[Gasification] Burning man festival gasifier

[jim mason]

this was ours.  you can see more details here: www.mechabolic.org.  it
is called the "mechabolic", not "metabolic".  it is suggesting we
consider our HC based machine energy systems in biological terms.
such makes the energy transactions of machines more easy to relate to
the larger biological/climate systems around us.  the HC energy
economy works on the same packing and unpacking of carbon based
molecules as the energy transport system of nature does.

there were two gasifiers on the rolling sculpture.  a traditional
downdraft with the tube in tube hearth design i posted here awhile
ago.  then a fluidized bed related design of my development.  the
downdraft was running walnut shells.  the fluidized bed coffee
grounds.

the gas was used to run a lister genset and a blown big block chevy,
which was the motive power for the "sculpture".  the char/ash output
from the gasifiers was used as terra preta soil amendments in two long
planter beds.

this is all still very much in the early stages of development.   the
sculpture is very far from done.  we did not get any of the overhead
sculpture done for this round.  just the platform.  but all the tech
got done well enough for basic demos.

there are two main skids, one with all the size reduction related
machines: chipper, hammermill and blade discintegrator.  the other is
all the gasifier related machines.  the engines are unfortunately
still independent.  but otherwise it is a reasonable, "lift it off the
trailer and go" gasificaiton demo unit.  that is the goal here: an
inspirational and easy to demo trash to fuel and fertilizer system,
which we can tour relevant festivals, conferences and etc.

we are currently working only on the dry carbacous fuel feeds for
this.  in the future we will add a wet fuel feed pathway through
anerobic digestion.  the gaseous outputs of each, when combined, give
you the correct C:H, 1:2 synthesis ratio for easier methanol
liquification.  the longer term goal is trash in, both dry and wet,
with methanol out the end.  the long discussed system that we could
have at the end of our two main urban waste streams.

i am very behind on the documentation for this.  all summer was
building it.  thus my relative absence from the list.  over the next
weeks we'll get the doc up on the site.

jim





On 10/4/07, Philippe Raufast <praufast at free.fr> wrote:
>      Hello,
> there was a report on the french TV   about the Burning man festival in the USA. There was a machine on show, called "the Metabolic" ,
> it has a huge wheeled platform with a Lister engine and a gasifier. The fuel was ground coffee ! It was not  running properly and has some problems
> with the gasifier with some little explosions. The engineer from some university was trying to fix it.
> Regards, Phil.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Gasification mailing list
> Gasification at listserv.repp.org
> http://listserv.repp.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_listserv.repp.org
> http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org
> http://info.bioenergylists.org
>


-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
jim mason
website: www.whatiamupto.com
current project: mechabolic (http://www.mechabolic.org)
announce list: http://lists.spaceship.com/listinfo.cgi/icp-spaceship.com