sawdust run engine

[JimMartin9999]

I was at a workshop  on biofuels held at the Big Flats, NY plant experiment station in September.  A guy showed up with an engine which ran on very finely ground sawdust.  He got it running and it ran for about a half an hour.  My guess is that it was about five horse power.
Dumb me.  I didn`t get his name or contact information and didn`t realize the potential of that motor  for off net power production.
I have tried to reach him through   Cornell Extension and have written to the head of the station but so far no contact.
Have any of you ever seen such an engine?
Does anybody know who this guy is?

[fuzzybear]

search through the FEMA website for wood gasification.  They have the complete instructions/diagrams for building these units.  This is not a new technology.  Wood burning engines were the norm on farms in North America during WWII.  There is already a thread about a wood burning truck here.

  Mother Earth News has articles on a wood fired gen set they built as well as a truck.  I'm sure there will be a few members along soon that have built these already. It is one thing I have on the to do list for myself.  The FEMA site is extremely helpful.

[pineywoods]

As far as I know Wood gasifiers don't work on sawdust. They need fist sized chunks of dry wood. I would be very interested in any kind of engine that runs on sawdust. Keep looking, inquiring minds need to know..

[doctorb]

I might suggest writing  PM to Bioman.  He knows lots about alternative fuels and energy production, and he may have some good insight into sawdust as a fuel.  Doctorb

[trim4u2nv]

Diesel, the inventor of the high compression injected engine, intended to run his engine on coal dust.  The ruhr valley was piled high with waste coal dust at the time.  He tried peanut oil which worked better and then kerosene even better.   The first version that ran on coal dust  blew the cylinder head off.  He was also nearly killed with a steam engine that ran on ammonia exploded also.    Maybe you want to step back a few paces from an experimental engine while its running.

[JimMartin9999]

I am still waiting for replys and will pass on info  if I get some.
But  I want to make clear that this engine was not a gasification type: it ran on sawdust and I watched it do so, at a respectable distance till it  had run for a few minutes.

[barbender]

Dry airborne sawdust is definately explosive, I've read of explosions in mills around here back in the day. I suppose they didn't have any air filtration back then, probably dust off of a planer I suppose for it to be dry.

[JSNH]

About two years ago I took a tour of a pellet plant in Jaffrey, NH. They had a gas turbine generator they were about to run on sawdust. They had already done a few test runs but were in the process of finishing the automation. Anyhow the sawdust was really dry and ground to a powder. The dry ground sawdust was put into a pipe the pipe was closed and 120 psi of compressed air was added. The dust and air mixture was injected directly into the gas turbine engine. It turned a generator and the waste heat helped dry the sawdust for the whole plant. It started on diesel than ran on the dust.

[Ianab]

Really fine dust can certainly be explosive. Think belt sander type dust. Throw a handful of that on a rubbish fire, it's like a cup of petrol. (if you do try - start with a small amount - a bucket full will remove your eyebrows.)

Here's some guys with a barrel of sawdust, too much time on their hands, and now, no eyebrows. 


So a sawdust powered engine doesn't seem impossible, and I can see how it could work in a gas turbine setup. I'm sure there are some engineering problems that would need to be worked though, but it's not impossible.

Ian

[JimMartin9999]

OK, I got an answer From Big Flats, NY.
Here is the company contact;

 http://www.summerhillbiomass.com/about-us

SUMMERHILL BIOMASS SYSTEMS, INC.; 4641 Brookhill Drive., North, Manilus, NY 13104 (US) (All Except US).

 
I also found a patent application:
Patent application title: POWDERED FUELS, DISPERSIONS THEREOF, AND COMBUSTION DEVICES RELATED THERETO
Inventors:  James K. McKnight  James T. McKnight
Agents:  EDWARDS ANGELL PALMER & DODGE LLP
Assignees:  SUMMERHILL BIOMASS SYSTEMS, INC.
Origin: BOSTON, MA US
IPC8 Class: AF23N100FI
USPC Class: 431 12
Patent application number: 20100055629

 http://www.summerhillbiomass.com/about-us

SUMMERHILL BIOMASS SYSTEMS, INC.; 4641 Brookhill Drive., North, Manilus, NY 13104 (US) (All Except US).

