Alternative energy

[mangyhyena]

A lot of people preparing for serious problems down the line tend to lean toward the more primitive ways of doing things, like lighting your home, traveling, growing food, ect... Little House On The Prairie, in other words.

I do not hold with that view. Yes, it is important to know how to do things the old fashioned way. However, we get things done today much more efficiently, over all. We can get more work done in a day than they could have dreamed of doing a hundred years ago. They worked harder and got less done back then.

The old ways seem to hark back to a simpler way of life, and so it does. You grow your food and if you fail, you starve. You put in the work to get firewood to heat your home or you freeze. If you get hurt and can't get the work done, you suffer. See, simple.

Today, we have electricity and petroleum fuel. Our life is much, much easier because of the access we have to power. We can cook our food without hours of prep time spent getting a wood stove hot. We can literally travel across the whole country in a vehicle in under a week rather than months with horses. We can hold thousands of books in an electronic reader rather than stored on shelves holding paperback or hardbound books, meaning we can take our survival library with us should we bug out. We can light our homes with the flick of a switch rather than rely on lanterns. We can use power tools to build things we need quickly rather than spending many times the effort and time required for hand tools. We can communicate in real time with someone thousands of miles away via internet, phone, and HAM radios.

We should strive hard to make sure we can make our own power if the systems we rely upon fail, in my opinion. We have options. We should be exploring them. At the very least, we should be investing in deep cycle batteries to make battery banks for our homes right now. You can plug them in to charge them while the grid is up and if the power goes out, you've got another day or two of electricity while you wait for the power company to begin providing again. Also, if you've already got a battery bank you will be ready to capture electricity as you begin purchasing energy production equipment a little at a time. Over time, you should be able to go off the grid if you keep at it.

Solar panels and windmills are an option. I'm not talking about spending huge amounts of money to power everything in your home. Just enough to charge a modest battery bank or recharge small, portable electronics. But solar and wind are not ideal. If the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine, no power for you. And I've found no way to turn wind and solar into fuels to run your vehicle, at least at the home user level which is what we're concerned with, here. I'm not saying to forget about setting them up, just that they have their downsides. I would not rely completely on them. Instead, I would use them in combination with other energy production technologies.

In my opinion, wood gasification is ideal for preparedness. Wood gas can be captured and stored at the home producer level. Wood gas can run an internal combustion engine, which would allow you to drive a vehicle and/or run a generator if the power goes out or gasoline/diesel is unavailable for an extended period of time. This means the ability to run your vehicles and power your home/recharge your battery bank. All from wood, something we can get a lot of in CO.

Another option to take a serious look at is the thermal electric generators (TEG's or Peltier generators) on the market and for sale right now. They tend to run a bit cheaper than solar and they can operate with just about any sufficient heat source, including fire. This means you can make electricity at night as well. Another thing that might be possible with TEG's is using a Fresnel lens to provide the heat source during sunny days. (Fresnel lens is a giant magnifying glass) Fresnel lenses are pretty cheap to purchase. You can even get them for free out of old big screen TV's that are free on craigslist. You have to haul the TV away, but you save a few hundred dollars on a Fresnel lens by doing so for the previous owner. If you are running a wood gasifier, you can put the TEG on it and produce electricity while you produce and capture wood gas for later use in a vehicle or generator.

For people who raise livestock, methane is another fuel worth checking into. Methane can be captured and stored for later use. Methane can run engines as well. If you can make methane, you can drive and power your home.

Anyway, do a little research and consider preparing to make your own energy should the systems collapse around us. It will be important during a time like that. You'll be glad you did if shtf or teotwawki strikes, or even if it doesn't.

[mangyhyena]

Forgot something. You can also purchase stationary bikes to produce electricity for recharging batteries via pedal power. Not real practical for powering your home, but enough to recharge small electronics, like laptops, cell phones, video players, radios, and such. You could charge deep cycle batteries with them and use an inverter for low drain items, like HAM radios for communication.

Also, those solar yard lights are pretty handy for a few reasons.
1. They can provide light at night, obviously.
2. They recharge AA batteries. You can remove those batteries in the evening and use them to run other things, like your cell phones and such with the right adapters and conversion units.
3. They are fairly inexpensive, considering they are also a battery recharger. Having lots of them means if one breaks down, the others should keep working. Redundancy.

Lastly, you should figure out a way to get your vehicle to recharge your deep cycle batteries as a backup way to recharge them. If you make wood gas and you run the vehicle on wood gas, it would make sense to bring a few deep cycle batteries with you when you drive and recharge them on the fly.

[Beprepared]

All great points, thank you for the post. I've been interested in the wood gasification for some time know. Quite viable for us rural mountain folk. I need to brush up on my fabrication skills a bit.

I also like the the idea of horse/livestock/dog teadmills to charge batteries.
http://www.co-ar15.com/forums/showth...t=20019&page=3

[mangyhyena]

All great points, thank you for the post. I've been interested in the wood gasification for some time know. Quite viable for us rural mountain folk. I need to brush up on my fabrication skills a bit.

