I would love to hear how the generator works. Also, why burn wood when you could use solar, wind, Nuclear? I thought the idea was to save trees.

Also, are you sure those numbers are right? 24MWh on 1 1/2lb of wood?

I have to clarify thats its my roomates idea. It is a steam engine that uses a wood gassifier and a monotube flash boiler. We also have some plans for vertical access windmills. solar panels are always on the table, but we havnt found a good enough niche for them yet.
of course the idea is to save trees. a pallet of wood can power an entire commercial block for a day (which includes a body shop, a bar, us, and a frame shop) I think that a pallet of wood is a hell of a lot better than what toledo edison uses to produce the same amount of energy. we figure if we set up a big battery bank we can use the steam engine, windmills, all on the same bank. and if we use a battery bank it is super easy to wire in solar panels or anything else you come up with. hell we're even toying with the idea of a bicycle that generates electricity.

nuclear energy is far from sustainable. even if it were nuclear is really not a DIY techniology

That idea seems incredible unsustainable. You're going to be chewing through wood like there's no tomorrow.

If you really want to be off-grid *and* sustainable, you should look into solar. It's by far the best for individuals. If you live in a place that gets sun most of the year, you can easily make more than enough energy to power a house and sell some back to the grid.

yes. at the time we were using around 3500 kw hours (later we found out we were quite a bit more frugal than that, using roughly 100-150 kw hours a month) but thwe engine was designed to be able to handle that (3500) and with our neighbors in mind as well. our best guess is that it will generate between 6000-9000.

I am a little unclear with the teminology so I may be confusing. I know our block uses around 9000 kw hours a month. a bound and a quarter of wood will power all these structures for four hours. so a pallet of wood for a full day of electricity for 4 commercial buildings (I say a full day because of the 8 hour period of being 'closed'. we live here but use very little during the night.)

its not unsustainable. we can produce a pallet of wood from now until eternity without harming our surroundings. shit we can even use a few handfuls of mulch.

I personally have planted more than a years worth of electricity around the neighborhood. but realistically the point when we have to plant trees to harvest them is faaar in the future. theres so much scrap wood around. you use more wood in 30 minutes of a campfire. have you ever thought 'oh man I better plant some trees so I can have a fire tommorow'

OK, even if you can produce that much, that's 365 *pallets* of wood a year for *1* block. How is that sustainable?

Also, what about winter? If it get's cold, you'll need to run 24 hours, not 16 hours. If it doesn't get cold, then it's probably sunny most of the year, so, again solar is much, much better.

yeah but solar panels are expensive. and I or my friends have no idea how to repair a solar panel

Yeah, for 1 block, you're right, you can go forever. But, if you're only doing this for 1 block, then, quite frankly, don't bother. 1 block in the whole world isn't going to make a difference. I would assume you'd want to develop a system that others could follow, no? If so, then this is a terrible idea, because it is not sustainable large-scale. Not to mention all the carbon monoxide you'll be pumping into the air.

I commend you for trying to do this, but burning wood is not the way to go. We have the technology; use it.

But seriously, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

@abgemacht: "If you really want to be off-grid *and* sustainable, you should look into solar. It's by far the best for individuals. If you live in a place that gets sun most of the year, you can easily make more than enough energy to power a house and sell some back to the grid."

edited, becomes:
"If you really want to be off-grid ... make more than enough energy to power a house and sell some back to the grid."

actually the steam engine provides heat, hot water, (and even some interesting possibilities like irrigation, and a workshop with bansaws table saws drillpress etc.) as just a nice bonus on the side.

it uses less wood than a campfire. you cannot tell me campfires are unsustainable.

I have no idea what that edit is supposed to mean.

@abgemacht - I don't think the point is to be green and earth friendly. The point is to survive without needing society.