Usenet FAQ Index
   
 
   
 
Patent application title: POWDERED FUELS, DISPERSIONS THEREOF, AND COMBUSTION DEVICES RELATED THERETO
Inventors:  James K. McKnight  James T. McKnight
Agents:  EDWARDS ANGELL PALMER & DODGE LLP
Assignees:  SUMMERHILL BIOMASS SYSTEMS, INC.
Origin: BOSTON, MA US
IPC8 Class: AF23N100FI
USPC Class: 431 12
Patent application number: 20100055629

Another link:
Read more: http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20100055629#ixzz17kh3Rg4x

I think some of you  "dirty hands" tinkerers will appreciate what potential this kind of an engine has,  This is the first direct wood to power system I have seen.  Gasification has lots of problems involved.  This kind of  fuel can be blown into a motor with no initial fire building.  It won´t stack/bridge?  If you can grind the wood fine enough and dry it,  I calculate you should be able to drive about 5000 miles.  I plan on using one for an off the grid power generator.

 

[fishpharmer]

Jim, that's some exciting news.    Should be interesting to watch this develop.  So what would you say about a sawdust car "miles per cord?"

[beenthere]

Great!!

When/where are you going to buy the engine?

We'll be interested to see the rigors of preparing the fuel and keeping the gen plant running.

Soon?

[jpgreen]

Ever heard of "Brown Powder", gun powder? That's what it is, fine sawdust.

[jpgreen]

The big question with wood gassification is how much cost, time, and work will be involved in processing fuel for your particular situation?

That has been a big question of mine, and right now it has not panned out to be very practical it seems for an off grid home and small business situation.

You have to spend countless hours producing fuel the correct shape. There is no commercial chipper that I'm aware of in the US that will produce a good shape wood chip or chunk for woodgas.  Drum chippers produce slivers, that bridge and don't work well at all.  The Chinese import disk chippers are being used by folks over in Berkeley are small, and they have to classify off the small stuff- an extra step.

The only machine I see up to the task, where you could process a sizeable amount of chunk wood is the large Laimet- screw auger type chippers, that are available overseas for $20,000 plus USD not counting shipping.

Now if these folks with their "Wood Flour" system, have an idea on how the small home and business operation could use an (affordable) machine to process the fuel in large enough quantities, quickly enough where you're not spending all your days making fuel- to run an engine to generate off grid power, then maybe this may be a solution.

For now I sit off grid with PV panels and engines generating power for our home and my shop/business surrounded by forest with an abundance of wood bio mass, looking for a solution to get off of petrol fuels.

[pineywoods]

I took the time to wade through all the information. From what I see, it can be done, but not likely be practical. Unless you have a source of very fine dust at little or no cost, The time and effort to make your own would exceed the energy created. Sorta like making your own alky. Still interesting tho.

[JimMartin9999]

Jpgreen, This is not a gasification system.

I grind my grain at home.  Wheat berries are harder than rough saw dust. So a simple grain mill should do.  It can`t be that hard to grind rough wood ships or sawdust fine enough.  From  reading the Forum for a few years, I have seen that some of the members are very inventive at solving mechanical problems.  A rough estimate is that a cord of wood has about the same BTU energy as 160 gallons of oil.  Certainly there is enough energy in a cord to grind that cord and have plenty of surplus energy left over for other uses.

[jpgreen]

Yes- I realize it's not a gassifier system but the the question of processing fuel, or the practicality thereof is key for either of these systems.

[36 coupe]

There are plenty of books on wood gas.When I sold books I got a few copies of a book   that showed how build a gas plant that could run a 5hp engine.

[Jeff]

I spent about 10 years a couple winters ago trying to dry sawdust for a burner.

[jpgreen]

Plenty of time.

You're still young yet Jeff.  You haven't past that 50 hump yet ... 

