Clean burn (home wood gasifier)

[jpak]

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/business/stories/061029green.html

EAST MILLINOCKET For Dominic Federico and Jeff Baker, a 27 year-old inspiration is blossoming into reality, just in time. Maybe it's a timely enough idea to grow a sustainable business in this papermaking community, where thousands of manufacturing jobs have disappeared and people who can build things with their hands are searching for a future.

Federico and Baker are the principals behind Clean Wood Heat LLC, makers of the Black Bear Boiler. It's a high-efficiency central heating system that uses innovative technology to squeeze more warmth from each log, without coughing up a lot of air pollution. The pair began production this year in a small industrial park here. They have sold 50 units so far and can't keep up with demand.

A native of East Millinocket, Federico was working at his dad's heating business in 1979, installing old-style, smoky wood boilers, when he came up with a better design. But he never had a way to test his idea, until he hooked up last year with Baker.

Owner of Universal Welding Co. here, Baker makes a living fabricating steel. Together the men built a prototype boiler that draws down combustion gases and injects air to reignite them at temperatures approaching 2,000 degrees. This process, called wood gasification, produces a flame that looks like it's shooting out of an oil burner. It's a feature that is of increasing interest now, as early autumn snows hint at the long heating season ahead.

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[Ian David]

1. More useful would be something that burns household yard waste that way.

Collect your grass clippings, branches, raked leaves from spring to autumn, shred them into pellets, and burn them at home.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. If you could compress them enough to get most of the air out, it should work. nt

[jpak]

5. They are making hay pellets in Vermont today...

Grass Pellets Make Their Vermont Debut

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=43069

Shelburne, Vermont Sure you've heard of burning wood pellets for home heating but how about grass pellets? The Grass Energy Collaborative (GEC), a new organization committed to developing grass energy as a renewable biofuel, tested grass pellets as fuel with a day-long burn in the furnace of the Farm Barn at Shelburne

The collaborative, with membership representing universities, researchers, technology pioneers and environmentalists, is investigating pelletized grass as a fuel with benefits for land stewardship, economic development, a healthy environment and energy independence. At a time when energy concerns are a hot topic, even making it to President Bush's State of the Union speech last week, the prospect of an energy source that is affordable, sustainable and secure has captured the imagination of potential users, as well as farmers who see it as a possible new profit source for their farms.

Proponents of grass pellets as fuel describe a process where farmers would cut grass late in the season, typically from land that had been left fallow or was planted as a buffer strip to prevent pesticide and silt runoffs into streams, bale it and put it through a pelletizer to produce half-inch diameter pellets. The pellets can be burned in commercial heating systems, such as the ChipTec gasifier that is in use at the Farm Barn.

Present for the inaugural burn were the founders of the Grass Energy Collaborative (GEC), President Jock Gill of Medford, Mass., and Peacham, Vt.; Jerry Cherney, a professor of agriculture at Cornell University who has been researching grass biomass for more than 20 years; Averill Cook who installed two pellet heating systems that have been using wood pellets on the Farm in the last year; and GEC Treasurer Marshall Webb of Shelburne Farms. Professor Cherney donated the pellets, made in Canada from grass harvested from land owned by Cornell University, for the burn.

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I posted this many moons ago here....

[Faux pas]

2. Good for them, sounds like they have a winner. n/t

[Ian David]

4. Can it burn hemp or bamboo or switchgrass? n/t

[ashling]

6. KUDZU !

n/t

[NMDemDist2]

7. ACK!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[buddysmellgood]

8. These are common in Europe. I was looking at getting a TARM. If this

is of the same quality, I'll buy it instead.

[jpak]

9. My parents have a TARM - almost 30 years old -

and it works well, but I think this rig is better...

:hi:

[buddysmellgood]

10. Why do you think it better? I'd like to buy from a U.S. manufacturer, but I'm

worried about being one of the early customers. It's big investment for me, so any thoughts you have would be appreciated. Thanks.

[jpak]

11. With the older TARMs, the draft door is thermostatically controlled

if you have a big load of wood in it, the draft door will close and result in incomplete combustion - which means you have to clean your chimney often.

Small quick fires are better, but that means you have to tend the furnace more each day.

With the Black Bear Boiler, gas combustion appears to be complete, eliminating the need to clean your chimney (once a month). Also, the large ceramic refractory allows you to heat longer with each load of wood (fewer trips to the basement).

The downside is that it uses an electric blower - not good if the power goes out. With the older TARMs, you could heat convectively when the power was out (they use electric pumps to circulate hot water throughout the house). You could do this with small fires (big fires would over pressurize the system).

I don't know if the BBB system is UL approved, but that would be a good indicator that it's not a POS - also I don't know about warranties, service availability etc.

The BBB and the older TARMs use stick firewood - not pellets. Pellet stoves might be a better choice for some people (if you can find pellets or fuel corn in your area).

All those are important things to consider...

[buddysmellgood]

12. Thanks you! That is excellent information. I'll let you know when I pull this

off. I have to build a new garage first. The boiler goes in the basement underneath.:)

[Dogmudgeon]

13. How "low-tech" can this be designed?

If this technology could be turned into a DIY or cottage industry project, it could be a big winner, especially for powering small industries in developing countries.

However, I'm still keeping my fingers crossed on the pollution issue. Similar technologies were promised to reduce oil and coal pollutants to a bare minimum, then fell off the proverbial radar.

And there's another problem to consider. If it becomes a popular energy-production method, the Republicans will be looking covetously toward the grass on the steppes of Kazakhstan ...

--p!