20 in 10

[HungLikeJesus]

Griff, I just spent some time looking at the Temp-Cast site and at this site, which shows some more detail about the workings. Those Russian stoves look really nice. What are your experiences with it so far? Are you happy with it?

As far as electricity from biomass, there is nothing that I'm aware of in the home size. Community Power Corporation has been developing some village power-scale equipment (5- to 100-kW), that consists of a feed bin, an auger, a gasifier, an engine (the 25-kW system uses a GM V6 engine) and a generator. The gasifier takes a small wood chip (or they can be designed to use coconut husks or pecan shells, etc.) as fuel. In addition to electricity, you can also use the heat (from the radiator or the exhaust) for domestic or process loads. Unfortunately, they cost $100,000 or $200,000. That's for the small ones. Plus, they require a lot of attention. And they're loud.

Pig and dairy farms have been using anaerobic digesters for a long time, primarily as a means of controlling odors and reducing material bulk. The digester is used to treat animal waste (e.g. pig poop), and works best where the waste is easily collected, such as a farrow barn. Bacteria in the waste (the bugs) digest the waste and produce methane, which can be used to fire a modified diesel engine/genset (typically 80- to 200-kW). Some sewage treatment plants use a similar system, but I don't know if you could do the same thing with your home septic system.

glatt - transport of pellets is definitely a problem. We've considered commercial pellet systems for a few clients, but, as there is no bulk pellet delivery infrastructure in Colorado or New Mexico, we haven't looked at the available hardware. Rob Davis, of Show Low, Arizona, has modified a cement truck for bulk delivery. If something like that becomes more widely available I think it would greatly expand opportunities for pellet boilers and larger commercial systems.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Back in '73... piped up the old fart... we were discussing alternative heat sources and of course wood stoves came up. My Grandmother, having heated and cooked with a wood stove for near 70 years, before moving to a small house with oil heat and a gas stove, said, "What are you crazy? Turn up the damn thermostat."

She was well aware of the difficulty, mess and drawbacks of wood. So am I.

Wood pellet manufacture and transportation is how energy intensive?

[HungLikeJesus]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Wood pellet manufacture and transportation is how energy intensive?

A lot less energy intensive than oil drilling, transportation, refining, and more transportation.

There are three primary energy uses in pellet manufacture: chipping/grinding, extruding and drying. The wood starts out at 40 or 50 % moisture content and the pellet finishes with a MC of around 10%. The drying can be fuelled with gas, but it's more efficient to use excess wood (such as bark and fines) to fuel the dryer. The chipping and grinding will either be powered by a diesel or electric engine and the extruder is electric. I have numbers for these processes back at the office, as we've just finished a couple of pellet studies, but I don't have them here.

There's also energy used in the collection and transportation of the wood, but this is often being done already by the State and US Forest Services, utilities or private companies for fire mitigation, forest health, line clearing and landscaping work. In the Intermountain West there are millions of trees that have been killed (or soon will be) by ips beetles, mountain pine beetles, dwarf mistletoe, drought and blowdown. These trees are a huge fire risk, so there is already a lot of work being done to remove them from the forest. In some areas, such as Grand County, Colorado, up to 90% of the trees will be lost.

[xoxoxoBruce]

What's the advantage of wood over something like recycled newspaper for making pellets? Sap?

[HungLikeJesus]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

What's the advantage of wood over something like recycled newspaper for making pellets? Sap?

All of the recycled newspaper is being made into power bars.

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If I had to guess, I would say that the fiber in newspaper is not sufficient to make pellets. But it's a good question. I'll ask Rob Davis next time I see him.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by HLJ

Griff, I just spent some time looking at the Temp-Cast site and at this site, which shows some more detail about the workings. Those Russian stoves look really nice. What are your experiences with it so far? Are you happy with it?

Extremely, I finished ours in fieldstone, making it a nice centerpiece in the house. We use less than 6 face cords each winter to heat our small efficient house. In the coldest part of winter you need two fires per day to keep it at the 68F target. The pellet stove is in the basement and will bring the house up to temp if we're away a while or hit a really brutal cold snap.