[pineywoods]

I would agree that such a setup would not be very practical because of the fuel preparation expense, grinding and drying would probably consume more energy than would be obtained from burning the fuel in any kind of engine. Still, it would be very interesting to tinker with. A big old slow turning hit and miss engine would make a good test bed. Slow turning, narrow rpm range, making it easier to tweak things. Glow plug ignition would probably work nicely.  I would think that the flame propagation characteristics of burning dust would be considerably slower, high reving  types would probably tend to burn up the exhaust valves and manifold. Then there's the problem of ash. Probably corrode the dickens out of exhaust valves and rings.
Here's some food for thought... figure out a way to run a wood gasifier on sawdust....

[jpgreen]

I've got 2 of these sitting in the shop to get online Piney...








Lister 6/1 Cold Start 650 Rpm max

[jpgreen]

These folks here have really pushed and refined woodgas to new heights for small generation power plants...

http://www.gekgasifier.com/

Still- when I ask the question of what's being used for fuel processing they are woefully behind. So it's like the cart with no horse. Good for tinkering and experimentation, but no practical fuel processing solution for us folks here in the USA.

You need to design a wood processor Piney. I know you could do it. Make your fortune and retire (after you sell me one)...

Woodgassers need chunks, and lots of them.

Basic good ol' boy Bubby Woodchunker:




Neat design from 3rd world (don't mistake your arm for a tree branch):





The woodgas guys at GEK are using this chicom import, but they have to classify off all the small stuff. Very time consuming:



And the Laimet caddillac which is now available in Canada but expensive:

[Al_Smith]

 A couple of things on this idea which by the way is older than the hills .

When Mother earth news did it they used a Pontiac Tempest engine .It ran but really was hard on the internals of the engine . A certain gent went something like 3000 miles all across Australia using a gas generater but agaiin did the engine in . Neccesity is the mother of invention so during WW2 poor old England which at the time was on empty ran municipal buses using charcoal burner gasifiers .

Prior to WW1 ,Allis Chalmers built huge engines similar to the famous Coreless engines to generate power in the steel mills .This was in the days before widespread electrical transmission and the large users had to make their own . The combustable gas these huge engines ran off was a by product of the smelting of iron for making steel .---trivia 101 ---

[jpgreen]

I really like those english and european ww2 rigs.

Mother Earth also did a chevy truck with a 350, which is real close to design here Paul has done on his truck I believe.

I bought the Mother Earth plans a long time ago, but they sit in the file cabinet.. .


THe day someone gets this wood processing fuel chuck issue resolved, I'm gonna start building gassifiers,.

COME ON PINEY ...

[RockyMountainSawyer]

what is the optimal dimension?

[Al_Smith]

Mother earth news started off real well . However towards the end or at least my end with them they were more interested in advertising than anything else .35 pages of ads then just enough info on projects to wet your whistle then try to get you to pony up 15-20 bucks for the plans of how to .

One article they used a '74 Chevette,a starter motor from an aircraft engine and 1000 pounds of deep cell batteries and an Onin generater to make a hybrid electric .What they failed to mention was it most likely cost about twice what the little Chevete cost new plus an aircraft starter is not something you pick up for 29 cents nor the Onin generater .---pure nonsense ---unless you owned a junk yard with a lot of time on your hands .

[jpgreen]

I agree.

Mother Earth now is pure BS. No one there is from the old publication. It's all senseless rehash of old topics and no practical application. All PR and advertising. Kinda like the current state of government in the white house..   

The old mother earth folks actually built something and made it work. This current generation of authors sit behind a computer and talk about it. Probably never built a bird house.

[Al_Smith]

Well not to go awry on Mother Earth News but since it's on the table so to speak I met a contributive writer for it during the 70's .

It just so happens my cousin Pam was "playing house " with this slick talking PT Barnum type .He really didn't know a pipe wrench from darning needle but was good on a typewriter .Seldom sold an article but Pammy Sue had plenty of money and finaly figured the dead beat out .I suspect perhaps that mag employed many of the like .

Now this sawdust .It contains everything a chunk of wood does except it's kind of hard to cut lumber out of it .Which is not saying it can't be used for fuel of some sorts .

