[Gasification] Charcoal Gasifier No 2.

[Ken Boak]

Harmon, Rolf & list,

>From my experience of small scale diesel generators, such as the slow speed 
Lister 6hp, you will be lucky to achieve a conversion efficiency of better 
than 20 to 25% of your fuel energy into electrical energy, and that is 
liquid fuel such as diesel or waste vegetable oil.

When you move to biomass, whether by gasification or methane from anaerobic 
digestion there are going to be further inefficiencies and complications in 
maintaining a consistent quality of gas to keep the efficiency up.

Added to this are the energy inputs required to mechanically process the 
fuel and deliver it to the gasifier.

I doubt whether a 10kW or 15kW gasifier could be produced from junk, that 
didn't require constant poking, adjusting and 100% supervision - thus 
incurring a heavy labour cost. This might not be such of an issue in rural 
India, where there is likely to be someone available to stand over the 
gasifier, but not so cost effective in the West.

Ankur Scientific seem to have a fair amount of success with their small 
gasifier installations, and provide some useful guidance to operating (fuel) 
costs compared to diesel.

There is in my opinion a considerable amount of development work needed to 
make small scale biomass systems less labour intensive, and cost effective 
in terms of their fuel handling systems.

However I belive that the small home made gasifier, currrently  is unlikely 
to be a source of income - more a pastime for enthusiasts, remembering that 
it was only the dire fuel shortages of WW2 that promoted its early 
development.



Ken