Is that a fair clarification Sicarius?

burning a pallet of wood a day (if you absolutly need electricity everyday which i dont know who does. hospitals maybe?) if a hell of a lot less impactful than huge coal burning power plants. not to mention all the trucks that got it there, or all the machinery to mine it. and coal is not infinite. trees are. (as long ass they're sustainably harvested)

if you want to be OFF GRID ... sell some back TO THE GRID

@Sic

Again, if you're doing this for just one block, then I agree, it's sustainable.

I'm just saying, if you wanted a lot of people to get off the grid, this is a terrible method to use. It has a ton of down-sides and is not as good as other options.

RE: solar panels. Commercial ones don't require that much maintenance (if it doesn't get cold). They are initially expensive, but they pay for themselves over time (I realize this doesn't help you, but still...).

You seem to be trying to apply solutions from the 1900's to problems from the 2000's.

I don't think the point is to be green and earth friendly. The point is to survive without needing society.
Is that a fair clarification Sicarius?

its both. generating our own power, water. etc certainly makes us less reliant on the corporations where we would otherwise get it, but it also gives us the chance to do it alot better than them. more environmentally friendly if you want to put it like that.
I'm pretty for things that dont rape the earth

@philcore

Yeah, fine. If you wanted to be truly off-grid, you could just waste a much of energy when your batteries are full.

@Sic

Let's be real clear: Do you want to do this just for your personal use, or do you think it's a viable solution for a majority of people?

getting electricity is not a 1900s problem. its a luxury, and is not really affected by what century you're in. anyway as far as technology goes there were alot of good ideas floating around then its like looking back to move forward.

Try telling people in Africa that they don't need electricity because it's a "luxury." Clothes are really a luxury, too, if you don't want to live too long.

What you need to decide is if you actually want to make a modest change, or if you want to make no change because you refuse to waver on your ideals.

Personal use.

to be honest I havmt thought about the impact of the general populace using steam engines and windmills to generate their electricity, I dont think that will ever happen, relaistically. but it is sustainable. i.e. you can do it forever.
mining coal or plutonium is certainly not for the obvious reason that they are un-renewable resources. Not to mention the horrible way in which they do it which requires huge amounts of energy in the form of gasoline and diesel to even get these in the first place.

blowing up a mountain to scrounge it for coal, using huge iundustrial machines, which is then collected and trucked somewhere to be refined, then trucked somewhere else to be burned. gee i wonder how much diesel got burned there. and where did the diesel come from?

my solution is walking down the street to hack apart the fallen tree.

markedly different

Given your circumstances, it's probably the best solution for you and your block. But, don't think for a second that it will work for any significant number of people.

Solar and Wind will and has already started taking on.

There are many in africa that would tell you the same thing. electricity is really not that big of a deal. we havnt had it for very long, and everyone before got along pretty well without it.

it's like not being able to imagine life without your cell phone, forgetting that our grandparents never had one.

tangent. I wonder if they call them cell phones because we're imprisoned to them?

if we can build a civilization on sucking out million year old dinosaur juice, I think I can power my house with fire water and wood pretty much forever. or at least until theres no more replacement parts for the steam engine

Clever, but they're call cell phones, because they communicate to different towers that are arranged to form cells : )

I would like to meet those people in Africa. How are they getting their water? How are they cleaning it? How are they receiving medicine? How do they have access to medical equipment?

I find your calculations to be *highly* questionable, given that you are stating that wood is several orders of magnitude more efficient than coal - and if that were true, Edison would be planting forests instead of stripping them off the ground to get at the coal:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/question481.htm

a pound of coal will certainly provide MUCH more energy than a pound of wood.
but you have to look at the amount of energy used to get those resources in the first place.

Anyway I have to stress that I want this to be idea sharing, and I am looking at this logistically, I'm not fishing for a philosophical-politcal conversation

I think I've already answered you logistically:

For the individual: If you have the capital and are in a sunny place, Solar is King.

For society: A combination of Wind, Solar, and Nuclear would be best.

For you: If you can't afford solar panels, then your idea would probably work, but don't kid yourself about the benefits.