Down south of me about 30 miles is Hoge lumber which is the largest supplier of maple bowling alley  lumber in the world .Fact is they have a huge co-generation plant which powers their plant plus sell the excess . All from sawdust  and chips .

[old joe]

Hey guys,
She may be old and tired and all, but talk nice....she's still our mother!!!

Joe

[Peach James]

There was a UK company, High Speed Gas, that was taken over by Sentinel (of Steam Waggon fame) in the mid 1930's.  A little bit is in "The Sentinel Volume 2" about the experiments that were conducted using downdraft type gas producers on road vehicles.

I cannot see any practical way to fire solid fuel in a IC engine.  Turbine, or Recip, both are going to have horrible problems with ash.  I know the Union Pacific coal fired gas turbine had huge problems with glass (ash) forming on the power turbine blades. 

At 360 RPM, that's 6 strokes/second, or 3 fires/sec (assuming 4 stroke).  It'll have a fire life of...well, 1/12th of a second per fire, by my simple math.  So, you have to burn whatever you are burning in 1/12th of a second.

If you are serious about burning wood on the road, I think a gasification plant is the best way forward.  Steam is...well, a hard nut to crack.  I've better than 20 years experience with steam, including 9 onboard HMCS Protecteur.  There's nothing easy about steam on the road.  I own a 4"/ft steam tractor, complete with BC licence plate, and I wouldn't want to be running on the road for profit.  The good part of the tractor is that it has more torque on the winch than weight of engine , but it's a tad bit slow for real use.  (The engine weighs 1640 lb, according to it's licence papers).

A slower running engine would probably be helpful if you were going to run a gassification plant.  I'd think that a combination of a diesel pickup truck transmission setup, and something like a large straight 6 would be "best".  It's never going to be as easy as whatever Detroit or Yokohama make, but that's not the point.  You are trying to run a engine on ~1/6th the energy of a charge of gasoline, so you need ~6x the charge volume to get the same power.  Hence, a bigger displacement engine is useful...

James Powell

[Al_Smith]

It's questionable if the use of solid fuels would be practical for use in mobile power such as a car or truck . For stationary power such as the generation of electricity though it could be .

Once again good old Mother earth news once  had an article of this guy who  used the steam engine from an old steam shovel in a big old flat bed truck,Mack I think .The thing had oddles of power but took an hour to get up a head of steam .The very last of the famous Stanley steamers used a kerosine fueled flash boiler and could motivate in about a minute from a cold start .1928 if memory serves me correctly .Then again you're fooling around with steam and could end up like a lobster if something goes haywire .

[jpgreen]

[Tim]

This thread is interesting.

A few years back, I was playing around with a fire and cedar sawdust off of the tablesaw. I kept my eyebrows though. I was thinking that it would be nice to be able to harness that potential power.

My interest is more to a stationary application of gasification. In reading the FAO Forestry Paper 72, it seems that all sizes of wood is usable in the gasifier reactor. Fuel bridging can be solved mechanically, probably with an exterior mounted vibrator...

They were describing in this paper how portable systems were built for agricultural and transportation. Typically they were utilizing charcoal as oppose to wood blocks. This would reduce the need for filtering, thereby reducing the weight of the unit. However, fuel preparation would increase and potential energy of the fuel would decrease.

Near as I can figure, I'm producing twice the energy in byproducts than I am need to produce all my products. I figure its worth some tinker time.

[PDF]
PDF Version - Untitled
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
Wood gas as engine fuel. Mechanical Wood Products Branch. Forest Industries Division. FAO Forestry Department. The designations employed and the ...
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/t0512e/t0512e00.pdf - Similar

[mad murdock]

Thinking of the comments on Mother Earth News, they are definately not what they used to be, another publication that does a great job of bringing new ideas to light is FarmShow.  I don't know if any of you guys on the forum have seen it, itis well worth the price of admission.  I have picked up several pearls of knowledge reading that publication.http://www.farmshow.com/index/searchdb.asp you can search their database for all of the "made it myself" projects that they have published in their pages over the last 32 years.

