True Off Grid Power: Woodgas
With electricity from wind, solar panels, combustion engines, or dams, you remain dependent on the Grid. (Meaning the full industrial infrastructure that makes the power sub-grid and all manufactured things possible.)
You can last a while after the Grid collapses.
With woodgas you can have light (just use it like you would for a natural gas/methane/biogas lamp, directly) and heat forever with, if necessary, nothing but your bare hands.
Good lamps have chimneys of glass, and crude glass can easily be made from woodashes (calcium and potassium carbonates [fluxes]), quartz sand or quartz.
Everything else, the generator, pipes, and nozzles can be made from clay (low-fired ceramics). See the last section of this article.
Woodgas Info -----------
Woodgas is extremely efficient, smokeless, and can be used directly for illumination.
Note 1: Keep in mind that filtering and condensing, needed to run an internal combustion on woodgas, are NOT necessary when using woodgas for lights and stoves, etc.
Note 2: See the end of this post for the details on how to build a woodgas generator under primitive conditions.
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Newsgroups
alt.energy.renewable
alt.energy.homepower
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http://ww2.green-trust.org:8383/woodgas.htm
Gasification* is the cleanest, most efficient combustion method known. It has been used for decades where clean heat is[703] required. Examples include the thousands of vehicles which were directly fuelled by Gasifiers during the Second World War, or the coal gas "works" which were common in cities all over the World before natural gas. These produced gas which combusted so clean it was used in chimney-less household appliances such as cookers and heaters, without adverse effects.
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www.woodgas.com/
The purpose of this site is to promote the understanding and use of Biomass in general and particularly WoodGas for cooking, power and renewable fuels. ...
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http://www.webpal.org/webpal/b_recovery/3_alternate_energy/woodgas/principles.htm
An introduction to the subject of wood gas
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woodgasllc.com/web/
WoodGas, LLC - We sell smokeless wood burning camping stoves in the USA and actively working to transfer our technology to partners in developing nations. ,. ...
http://woodgasllc.com/web/content/view/2/39/
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http://www.webpal.org/webpal/b_recovery/3_alternate_energy/woodgas/fema_wood_gas_generator.pdf
Plans from FEMA
In HTML
http://www.gengas.nu/byggbes/index.shtml
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http://www.puhdasenergia.com/html/products.html
....gasifiers. Woodgas is a high quality fuel like natural gas. Woodgas burns very clean, and leaves no odour or residue.
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http://mitglied.lycos.de/cturare/gas.htm
Principles and diagrams
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http://burning-wheel.org/information.html
Lots of information on converting various kinds of biomass (not only wood) into burnable gas.
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http://highforest.tripod.com/woodgas/woodgas.html
A good diagram and links
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http://www2.whidbey.net/lighthook/woodgas.htm
Fuel shortages during WWII prompted searches for alternative fuels in England, Germany, Scandinavia and many other countries. One of the most unusual solutions involved the modification of vehicles for use with wood, charcoal, or coal. Typical modifications included A) a gas generator; B) a gas reservoir; and C) carburetor modifications and additional plumbing to convey, filter, and meter the gas into the engine.
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http://www.windward.org/notes/notes63/wal63_b.htm
Construction details with lots of photos.
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http://www.fluidynenz.250x.com/_framed/250x/fluidynenz/enginetables.htm
Details about energy produced per kilogram of wood, etc. Tables.
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http://www.heritageresearch.com/manufactured_gas_B.htm
A Brief History of the Manufactured Gas Industry in the United States
Before electricity became widely available, coal gas (producer gas, town gas, water gas) were used to power many factories and to power and light many urban areas and beyond.
Wood gas is basically the same thing, just purer and safer. The main component of each is CO (carbon monoxide) which is quite poisonous when breathed for any length of time or in any concentration.
Fortunately, un-filtered woodgas, which is how it is used for anything but running an internal combustion engine, is smokeless, but not odorless, and the smell of burning wood is easily detected and tracked down in an environment that has no other wood-burning going on.
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Building a Woodgas Generator Under Primitive Conditions
The body of the woodgas generator and the pipes needed to distribute the gas can be made of low-fired ceramics, clay fired in what is called a "clamp", which is basically a pile of firewood.
Clay can almost always be found under the soil, a few feet down. Dig it out and wash it if necessary (mix it with water, let the junk settle and the organic matter float, skim off the latter and pour off the thick clay-water on a pile of grass to drain and dry to the point that it is workable).
The body of the generator, and you should make two so that one can be fired up as the first is running low on fuel, can be a cylinder about 4 feet high and 20" in diameter, with perhaps 3" walls. Build it around a lashed/woven cylindrical framework of small, green branches, or a section of a log, spending a lot of time patting/tamping the clay.
Make a hole about 1/4" wider than the pipe that will be inserted in it about 4" down from the top. Use a cement made by mixing 8 parts of leached, pure wood ashes with 2 parts clay with charcoal and firing the mixture over a bed of kindling, to seal the pipe in the opening.
About 6" up from the base, where the top of the rocks (see below) will be, make a 1" hole. This is for lighting the wood and must plugged with a rock or piece of fired clay, AND buried in dry dirt or clay when not being used.
This hole is also used to insert a stick and stir the stones around before each new charge of wood to prevent any clogging and to do the same if it clogs while running.
Also, very dry, barkless, hardwood twigs and charcoal should be used to start a new charge, thus minimizing/eliminating any initial smoke. The hole is only plugged after the fire is burning well, but well shy of "roaring".
The ashpit will fill very slowly with a pure, and valuable, mineral ash.
The base of the cylinder should rest on flat rocks with spaces between them to allow you to light the fire from below and for air to draft upwards into the kindling in the cylinder. (If you are using a section of log, remove it after the generator has cured for a day or so and can retain its shape.)
Let it dry/cure out of the sun for a few days to a week then fill it and surround it with kindling and small firewood, a generous amount, and torch it.
To the best of your ability, make the top very flat and smooth (you may have to sand it down with a piece of sandstone after it has been fired. A flat rock or a disk of clay will serve as the top and if you are using a rock, us it to shape the top of the generator for a near-perfect fit. The gasket is made from the pounded, shredded outer bark of of a mature, but not overly-old evergreen, which will be compressed by the weight of the rock top, or the rock on top of the clay top. (This outer bark is pretty fire-resistant, and the temperatures at the top of the generator are nowhere near its com- bustion temperature.)
Dig a pit about a foot and a half deep where you want the generator to be located, somewhat smaller than the generator's diameter, and about 2" below the surface put a woven screen of small, green branches, Dig out one side so that you can insert a length of clay or wood pipe at an angle so that the pipe opens in the pit a few inches below the the screen and angles away from the pit to the surface at about 30 degrees. This is your air intake, and the flow can be regulated by blocking the surface opening to one degree or another.
Put the body in place and cover the screen with about 5" of small rocks. (Approximately 3/4" diameter, round and smooth, found where running water is or used to be. These can split/explode when heated, so test them, carefully, before using in the generator, by throwing them in a hot fire and getting AWAY.)
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John Beardmore is killscored here. I don't download his articles or any responses to them.
"wookie" my butt. Wookies are _nice_ creatures. Lord Beardmore is a psuedo-progressive, spoiled middle-class hypocrite who attacks anyone that steps on his selve-serving delusions with clear thinking and facts.
He wears a gag when he is in my newsreader, and because he can't _do_ anything but run his big mouth, that's the end of him.
Alan
-- http://home.earthlink.net/~alanconnor/contact.html Other URLs of possible interest in my headers.