you're ever going to get a perfect seal on a steam piston. There will always be some blowby. Can you just do what ICE engines do and pipe the leakage outside?
One youtube machinist has a steam powered line shaft machine shop with the boiler and engine in the middle. Dave richards i think his name is, his is very well sealed cause any moisture problems would destroy his machines
For a combined heat & power system (CHP) a wood gasifier might be the most safe and effective solution. Here's a video of a simple diy solution, but for home use it would benefit from a better way to add fuel and clean ash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bvl5XxVVjDM
Apparently there are also wood pyrolysis generators that are all-around better, but I haven't found any information about their construction whatsoever.
This.
With a larger gassifier, you could run a small water-cooled engine. Drive a larger generator plus divert the radiator loop (on demand) to heat water.
You'll also definitely want some CO monitors everywhere near your build unless you want to die from a leak
Oh look its the sky is falling, asbestos, mold bad b***h….go away c**t you’re bringing me down
Every year dozens of people diein our small country from carbon monoxide poisoning in their own homes, not even DIYing stuff, just missing the basics. I'm not saying don't do it, just be smart about it and don't have a nice day saving ten bucks.
>don't have a nice day saving ten bucks
Only ten? Sounds like a bargain.
Wood gas with a generator has terible efficency steam turbines are way more efficent
So why did they used wood gas generators for cars during WWII but not steam powered cars? I cannot see your claims are true at all.
>steam turbines are way more efficent
But IC engines are available everywhere. Steam turbines have to be custom designed and built.
efficiency aside, gasifiers suck. temperamental with fuel consistency, size, shape.
for me, its a triple expansion reciprocating steam engine
Why is it so hard to find information about this stuff?
Let alone anybody making them for sale.
You'd think it would be big bucks marketing to the prepper types.
My best guess is EPA regulations make it illegal to sell these devices.
But that still wouldn't make the plans for them disappear.
Well in Quebec they outlawed wood stoves, but might have rolled it back when the people who kept the wood stoves were the ones who kept the whole town from freezing during an electrical outage one winter.
>Why is it so hard to find information about this stuff?
Go to your local library and find 120+ year old books, back when this trash was relevant.
They suck so no one cares. You want them not to suck so fricking build one to scratch that itch since the idea that something has in fact been tried and found to suck then generally discarded is unbearable.
Steam would have required building steam engines, boilers etc which are complex. That wasn't a solution. Steam of the era was very high maintenance. Small turbines were not an option. There was a war on.
Everything worth doing has been done even if PrepHoles noobs think they found a nugget. This is difficult for the unstudied to digest.
Post commercial small scale steam turbine generator then
Check mate atheist.
>toy
Zero small scale steam turbine generators, lots of working wood gasifiers. Ur a gayat.
>commercially available
>steam engine
>generator
It ticks all the boxes. Frick you for not getting this fun joke.
>makes claim
>fails to substantiate claim
>cries
Gasification is a proven viable small scale solution, external combustion generators aren't. Ur a gayat.
>being this autismo
sad to see
going full autismo is how you get shit done
>going full autismo is how you get shit done
No, copying success and not hallucinating you're special gets shit done, but this thread was never serious.
Gasification is the success, dumbfrick. No one uses steam at this scale, it's infinity easier to diy a gasifier (https://www.driveonwood.com/) and strap it to a gas generator than build a fricking steam engine or find and restore a 120 year old steam engine and couple it to a fricking dynamo
how much watt has one of these ?
>Steam would have required building steam engines, boilers etc which are complex.
Hilarious. Read up on the Industrial Revolution: they used steam engines long before they made internal combustion engines.
Indeed. Gasification was used because ICE are close to an order of magnitude more efficient than single-expansion steam engines so it made infinity more sense to convert available fuel to something usable in an ICE than use incredibly inefficient piston steam engines, which are only about 5% efficient.
is an absolute fricking moron for suggesting using them, a fricking TEG (thermoelectric generator) can do 5% efficiency without moving parts, I cannot over emphasize the complete and total moronation of that steam homosexual
>Everything worth doing has been done
If I had a penny for every time this was said in human history.
they keep trying to ban burning wood (or peat) at all in my country
rip EU anon
Someone figured this out around a decade ago. Here.
We had a wood gas generator general a while ago, a combined cycle device with high temperature gasification and secondary steam raising circuit. I'll see if I can find the figures that were posted.
Wood gas generators were in widespeard use during WWII in EUrope.
Oil shortages, this is a great read with how they dealt with fuel shortages during times of war.
>https://www.driveonwood.com/static/media/uploads/pdf/gengas.pdf
>decade
Thing is wood has frickall energy density. Like EV bad. So you will get frickall power out of it when you compound all the conversion loses.
I wouldn't do it unless I was in a bind and there was no other fuel to till a field with.
Better to use it instead of letting it rot.
>Like EV bad.
No, it's not remotely that bad, not unless it's very wet.
https://warosu.org/diy/?task=search2&ghost=false&search_text=&search_subject=wood+gasifier&search_username=&search_tripcode=&search_email=&search_filename=&search_datefrom=&search_dateto=&search_media_hash=&search_op=all&search_del=dontcare&search_int=dontcare&search_ord=new&search_capcode=all&search_res=post
some ozzies posted their adventures driving a woodgas powered car across Oz
stopping and degunking a line was part of the game, but as a diy it worked and was a cool blogthingy
they towed a trailer that carried the gasifyer and the wood they collected.
might still be online
there was a post apocalyptic sort of game show many years back, it was like survivor but in a few abandoned city blocks. I mean it was about as staged as the old junkyard wars shows, however it is where I learned that gassified wood can power a car when there are no other options. still hella inefficient and labor intensive.
could you get a rocket stove's exhaust spinning a turbocharger geared to an alternator?
>buying
If you have low cost/free water, you could use an array of TEC.
Just run a heat exchanger from the stove exhaust pipe to the TEC array (one side hot water, one side cool water).
They're extremely inefficient (around 3% real-world performance) so you'll need a few, but they're solid state and you only need to move water and don't have to deal with high pressure gasses and moving parts (except for consumer grade water pumps).
Bonus points, you can just plug it into an existing PV/battery setup.
I looked into peltier elements as a simple way to generate power without any moving parts, but it would cost over ten million dollars to buy enough of them to generate one kilowatt of energy.
they are pricey, but I recall seeing bigger units that could do 100w for 1k, something like that
still not 1kw, but could pair well with solar
as easy as slapping it on the side if your woodstove
Get chinese diesel heaters. Even if you have to run 2 or 3 at a time, they sip fuel on low setting and put out lots of dry heat. I run 2 of them and fill (2) 55 gal drums of diesel when winter starts and typically have around 20 gallons left by Spring. The heaters are about 100 bucks and can be run off 12v power. They even come with remotes. Have heard of guys running them on bear fat and other oils.
What do you think of the idea of the recent developments in low pressure steam using the battery of flat plates tesla turbine method?
BIODIESEL
why buy wood? just burn free shit. like neighbor's houses or trees in local park
>When electricity prices peak during the winter
Is this some hellhole-specific thing? I live in a house now but two years ago and before that I lived in various apartment buildings and they used electric baseboard heaters which were on a separate meter. They were charged a discounted rate versus normal residential electrical usages. Baseboards were charged 6.5 cents per kWh while everything else was 9.5-10 cents per kWh. We don't have time of day pricing or anything. I hear places like California are insane these days though and also want 50 million people to all drive electric cars on top of it lol.