[jpgreen]

Oh yea Farm show is a good mag. They actually have articles on real folks doing, instead of the selling a dream and advertising at Mother Earth.

Those who can do. Those who can't do teach. Those who can't teach work for Mother Earth News. Everyone else works for the government... 

[Al_Smith]

I wasn't even aware that Mother Earth News was still in publication any more .

Since the internet is so widely received I would have doubted it to survive .Stranger things have happened though .

[maple flats]

When an engine is run on gasification, you are not burning sawdust or wood, but rather the wood gas. Look at a flame. Wood does not burn, it is the wood gas that burns. That is why the flame will hover above the wood. The heat gasifies the wood, as this gas rises it mixes with oxygen and you have fire. I plan someday to make a gasifier to power an old generator to suppliment my solar power, if I live long enough.

[sdunston]

jpgreen, are those listeriods still on the market? I have not heard much about them latley. Sorry to be off topic
Sam

[jpgreen]

Nope- EPA put a stop to the imports. Can't possibly allow an old efficient engine for sale in our country. One that burns clean and can be set up "Green" to run bio diesels and bio fuels.

No that would be a good thing and make sense. Not in this America.

[Al_Smith]

Look at a flame. Wood does not burn, it is the wood gas that burns. That is why the flame will hover above the wood. The heat gasifies the wood, as this gas rises it mixes with oxygen and you have fire.

True to a point .With wood you have a mass,being the wood ,the gas plus the charcoal .

Most times the gas escapes for example in a standard wood stove thus the recent talk of gasifying or downdraft wood stoves and boilers .

As far as I know those old Listers are still available ,made in Poland I think .Fact is a certain Canadian was within the last year talking about them as a power device for home brewed electrical power .Heavy old clunky things though .A local junk collector bought one that only produced about 9-10 HP and was located in Louisiana from an old WW2 cargo ship where it was used as an auxillary engine .

That guy went all the way there from Ohio to pick up that heavy old thing that weighed about ton and a half .Knowing him it's rusting away in the middle of a field with 40 other tons of junk .

[jpgreen]

If he drove all that way I'm sure he probably knows that engine is a worth a small fortune and one of the best stationary designs ever made.

The only Lister designs I know of are still made in India. There is/was a guy in Canada still importing them. Problem with the Indian Listeriods has always been quality control.

[Al_Smith]

Well you'd just have to know the guy I was refering to who drove all that way and trust me he didn't pay much for it . He's one of those guys that just has pride of ownership and most likely will never do a thing with it other than let it rust into a solid mass of iron oxide .

The old boy used to annoy me to no end .Buy junk at an auction then have no way to haul it and expect help in doing so, free of course .I avoid him like the plague .

[Tim]

Nope- EPA put a stop to the imports. Can't possibly allow an old efficient engine for sale in our country. One that burns clean and can be set up "Green" to run bio diesels and bio fuels.

No that would be a good thing and make sense. Not in this America.

You can still get the listeriods here in Canada. Looks like there is market opportunity in building them locally in the States or smuggling them in from Canada... Just envision that... I wonder if it would make it to the scale of the whiskey wars of the twenties and thirties. 

[jpgreen]

You can still get the listeriods here in Canada. Looks like there is market opportunity in building them locally in the States or smuggling them in from Canada... Just envision that... I wonder if it would make it to the scale of the whiskey wars of the twenties and thirties. 

Yea- dig up Joe Kennedy and hold a seance...

I believe there is a market world wide for quality made old design Listers, with improvements. Even a gas version.

[Lee McKnight]

Hi,

First, I am Lee McKnight,  Board member of Summerhill Biomass Systems and son and brother of the co-inventors Kim and Jim McKnight listed on the patent filing discussed some time back at the beginning of this thread.

It's not exactly 'sawdust' that runs our engines, but close enough for discussion purposes.

Second, with regard to your discussions of mobile applications - while as an early stage company we do not have a distribution agreement with say, Toyota, powder fuel-run modifications to standard internal combustion engines are closer than you might think. In fact....well, under NDA we could tell you - a lot - more ; ).

