Could'nt decide whether to post this is the Green room or here, but it involes pellets so here it is.
In my long quest to design the most practical residential co-gen system possible, I find myself in the pellet room.
The many advantages of pellets are mostly obvious, the biggest two being the ability to readily feed from a hopper, and the apparant fact that softwood pellets are as good or better than hardwoods. Softwood being a key to my imediate interest since in most of the Northeast it has less than no value unless trucked in high volume.
Gasification of wood to produce fuel for internal combustion engines is a well established technology at this time.
The use of wood pellets for fuel simplifys and improves this process a great deal acording to my musings and research.
By using the waste heat from the cooling system of the wood gas fueled generater engine (gas or diesel) along with the electricity created, extremely high efficieny of fuel use could be acheived.
The downside from my perspective is the cost of the pellets. As a firewood scrounger Pellets are the same as any other heating fuel I don't use; they cost money.
The cost is acutaly much higher than the bag price too, since it is taxed money.
Therefore, the only way this meets all my criteria is if I can produce my own pellets. I have searched the subject on this forum and wonder if there are users of these machines that can offer experience. Espescialy of intereset of course would be homeowner scale machines. All other thoughts are of course welcome as well.
In my long quest to design the most practical residential co-gen system possible, I find myself in the pellet room.
The many advantages of pellets are mostly obvious, the biggest two being the ability to readily feed from a hopper, and the apparant fact that softwood pellets are as good or better than hardwoods. Softwood being a key to my imediate interest since in most of the Northeast it has less than no value unless trucked in high volume.
Gasification of wood to produce fuel for internal combustion engines is a well established technology at this time.
The use of wood pellets for fuel simplifys and improves this process a great deal acording to my musings and research.
By using the waste heat from the cooling system of the wood gas fueled generater engine (gas or diesel) along with the electricity created, extremely high efficieny of fuel use could be acheived.
The downside from my perspective is the cost of the pellets. As a firewood scrounger Pellets are the same as any other heating fuel I don't use; they cost money.
The cost is acutaly much higher than the bag price too, since it is taxed money.
Therefore, the only way this meets all my criteria is if I can produce my own pellets. I have searched the subject on this forum and wonder if there are users of these machines that can offer experience. Espescialy of intereset of course would be homeowner scale machines. All other thoughts are of course welcome as well.