Alternative energy

[Irving]

Don't forget nuclear. Pretty sure the technology has already existed for years for entire neighborhoods to be powered by a vehicle sized reactor buried at the end of the street. And who wouldn't want a motor sized reactor that would power your vehicle for 20 years?

[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.

[Irving]

I don't think this is as viable as you make it out to be. You can convert any car, but you will need to spend big bucks getting custom fuel maps made for it and the fuel management system that can handle such a task, especially if you plan on being able to switch on the fly.

Second, this is a viable solution, but not on a grand scale. If I never paid my utility bill again, I still wouldn't be able to afford enough wood to JUST heat my apartment with that same money, let alone to run a gasification system to run all my appliances and charge batteries.

[Bearark]

My Plan is simple. It involves a few of the seemingly endless amount of people who tell me "Candice if the Zombies ever come I'm coming to your house".

You see for years this annoyed the hell out of me and I would try and impress on them how important it is for them to prepare themselves and not rely on others (especially not me) until one night whilst looking through a book on the Chu Chi Tunnels I had an idea.....

My Plan is to actually admit a few of these folks who want to rely on me and put them to work. I have a couple stationary bikes and was thinking of hooking up alternators to them so riding the bikes could charge a few 12 volt deep cycle batteries. I'd also set up some kind of meter so we could guage how much they actually contribute and reward them with food/water/medicine by the Kilowatt Hour ! I imagine we could even go so far as to spare some power to give them a shock should the decide to slack off during "work hours".

Then again knowing most of the "Real Winners" I meet and that tell me their coming to my place I have serious doubts as to them actually being willing to go for this even if their lives depended on it.

(The above post is mostly a joke. If it is in poor taste I apologize. I've been up sick all night so yea, I apologize for any wharrgarble in above post)