Third, the key issue is the relative cost and efficiency of Summerhill-certified powder and supply chains versus alternatives. While we do not have definitive answers yet, given the instantaneous combustion of our process it should be no surprise that our emissions test results are...well sign an NDA and we can tell you more.

Summerhill has several larger-scale demonstrations and pilot plants in....well same answer, sign and NDA and we can talk. By Fall 2011 however much more information on us will be publicly available, so if just casually inteersted - stay tuned.

thanks for all of your interest in Summerhill Biomass Systems - we look forward to partnering with many of you in due course!

best regards,

Lee McKnight
Member, Board of Directors, Summerhill Biomass Systems
&
Associate Professor, Syracuse University

PS:  I apologize that we did not follow up sooner, but anyone interested in learning more about what Summerhill Biomass Systems should email or call our VP marketing and sales, Gifford Duffy, gifford.duffy@summerhillbiomass.com

[jpgreen]

Thanks for posting here and welcome to the Forestry forum Lee.

What is NDA?

I'm assuming it means non disclosure agreement.

Can you tell us this, will you be providing your technology for people like myself who need to run small stationary engines to generate power for my off grid home and shop business, that live in the forest?

This is also a world wide need and not limited to the USA.

Pat ...

[Lee McKnight]

Hi,

And thanks for the welcome.

Yes what you want can be done with Summerhill systems. But for economic reasons (to share the cost of the fuel production equipment) you may wish to go off grid not on your own but with - neighbors.

Energy and fuel use can be individual or for agricultural purposes.

Retrofitting home burners is feasible; but to be prudent initial systems will be outside the home. And first, agricultural uses such as grain drying will be addressed. Please see attachment - and come check us out.

best,

Lee McKnight

[Al_Smith]

You can kick all these ideas around and it is interesting but is it expediant for a average end user ?

In addition to gasifiers from bio mass you could make a type of crude oil from same using heat and pressure like a pressure cooker to speed up what nature does over millions of years .Run the soup trough a vacuum distillation unit and have a low grade of gasoline .Just how practical is that though unless under some condition like in the "Mad Max " movies . You can get crude from old tires for that matter .

 You could break down water too into H1 and O2 but just like any form of gasification you take the chance of blowing yourself to the moon if you mess up .You seldom would get a second chance .Something to think about .

[Paul_H]

Bless your heart Al,is it really any different than souping up saws and cutting firewood into 2" lengths?
Tinkering is up to the individual.

[Al_Smith]

  No I wasn't saying it's stupid or anything . I mean what the hay I'm building a sawmill like I'm going to be the next Georgia Pacific  or something .

I was just pointing out when you are dealing with combustable gas you take a chance of blowing your self up if you don't know what you're doing .You know there's more than one moonshine wantabe that's got more than he bargained for .

[Paul_H]

We call woodgas explosions "sneezes" or "puffbacks" 

[Al_Smith]

Well I've had those "puff backs " but it was caused by the combination of pickled eggs and beer . Not quit enough to raise the covers but enough to make your eyes water .

[Lee McKnight]

Hi Al, everyone,

It is perfectly reasonable to be concerned with safety, and we are.

But: Summerhill's process is inherently safer than handling liquid fossil fuels, ie oil and gas, kerosene etc.

And: our fuel does NOT explode - it is 'explosible' under specific conditions, which we can control very precisely.

The problems you describe have never once happened in our years of development of our technology.

So: no, Summerhill's process is not at all the same as a few folks running cars on logs, or even on sawdust.

And it is NOT the same as 'gasification.'

It is a new patent-pending combustion physics, investigated by several years of research at Cornell University with NYSERDA support; related work has been done with NYSERDA support by Summerhill; Summerhill is part of US National Science Foundation, Kaufman Foundation, Chancellor's Leadership grant, and Syracuse Center of Excellence in Energy and Environmental Systems research work at Syracuse Unievrsity.

And did I mention that the President of SUNY-ESF has been on our advisory board since founding?

