Building a power house

Tone. I have two of the Ben Peterson books. The newer one has the automated carb build section. I’m never going to do that and you probably would. PM me your address and I’ll be happy to send it to you.

2 Likes

Here’s my main wood supply of what I’ll be working with


11 Likes

Since you’re already working with dimensional lumber, you could build a setup like this:

He just has a circular saw bolted to a frame, and a hopper mounted to a drawer slide.

If you want really small pieces you could copy his idea entirely, or leave them as jenga block sizes. That really depends on the engine/gasifier size.

Just giving ideas, a blade type chunker works with no sawdust waste. But there’s tons of uses for sawdust. Matt Ryder uses it as a disposable filter media for one, or you could use it in a composting toilet, or getting up oil spills.

6 Likes

Man i love this idea! Thank you so much!

3 Likes

Definitely look at the different Chunker builds too. @Norman89 uses a chunker for lumber and limbs,

If you have a differential laying around you could utilize that, or an old square baler or some other gearbox.

6 Likes

Currently yes, I completely agree.

I am keeping my eye on GM, they figured out something. They have only offered teasers though. The ultium pack can handle multiple types of cells. If it is a new chemistry, they don’t have to change anything else to upgrade

2 Likes

Yeah in 5 to 10 years Lithium will be a thing of the past. There are many new chemistries close to market ready now.

2 Likes

I’ve been hearing that kind of thing since I got interested in the GM SunRaycer back in 1987.

5 Likes

Welcome, Ken,
We are not too far away, we are in western Pa outside of Meadville., I too am getting started with a charcoal gasifier to run a backup generator. Another alternative energy forum that may help your design is fieldlines.com. We have too many cloudy days for solar, and I long to build a wind turbine with charcoal gasification as backup and extra power for my shop. If I can help you, let me know I have steel fabrication and manual machining capabilities.
kent

5 Likes

I don’t think Lithium is going away. It works well because it is higher density then a lot of the other technologies, which makes it good for space or weight restricted applications. I do think it will improve. But I do think other technologies especially for stationary storage will start to mature over the next 10 years, and we will move away from lithium.

2 Likes

Lithium itself isn’t the issue, it’s the more dangerous metals like cobalt that need to be done away with.

3 Likes

They know its not sustainable they have to come up with something else. There are a lot of new chemistries that will come out. Alum ion is very close with a number of companies one being in Australia that GM has been supporting. There is also solid state graphene and graphite tech this is coming in solid state glass batteries along with a slew of other tech.

Lithium will not go away as it is heavily invested into so adopting and re investing into these chemistries will slow that adoption.

3 Likes

They current nmc batteries cut cobalt like in half or less and substituted like aluminum and more nickel. Lithium prices have like tripled in the last year so the issue is more availability and price then anything else.

1 Like

Lithium won’t go away because it is #3 on the periodic table. It is the lightest metal. and thus has the highest potential energy density. It is like a holy grail.

3 Likes

Not enough of it it already at peak extraction and demand is only going to grow exponentially. They have no choice to move on from it even that means using less energy dense technology. I would argue that is not the holy grail, that would be graphene there is already tech developed that is more than 4 times as energy dense as the best Lipo tech.

4 Likes

The good about wood chunks is that they are less likely too make tar than wood chips, the smaller the wood stock the easyer it is too make tar. Wood chips might be harder too get dry or keep dry, wood chunks can just sit out under the sun in flat piles,untill dry, I havent heard how wood chips are best way too dry large piles. ?

1 Like

The only pure graphene batteries I have read about seem more like vaporware. The rest of it is as a replacement for the graphite. It is related to carbon nanotubes in the anode. Gac Motors claims to have a graphene battery and a patent to drop manufacturing costs by 1/10 for graphene sheets. 1/10 of a lot is probably still a lot. :slight_smile:

Maybe I am missing something.

1 Like

There are quite a few companies with Graphene tech that are already developed. The issue is they have not figured out how to mass produce it the huge scale it will need to be produced at. They will figure it out.

1 Like

The GAC Motors said they have patents for a 3d manufacturing and supposedly would have batteries last year. :slight_smile: GM is using carbon nanotubes which are closely related, and I think combining it with silicon. Silicone can potentially get to 10x the density of the standard lion batteries.

1 Like

Delft university is winning that race a lot of times. Quite impressive how they race these days.

Since we are talking down under now. Dave/Brian, you used some capacitor-batteries? Do you combine them with LiFePo4? I ask this because I want my peakshaving system to respond faster.

1 Like