[Gasification] Gasification in the home?

[Ken Boak]

Drew & List,

Personally I believe that de-centralised gasification is a good idea.   It 
represents a convenient technology for converting solid biomass fuels, that 
are currently under-utilised in the developed world, into combined heat and 
power, generated at the point of use, and thus eliminating many of the 
transmission losses.

Whilst the economics of mechanically processing and handling the fuel, often 
dictate system size that is too large for the single household (although 
smaller systems are under development), it is perhaps more efficient to 
share a de-centralised gasifier plant between 10 or 20 suburban dwellings, 
because there is always likely to be some demand for the heat and power.

However, this was not how suburbia developed, and retro-fitting a district 
heating system and neighborhood gasification plant would be extremely 
costly.

The model for suburbia, is that every dwelling is self-contained, and 
resoures are individually owned, rather than being shared. This made sense 
when you had the backing of a manufacturing society, that could replicate 
consumer goods cheaply and thrived from selling manufactured goods. A pair 
of cars on every drive and a furnace in every basement or garage.

I am currently experimenting with a small scale combined heat and power 
system  based on a 1930s slow speed diesel engine, currently running on 
waste vegetable oil, but later this year to be dual fuelled on wood gas and 
WVO.

Although rated at a maximum of 3kW electrical output,  I have devised the 
means to get the engine to run at much reduced power returning as little as 
500W, which is more closely matched to the baseload power requirement of my 
home.



Ken