I agree. While it's a fun idea and would be neat to experiment with, it's not a practical way to generate electricity if grid power is available. Electricity is a very good value for the dollar.
I did some research, and grid tied solar is finally less expensive in michigan than electricity from the grid. Detroit Edison offers 20 cents rebate per installed watt of solar, the feds give a 30% tax rebate and a 4% 10 year loan on solar. Works out that i can purchase a complete solar kit that is rated to produce twice the power my home currently consumes for under $50/month.
I think there is value in experimenting with other means of generating electricity, but solar is finally cheap enough to be economically viable.
One problem with generating electricity with wood gas is the extremely tight rpm tolerance required to generate clean power. It is recommended that you be within 2-3% of 60 hz. That means that the engine needs to be regulated to within about 100 rpm's regardless of load. This is tricky for a small engine even with common fuels like gasoline or natural gas. I would imagine that it's even more difficult of a challenge using woodgas. This doesn't make the project not worth doing, it's just something to think about. Possible solutions to unsteady RPM: You could only power appliances that are not picky about frequency, like toasters, electric heaters, incandescent light bulbs, etc. You could alternatively get extra fancy and power an inverter type generator with woodgas, like a honda eu2000 (or a chinease clone) These "generators" are actually an extremely efficient alternator and and inverter that make perfectly clean 60hz power regardless of rpm as long as you stay within a really wide margin, like between 1,000-5000 rpm. Another cheaper but less efficient option is to turn one or more automotive type alternators that feed a battery bank that in turn powers a cheap inverter. You can get a 2kw inverter for $200 shipped to your house. An alternator makes a nominal 12 volts between about 800 and 8000 rpm's, but more current (amps) are available at higher rpm. Automotive alternators are very inefficient at generating electricity but that's the penalty you pay for a device that produces clean stable power over a wide range of rpm's. One more option is to find an inexpensive used UPS that corrects both frequency and voltage. These are not very common, but they do exist and resale value is very poor, making them inexpensive. You could then use the original generator outside of it's standard operating rpm and the UPS would produce the correct frequency and voltage.
Ideally, if you were using woodgas to power a generator is that you could benefit from cogeneration and heat your home with the excess heat.