I also like the the idea of horse/livestock/dog teadmills to charge batteries.
http://www.co-ar15.com/forums/showth...t=20019&page=3

I haven't seen a treadmill that charges batteries for sale. I'll have to do a search for it. I like that idea a lot. Would be nice to get some use out of my dogs for a change. Food in and energy out instead of the usual crap I get from those mutts.
Also, I've had this crazy idea to make a long treadmill, put it on an incline, then have the family take turns riding it down. If I had enough people and pets I could keep it going for hours without anyone getting overly tired. Would keep the kids busy (Out of my hair!) charging the batteries with enough energy to run their nightly video/gaming entertainment. Don't know how that would work out, but it seems possible.

For the wood gasifier, you might contract a local welder. Bet you could find a few that are out of work and who wouldn't mind doing some welding for cash. There are a multitude of DIY plans for them online. The more current plans are more efficient than the earlier models, but any of them will get you a working unit. Also, look up wood gas storage. It's possible to store the gas in pressurized cylinders via compressor for later use, like driving or running a generator when solar panels or windmills aren't working up to par due to weather conditions.

[Hoosier]

You might consider a Stirling engine for creating power. DEKA has one but I don't know if it's available yet: http://www.dekaresearch.com/stirling.shtml They convert any heat into rotational energy using a closed-loop internal expansion system. They need a hot source and a cool source to work efficiently... if you had a wood powered fireplace for heat/light, the exhaust gas just up the chimney could power a Stirling engine. Kamens is designed to be used in the 3rd world, powered by cow paddies, and used to power the Slingshot, http://www.dekaresearch.com/water.shtml which will turn any water into pure drinking water efficiently.

You could also capture surplus power and convert it to hydrogen through the relatively simple process of electrolysis, and store it for later use either to be burned or fed into a fuel cell. The fuel cell is expensive, but has the benefit of producing pure H2O as a byproduct. Storing hydrogen requires a double walled tank with water in the outer layer, as it likes to sneak through even the smallest of cracks in a weld. Turbines, internal combustion, and even open (invisible) flame can also harness hydrogen.

H.

[Irving]

How can you make such a long statement about bucking old methods, then suggest 100 year old wood gasification?

[mangyhyena]

You might consider a Stirling engine for creating power. DEKA has one but I don't know if it's available yet: http://www.dekaresearch.com/stirling.shtml They convert any heat into rotational energy using a closed-loop internal expansion system. They need a hot source and a cool source to work efficiently... if you had a wood powered fireplace for heat/light, the exhaust gas just up the chimney could power a Stirling engine. Kamens is designed to be used in the 3rd world, powered by cow paddies, and used to power the Slingshot, http://www.dekaresearch.com/water.shtml which will turn any water into pure drinking water efficiently.

You could also capture surplus power and convert it to hydrogen through the relatively simple process of electrolysis, and store it for later use either to be burned or fed into a fuel cell. The fuel cell is expensive, but has the benefit of producing pure H2O as a byproduct. Storing hydrogen requires a double walled tank with water in the outer layer, as it likes to sneak through even the smallest of cracks in a weld. Turbines, internal combustion, and even open (invisible) flame can also harness hydrogen.

H.

Hoosier, thanks for the info. I had never heard of DEKA before. That Stirling looks promising. Hope they wind up manufacturing it in the future. I'll keep an eye on them in case they do manage to pull it off.

I looked into hydrogen several years ago. There were a lot of warnings about storing home made hydrogen in pressurized tanks as the tanks would explode if the hydrogen was not pure enough. I hadn't heard of storing it in a double walled tank with water in the outer layer.

[gnihcraes]

Forgot something. You can also purchase stationary bikes to produce electricity for recharging batteries via pedal power. Not real practical for powering your home, but enough to recharge small electronics, like laptops, cell phones, video players, radios, and such. You could charge deep cycle batteries with them and use an inverter for low drain items, like HAM radios for communication.

Also, those solar yard lights are pretty handy for a few reasons.
1. They can provide light at night, obviously.
2. They recharge AA batteries. You can remove those batteries in the evening and use them to run other things, like your cell phones and such with the right adapters and conversion units.
3. They are fairly inexpensive, considering they are also a battery recharger. Having lots of them means if one breaks down, the others should keep working. Redundancy.

Lastly, you should figure out a way to get your vehicle to recharge your deep cycle batteries as a backup way to recharge them. If you make wood gas and you run the vehicle on wood gas, it would make sense to bring a few deep cycle batteries with you when you drive and recharge them on the fly.

Over the years of thinking and preparing for the emergency situations that I might need power for, I've found it's a lot cheaper and easier to keep a good small gas driven generator available. I have AC when needed, I have DC when needed. I have gasoline storage just for this device. If needed, I have plenty more fuel in several vehicles and motorcycles on site. It only uses 1 gallon every 4-6 hours on light load, if it even needs to be run at all.