Anyway, I don't mean to be mysterious but we will have more to announce as to the first large-scale commercial Summerhill powder fuel production plant - by end of February.

You all will be invited to take a road trip to check it out...if interested, please block out first week in April for now.

Since some of you if you so chose could be next in line to be not Georgia Pacific necessarily, but your own local energy producers...which we promise is supersafe...if you carefully follow our specifications. 

Meaning: Summerhill-certified is safer than liquid fuels, try to do what we do on your own - well good luck to you and yeah be sure to buy plenty of insurance ; ).

best,

Lee McKnight

PS: I will try to check in on the board here every week or so, and as noted will share specific news with you all on our demo plans at the first 'Summerhill-certified' commercial powder fuel production facility, by end of month.

[jdtuttle]

Anyway, I don't mean to be mysterious but we will have more to announce as to the first large-scale commercial Summerhill powder fuel production plant - by end of February.

You all will be invited to take a road trip to check it out...if interested, please block out first week in April for now

Is this demonstration at Cornell? I live 20 minutes away & would be interested.
jim

[Lee McKnight]

Hi,

Interest and inquiries are welcome.

Our prototype burners can be seen in operation, by appointment, very near Ithaca.  Please email me at lee.mcknight@summerhillbiomass.com to make arrangements. 

The commercial-scale powder plant's location is still confidential.  I am hoping by end of February to be able to say on the board the planned time/place for the public demonstration or our system, ie the burner and the powder plant together demonstarting whole supply chain from - biomass to high-efficiency, low-emission, heat. We would be doing a press release on that too, but you guys will hear it first.  Running a - race car - on our fuel is a side flashy project we are working on as well, but not first commercial priority for us.

As to the undisclosed location of the commercial powder fuel plant, right now I will only hint that if you're based near Ithaca, New York...you should plan on a longer road trip to see the plant, in April.

[Al_Smith]

Firstly regarding this process which I'm sure is proprietary and I'll respect that .Not a bad idea .

However from a perspective of BTU's the same chemical componets in crude oil ,peat,coal or sawdust are  basically the same .The extraction methods are what differ.

[Bart May]

Here's some interesting Gasification History and Basics


http://youtubes.5aa5.com/viewroqsk3Tkd4g&feature=youtube_gdata_player.html

[Al_Smith]

I think they are all neat ideas .Both the older style of gasification and whatever this Summerhills' deal is .It's doubtfull all combined would account for more than a fraction of 1 percent of energy needs but never the less an option for some .

For example tree trimmers or arborists if that term is more suitable get tons of chips which  for all intents just end up in a land fill or are recycled into mulch .Under the right conditions they could provide a means for stationary  power or at least a source of heating .Chips as they are aren't the most user friendlty to get much more than a smoldering fire out of at best . Feasability of course would vary depending on the situation .

You know like trimmers . If they just got enough to pay for the gas money and time to pay the help in most cases would be tickled pink to have an outlet for chips other than a land fill .

[Lee McKnight]

Hi Al,

First re BTU's...whatever number you want we can build to, ie 500k, 1m, 3m...and up.  Or down.

Second, no we are not same BTU's as others, we are - better. Because our combustion process is more complete ie less waste and residual materials that aren;'t fully combusted are left; everything but the ash combusts in 1/100- 5/100ths of a second, so the nasty stuff created by otehr slower burning processes, isn't a problem.

In terms of BTUs from a set amount of biomass that is only marginally different I admit, but economics are more attractive if we don't need to clean up messes which are never made. 

And, at scale, the process could certainly provide much more than a fraction of 1% of energy needs.  There's way more waste biomass available than you are thinking of. Yes leaves, branches twigs etc from backyard chippers can be processed in to fuel; but so can bagasse from ethanol plants; and manure...and municipal sewage.  Ok there's a higher ash content there...but if mixed with other forms of biomass it's a fine fuel; instead of a pollution problem. Anyway, about 7 billion people on the planet = a lot of sewage; which is just one source of fuel for Summerhill-certified energy systems. In due course.

