| Wood-Fired Steam Engine to Drive Generator? I thought of a way to have cheap electricity. I have lots of wood that I can burn. So it occurred to me that burning wood to create steam to drive an engine/turbine to drive a generator on a governor system, would be almost ideal.
I have too many trees here for solar power. No wind at ground level for a windmill, and no waterfall nearby. But.. I have lots of available firewood.
Generators are plentiful. But I'm having a bit of trouble locating a suitable steam engine/boiler that could be used to run a 15kW genset.
Has anyone pursued this path and have you any information on manufacturers of suitable steam engines for this purpose? |
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 John GaltForward, MarchPremium
join:2004-09-30
Happy Camp
kudos:5 | Rather than steam, check out wood gasification.
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas |
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Beezel
join:2008-12-15
Las Vegas, NV | That's what I was going to suggest. |
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 jjoshuaPremium
join:2001-06-01
Scotch Plains, NJ
kudos:3 | reply to disconnected
That's going to have to be a pretty big steam engine to generate 15Kw of electricity.
Plus the mechanics to regulate a steam engine to spin a generator at a constant speed are going to be complicated. |
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garys_2kPremium
join:2004-05-07
Farmington, MI Reviews:
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| reply to John Galt
Here's the DOE's DIY gas generator:
»upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c···ency.pdf |
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 JonPremium
join:2001-01-20
Lisle, IL | reply to John Galt
I saw someone run a generator like this on one of those prepper shows. They didn't explain it though. The gasifier seems pretty simple to make. I wonder what kind of modifications you would need to make to the generator though. |
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garys_2kPremium
join:2004-05-07
Farmington, MI | That's pretty much spelled out in the DOE document I linked to, above. They ran a 35 HP gas-engine tractor with a "mobile" unit and explain all the construction and other details. |
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JonPremium
join:2001-01-20
Lisle, IL | I saw that. I was typing my post when you posted it. I type slow  I'll check it out later. looks interesting. |
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| reply to disconnected
»www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYGKn12Weu4 |
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 tschmidtPremium,MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
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We have a large wood lot so when I through the same though process. As others have posted wood gasification is probably a better option. It was widely use in Europe in WWII.
Personally I have not pursued it. I'm waiting for someone to market a Stirling engine powered generator.
There is a pretty interesting book: "The Pegasus Unit - the lost art of driving without gasoline" by Niels A. Skov and Mark Papworth circa 1974
»www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_···bmit.y=9
/tom |
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Mr Matt
join:2008-01-29
Eustis, FL
kudos:1 Reviews:
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Check out this website:
»www.pritchardpower.com/default.aspx
They offer Uniflow stationary steam generators.
Check out uniflow steam engines at Wikipedia here:
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniflow_steam_engine
The other choice is a compound steam engine here:
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_steam_engine
This blog lists current manufactures of marine steam engines:
»mrbobs-wonders.net/2012/04/11/cu···engines/
Greatest efficiency will be achieved using waste heat from the condenser for space heating and domestic hot water. |
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| I looked into wood gasification a few years back, but it seemed iffy back then. I like steam because it's quiet, mainly. So the neighbors don't know you have a generator.
When I was up at Kent's Sloan Musuem of steam power, they had numerous steam engines operating in one big room and all you could hear was soft hissing sounds and low mechanical clicks, barely 55 decibels at 3 feet. This is one such engine:
»www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUUNGPKUPek
The tricky part is the boiler and keeping it fed at a rate that doesn't waist wood, yet keeps enough steam pressure to maintain the generator at governor speed. These engines all have governors based on centerfuges, as you can see in the video. And notice how quiet. Neighbors and passers by would never know that you have electricity, as long as you black out the windows at night. But we could go on living normally and inconspicuously this way. |
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Mr Matt
join:2008-01-29
Eustis, FL
kudos:1 | You might want to check with the museum to see if they use compressed air to operate their demonstration steam engines. That is how the steam engines are powered at the Boston Museum of Science. |
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 SnakeoilIgnore Button. The coward's feature.Premium
join:2000-08-05
Mentor, OH
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Interesting, though wood takes a while to replace. What about methane from a sewer tank/compost pile?
Though that may not generate enough to last a while either.
I saw such a thing at a landfill I used to go to in GA. They would burn off the methane and use the heat to produce steam to drive a turbine to produce some of the power the landfill used. They also had solar cells and a wind turbine going.
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Is a person a failure for doing nothing? Or is he a failure for trying, and not succeeding at what he is attempting to do? What did you fail at today?. |
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SnakeoilIgnore Button. The coward's feature.Premium
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Thank you. That is pretty interesting. Hmm, I wonder if Kudzu with it's woody steam would be good for this, as fuel.
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Is a person a failure for doing nothing? Or is he a failure for trying, and not succeeding at what he is attempting to do? What did you fail at today?. |
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SnakeoilIgnore Button. The coward's feature.Premium
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Mentor, OH
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Dang that is kool.
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2 edits | reply to disconnected
Don't put your hopes too high. You're not going to be able to make an efficient-enough steam engine, definitely not without getting into levels of pressure and temperature that cannot be controlled in the backyard.
And then you have another issue - inability of controlling the output power in a timely fashion. You will have to be able to increase the output power by a factor of 10 or more in a fraction of a second when a load is being added. Even with a giant flywheel, that's not going to help as it will take maybe a minute to be able to increase the fire intensity to the needed levels.
Edit: I'd be extremely surprised if you got more than 3% efficiency. Generating 15kW of electricity, even disregarding any generation losses, would require about 15*3413/0.03 = 1.7mil BTU/h. That's nearly 1 cord of wood for 10hrs of use... |
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| reply to disconnected
And he'd use almost all that electricity for his electric chain saw cutting down the next full cord of wood the boiler needs  |
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garys_2kPremium
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said by disconnected :Neighbors and passers by would never know that you have electricity, as long as you black out the windows at night. But we could go on living normally and inconspicuously this way.
Gettin' ready for the zombie Apocalypse? |
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| said by garys_2k:said by disconnected :Neighbors and passers by would never know that you have electricity, as long as you black out the windows at night. But we could go on living normally and inconspicuously this way.
Gettin' ready for the zombie Apocalypse? That's part of it. I read Karl Denninger's Market Ticker Forums, so if their math is correct, things are going to get bad and a lot of people are going to die. One has to be as inconspicuous as possible. That's why I find the idea of steam engines to be attractive.
I find it hard to buy the concept that they are that inefficient. I rode Flagg Coal #75 from Thomaston all the way down to the middle of the state and they did it on one load of coal. That was moving many tons of train cars. I cannot imagine that generating 20HP would burn a cord of wood a day.
The Sloan Museum, if I recall accurately, has a coal burner that provides steam for all their engines throughout the museum building. It's not compressed air. |
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