This little contraption once again has me wondering if it couldn't be adapted for electricity production. Just thinking out loud...wouldnt it be sweet if you could get your winter heat, all your domestic hot water and your lights out of one unit. Primary unit used to make steam for electrical generation and downstream of that a condensor of sorts for your hot water or forced hot air.
Maybe one day.....
This little contraption once again has me wondering if it couldn't be adapted for electricity production. Just thinking out loud...wouldnt it be sweet if you could get your winter heat, all your domestic hot water and your lights out of one unit. Primary unit used to make steam for electrical generation and downstream of that a condensor of sorts for your hot water or forced hot air.
Maybe one day.....
I'm sure theres a way, and someone is holding every conceivable patent to themselves.
scale of operation always seems to be the limiting factor. Nut it sure feels like we are approaching a point with technology that a home sized system could be run by a smart phone...considering the average smart phone has multiple x's the computing power of what was used to get to the moon.
Drying wood chips on a small scale can be easily done with a washing machine drum horizintialy mounted/winter in a solar kiln.Where do you get dry chips to burn? I've run and dumped tons with a big commercial chipper and at best the outside layer of your pile gets dry, but a couple inches in and there on it stays wet and starts to compost out. (let it sit a few years and you got some dang nice garden soil additive...)
I like the idea, but just not seeing any easy way to get dry chips..back to buying designer bags for folding money, just like pellets or like burning corn, etc.
They have been using wood chip boilers in Germany and other parts of Europe for many years. It is a popular heating/energy alternative because it is easy to process/handle mechanically and therefore people don't have to get their hands dirty. The boiler systems are fully self contained and just have a hopper outside that is filled by the wood chip company when required.
Right now the biggest problem with wood chips is price which is significantly higher than other popular forms of energy. However, I assume it will become more widely spread once more green energy legislation comes in and energy prices go up. I am currently working on a project where we are trying to reduce the cost of producing wood chips and hopefully we can make it a more viable energy option for the future. Processing trees to save the planet, who would have thunk it...
I manage a company that burns wood chips to run a low pressure steam boiler, and can offer some advice on heating with chips.
It is a struggle to get good performance using chips with a moisture content over 30 percent.
The system we have is a large storage bin that feeds into an auger system for delivery into the boiler. During very cold weather green chips will freeze into a solid block and will not auger.
In the area I live in dry chips are in high demand and very tough to come by. Most of the production is locked up by contracts.
Interesting, how do you go about drying your chips?
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