Several years back, there was a bad storm here in Denver, power was out, several lines were down here in my part of town. It was 72 hours before xcel had anything up and running. I ran the fridge, furnace and a couple lights and TV during that duration with only a couple gallons of gas. Didn't need the laptops, computers, cell phones. Ham radio was up as needed and was charged or run from the generator when it was running other devices. Several cars have batteries in them if needed to run the ham equipment.

Having to purchase agm batteries, alkaline battery adapters, and maintain this entire system all the time it's not needed I would find difficult and financially stressing. I've tried to run the inverter directly off the battery before, but the voltage of a standard car battery wasn't enough for the inverter to function. It needed 13.8+ for the inverter to work and the battery was only able to put out 12-13 volts. Had to run the engine/alternator to keep the voltage high enough, this was counter productive, waste of fuel for what I got out of it.

Don't get me wrong on this, I'd love to have some solar panels, a wind turbine etc. and hopefully some day I will, money permitting.

Anyway, just some random thoughts and experience.

Thinking about it, I'm pretty good shape...

Generator
Fuel
Propane
Propane Heater
Food
Water
Guns
Ammo
Bows
Arrows
Sleeping bags
Camper
Vehicles
Ham Radios

Lots of other misc. items. Fire, Light, etc. Better off than a lot of neighbors and friends.

[mangyhyena]

gnihcraes, looks to me like you're much, much better off than most.

I'm making a move to rural New Jersey pretty soon to a 5 acre farm. There is a huge propane tank there. I want a propane generator to go with the battery bank pretty quickly after we get there for the same reasons you run your generator.

But, I want renewable energy as well, both to keep our energy costs down and just in case things really fall apart. Solar will be a part of that, assuming we get enough sun exposure to make it worthwhile, but I would like another way to make energy as well. Wind is out due to town restrictions, but I'll have access to a lot of wood. Wood gas is looking pretty good to me as that alternate source of energy. And if I'm making heat anyway when I use the gasifier, why not add a Thermal Electric Generator into the mix?

Too bad a vehicle doesn't make enough to charge a deep cycle battery. Sounds really good to charge a battery or two on the way to and from work, but not doable.

[mangyhyena]

OK, I think I've got it worked out. Total independence from petrol fuels and coal fed electricity should be possible if two old, well established technologies are combined. Gasification and alcohol distillation.

Use the wood gas to run a generator to charge a battery bank to power the home. Also, use the wood gas to provide the heat source to distill alcohol. This can be accomplished by either running electric burners powered by the generator running on wood gas as it charges the battery bank or use wood gas burners to distill the alcohol. Doing this eliminates the need for propane, natural gas, or electricity produced from coal when distilling alcohol. You're using a renewable fuel source to refine another renewable fuel source.

The advantage to using both of these in one system is that you cut out the energy providers completely, provide electricity for your home, and provide fuel alcohol to run your vehicles, which makes you energy independent. Yes, most people will have some learning to do before they can expect to make these fuels, me included, but that is doable.

A brand new, fully assembled gasifier will run $5,000, a new alcohol still will run about $3,000, and the generator should run $2,000 or so. With a modest battery bank and inverter, the whole setup should come in under $15,000, which is about the cost of a new vehicle. If you're willing to assemble the still and gasifier, the price goes way down, as in thousands less.

To distill the alcohol you will need material for the mash. You can purchase molasses, a waste product left over after refining sugar, and produce alcohol from that for about a dollar a gallon. You could also grow crops specifically for alcohol production. Sugar beets yield over a thousand gallons per acre, so that might be worth considering. You could also make a deal with local farmers to purchase the produce that they can't sell to customers due to odd shapes or size issues, like potatoes that are too small or tomatoes that have blemishes, ect... You can even use old donuts that didn't get sold in time. You're looking for sugar and starch sources and it doesn't really make a difference what they are.
You can purchase a flex fuel conversion kit for your vehicle. These range in price from $200 to $400, depending on make and model of your vehicle. These flex fuel kits will allow your vehicle to run on either alcohol or gasoline or any mixture of the two. So, you could purchase gasoline or E-85 if you fall behind on your alcohol production and drive on that until you make more of your own fuel alcohol.

To run the gasifier you will need wood, which shouldn't be too difficult to find here in Colorado. You can also use just about any biomass; corn stalks and the like, though wood is the best due to density.

After getting this system up and running, you could invest the money saved on electricity and gasoline and add solar panels and/or windmills to the system, giving you a more passive way to produce energy.

Running wood gas and distilling alcohol are hands-on solutions. They will not make energy while you're busy doing other things the way solar and windmills will. But there are advantages to it, like producing all the clean energy you need to run your home and vehicles without relying on fuels provided by the major energy producers.

In any case, I'll have access to a lot of wood soon after we move. I'll also be able to grow crops for fuel alcohol production. So, a gasifier and still are going to be the main basis of my energy production system.