Safety of Wood Gas [Gasification] storing wood gas.

[Kevin Chisholm]

Dear List

The issue of Wood Gas Safety is extremely important. Very bluntly, wood gas 
is perfectly safe if it is handled properly, and people can die if it is not 
handled properly. There is a "right way" and a "wrong way" to handle wood 
gas.

The purpose of the Gasification List seems to be to provide a forum to 
assist in development of  technology that permits the increased use of 
biomass as a result of it being converted to gaseous fuel. It is one thing 
to "manufacture" wood gas, but that is only part of the task. It must be 
conveyed to the point of use, and it must be handled safely at every step 
along the way.

We know fundamentally that wood gas can be handled safely. A hundred years 
ago, poisonous and explosive Manufactured Gas, or Coal Gas was produced 
centrally and distributed safely to millions of homes. "What Man has done, 
Man can do." (See also what Man has done 200 years ago::

In 1801, Phillipe Lebon uses his wood-gas system to light the Hotel 
Seignelay in Paris, the first known instance of a whole building lighted 
with inflammable gas. See also 1799 Energy.

William Murdock installs coal gas for lighting at the engine house of 
Boulton & Watt's plant near Birmingham, England, to celebrate the short 
Peace of Amiens between Britain and France. See also 1792 Energy; 1803 
Energy.


LPG and Natural Gas are in safe widespread use, even though they are 
explosive and a fire hazard. Procedures and standards have been developed to 
permit safe and reliable of these hazardous gases. The same thing can be 
done with wood gas.

We could start by looking at the practices employed by the Coal Gas Industry 
a hundred years ago, and build on their gas handling technology and 
experience to deliver wood gas safely to the point of use. In this day and 
age, we have hardware and technology that should make such systems much 
safer, and at much lower cost. For example, we have CO Detectors that are 
very cheap and dependable, and as a first line of defense, they would make 
an excellent safety addition to any wood gas system.

Wood gas systems should be seen in perspective. Should charcoal stoves be 
banned because they can on occasion put out 2,000 ppm CO? Should kerosene 
stoves be banned because they can tip over or explode? Of course not. What 
should be done is to improve the devices and use them in a way that is safe 
for the user. Similarly with wood gas...

So... If someone wanted to design and build a safe system that used Wood 
Gas, where would they go to get guidance on how to do it properly? The 
Gasification List should be a good place to start. Possibly the Safety 
Section of the Bioenergy List Site could be a Repository for such 
guidelines?

Best wishes,

Kevin


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harmon Seaver" <hseaver at gmail.com>
To: "Gasification" <GASIFICATION at listserv.repp.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2006 9:14 AM
Subject: Re: [Gasification] storing wood gas.


> Tharu, I tried to reply to your private message on this subject to me,
> but it didn't go through. Perhaps others here will weigh in on this --
> but I sure don't think it's a good idea to pipe woodgas into a house.
>
>  You need more than ventilation -- people die just standing near to
> a gasifier in the open air if their are leaks. One major problem is
> you cannot smell the gas. Commercial gas systems like in towns add
> something to the gas that smells strong.
>    Natural gas (methane) is not nearly so dangerous, nor is lpg.
> Woodgas is mostly CO.
>
>
>
> -- 
> Harmon Seaver
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