Can I use a Wood Boiler instead of solar to charge batteries?

[peakbagger]

My former employer had way to much contact with Sterling Biopower (formerly STM), we had the first commerical installation of these units running on waste biodiesel. The guarantee for time between overhauls was 2500 hours, most broke down in the hundreds of hours or less. There was an internal seal which kept failing and they couldnt get one to work. We had another prototype project in NY, STM shipped the unit to site and declared bankruptcy the next day. The design was originally going to be installed in a chevy vega and AMC pacer.

I have hopes for http://www.stirlingenergy.com/, they are permitting a 1.5 MW power plant in Arizona that uses Sterling engines. They use technology from Sandia National Labs and have had a several prototypes running for a few years. The commerical plant isnt built yet and until it is and is running for a couple of years reliably, I wouldnt consider it ready for "prime time"

 

[wood thing]

Take a look at victorygasworks.com A freind of mine has bought the basic part to do what your taking about. He hasn't made much progress at this point but hopes to fire it sometime this spring.

 

[benjamin]

http://www.nyethermodynamics.com/nt6/index.html

This is way, way cooler! And, IMHO it has more promise for a (almost) practical small scale combined heat and power unit from wood.

 

[Fred61]

If someone were able to produce a reliable stirling enging, I would think that would be the way to go. We already know how to make heat. We wouldn't have to put up with the nasty gas like cleaning, converting an IC engine and constantly tuning. Just burn it like many of us are doing now and use the heat to power the engine.

 

[mikeyny]

wood gas is great for running engines on but filtering the gas enough is nearly impossible and your engine will be destroyed in a short time. If you could come up with a good easy reliable way to filter you would be rich

 

[WoodChoppa]

Here are a couple more interesting videos regarding this technology. It's good to see that finished products are starting to come to market.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrRHOF37Ufc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YWTn24RCW8&playnext=1&list=PL2824981A39CC8135

 

[mosshollowe]

There's been a lot of talk here about the engine going bad as a result of dirty fuel, but I thought I had read that the difference between a Stirling engine technology and internal combustion engine was that you didn't have to worry about that...? That that was a major advantage--and it's only an internal combustion engine that needs clean, uniform fuel. I must have misunderstood what I was reading, based on all these comments...Because I sure don't know heck about any of it!

 

[Singed Eyebrows]

This dirty wood gas going wreak havok on the IC engine, whats it going to do? stop the crankshaft? cut the rings? ruin the ignition? It would probably be rough on a gasoline carb. & you might need a multi fuel or propane type carb. Most seem to forget the Germans have been there & done that a few years ago, Randy

 

[mtnmizer]

The little amount of study I have done with biogass generation lends
me to think that cleaning the initial outflow could be as simple as using
cyclonic scrubber to pull out the big chunks. Modern IC engines have been
EGR's for a while (first thing I took off my old chevy truck ) without too much
problem. I believe there is a prius corpse being run of woodgas to power a residence
in the NE area somewhere. I do know that the big battery on the prius demands
a health respect.

 

[Como]

Perhaps you need the engine out of a M1, I think they can run on anything.

 

[benjamin]

There's been a lot of talk here about the engine going bad as a result of dirty fuel, but I thought I had read that the difference between a Stirling engine technology and internal combustion engine was that you didn't have to worry about that...? That that was a major advantage--and it's only an internal combustion engine that needs clean, uniform fuel. I must have misunderstood what I was reading, based on all these comments...Because I sure don't know heck about any of it!

The stirling is external combustion, and better suited to use wood as a fuel, but gas generators are cheap and proven. The stirling generators haven't been commercially successful mostly because the stirling engines haven't been reliable. The gas generators are reliable, until you add the complexity of wood gas, the weakness is producing a clean enough gas without too much hassle. From what I gather, they work better than the alternatives, but it seems you always see another guy in the background and a lot of cuts in the video on the way to success.

 

[mtnmizer]

The wastewater treatment plant in Helena MT installed a stirling generator,35-40 kw
that runs off of methane from it's digester.------>(broken link removed to http://www.aeromt.org/energytours.php)
There is a brief description on that page. I have business interests in Helena and know
a lot of folks there. It's said to be the first use of a stirling in the country and they are planning to put
in a couple more units. Also see their project on biofuels, I would expect to see
a couple of more cutting edge alt energy projects at that plant in the next few years... MM