Big secret demo event is pushed back til May/June...of first ever commercial scale power fuel production plant + Summerhill burners. We got VCs flying in from Brazil already confirmed for that...and you know they got a lot of bionmass in Brazil ; ) Not to worry we don't need to strip the Amazon, they have plenty of agricultural waste already from ethanol plants. 

Anyway, this indeed is a very big thing, and I welcome all of your interest in perhaps being early adopters when we are ready to roll.  But first plan on your road trip to - an undisclosed location - in May/June.  (We will disclose more info as soon as we can - in fact look for a press release next week; though we won;t yet say specifics on the may/June event. )

best, and thanks everyone for feedback and interest,

Lee McKnight

[JSNH]

Any news on  the demo???

[Al_Smith]

 
Well any "alternative " is just something kind of out of the norm .As such while it might be feasable for some it would not be expediant for others .

Low head hydro would work great in the PNW or east coast  mountains but wouldn't  be a grand plan in the center of Kansas where the ground is flat as a pancake .Wind power would not be so great in NYC .

If a person had access to sawdust and chips by the tons this gasifying thing would be a plan .Again though it's a limited alternative .Like my buddies with waste oil burners to heat their shops .Cheap yes but if everyone did it there wouldn't be enough used oil to go around .

On a larger scale alternative thing ,they are going to build a garbage/bio burner power house locally and dump it on the grid for electrical power .They've  been fooling with for 10 years though, politics evidently.I'd think it would be a better alternative than digging a big hole commonly called a land fill .At least get something usable from the stuff other than taking a thousand years to rot up in the ground .

Now that brings up something in my ramblings .I don't recall it such a big deal when 90 percent of the people had a 55 gallon drum in the back yard they burned their trash in .Of course there weren't the plastics but that can be recycled into astro turf if nothing else .Why do they always have to complicate the simple ?

[jpgreen]

No one shoe fits all.

You have to tailor your rig to your recourses obviously. I would run Hydro in a heartbeat, but the creek runs below our property. Not enough constant reliable wind.

For our needs it's woodgas and solar PV panels all the way, since we live in the forest.

As Rush coined, "Rugged Individualism". Where we are headed, and what we must become to survive in the USA.  For *DanG sure no .gov waco liberal, or career politician is going to save the day...  

[Ron57]

  What type of alternative depends on what is available cheap or free.In the area that I am from a lot of people burn scrap wood for heat in OWBs. There are a lot of cabinet shops that produce fine dry dust and it doesnt make good bedding for livestalk because it is dusty, but for this you would have to compete with the wood pellet mills that pay a premium for the dry dust.
    It seems that woodgas to produce electric, heat, fuel the truck, and cook with pretty much covers all energy needs.Unless I had a good stream for hydro electric, but living in Indiana some times you dont know which way the water is going to run or a vein of coal in my back yard.
  Just some thoughts.     Ron Lemler
 

[Al_Smith]

The Hooser is somewhat like the buckeye in that the lay of the land changes drastically within .Portions of the north are flat as a pancake while southerly they had to stack the acres on end to fit them in .

  I always joked that the wind  coming across north eastern Indiana picks up speed before it reachs north western Ohio .

[Lee McKnight]

Any news on  the demo???

Hi folks, sorry to go offline for a while. As you may have guessed, the vagaries of start-ups, and the complexities of negotiating joint venture agreements, have delayed things. The JV agreement is close to final, when it is final and I can talk about you all will be among the very first to know.

That facility is still incomplete but coming along.

We are now calling Summerhill fuel 'dry flowable fuel.' So yeah you heard the term here first.

A site for a second dry flowable fuel production plant and dry flowable fuel energy plant, possibly up to 2mw, is now under consideration. As soon as we can say something more there we will.

Of course in due time we will have solutions scaled differently but at the start we need to focus our efforts on these community/region-scaled systems; there will be plenty of opportuntieis for various partners in the supply chain and we continue to welcome all of your interest. Espcially f some of you out there are accredited investors and want your own - dry flowable fuel plant; and Summerhill exclusive license to service your home region. 

best,

Lee McKnight