The basic principles of any gasification process are considered noval. As far as goverment regulations I do not know of any regulations. However this is the first thing you need to investigate. There are not enough units produced commercially or DIY for it to be a concern not to mention the emissions are generally cleaner than the fuels being replaced.
What you may want to consider is the copyright laws. This is an automatic right given any piece of work at the time of its conception. So create something unique. You can use the basic concepts but just make it unique and use that create your own nitch.
Do not think you are going to do this cheap. At the end of the day this must be profitable, pay your bills overhead, put food on your table etc. The gasifeir markets are extremely un predictable and fluctuate widly. You must have finances to cover your living expesne when there are no sales. There will be times you cant give these machines away. So dont quit your day job.
The odds of success are against you. Most that get into this the companies fail in a matter of a few years.
Storm
LEAF
Garrenger
VGW
Seperior
Off Grid 48
CrossFire
Just to name a few there more that have come and gone in the last decade. My company will also be phased out in the next 5 years as I prepare for retirement. I will either have the units outsourced to a local mass producer of metal products or I will desolve the company.
Well, donât get disencouraged by those companies, it could be better where you live. It depends on so many things.
But give it a shot for yourself first, build a gasifier and get familiar with how it works and how to run an engine on gas. All outdoors of course. Then decide
Its a hard business to be in. You start out thinking I can do it cheaper! Then you start getting sales and get overwhelmed and realize your funding is only hardly breaking even if you dont get upside down. Most dont factor every penny of the cost. Only the basic materials and dont realize how much all required overhead actually cost. Ive seen $1200 dollar electric bills before running multiple welders and a CNC plasma cutting machine two shifts at one point. If you opperate at commercial level then commercial space to do this work cost gobbs of money as well. Then the fun of working with employees and trying to meet deadlines managing your funding with hundreds of parts that all have individual fluxuating cost, accountants, website your ecomerse all are added cost. The shipping cost the materials to package the units so they survice shipment without damage are also part of build cost and then what happens when they damage the unit. Shippers dont always cover the cost.
Yeah this is not to discourage you, but to give you an inside look at whats its really about. Right now no one can see this from the inside you are all outside looking in. You can only see the inside by actually living and doing it.
Of course what Matt said is true of any start-up business. Seldom does a person go into anything with sufficient start up capitol. And that is why the vast majority of new business fail. Other than Matt, who is a commercial producer of gasifiers, most if not all the others on the site build from what we call obtanium. Thatâs scrap metal, barrels, discarded water heaters, ect. Part of the enjoyment is seeing what you can build with what you hunted down. Of course some things, valves, rubber couplings and other pipe fittings must be purchased. And of course a gasifier builder needs to be fairly proficient with welder and cutting tools. There are non-welded gasifiers but they are usually built with pipes and other purchased supplies. I think that takes some of the fun out of it. Putting something together from junk and making it useful is what I call a good time. Again, not being discouraging, but itâs wise to start any en devour with eyes wide open and as much advise as you can get from people with real world eperience.
Someone has to carry on the torch. That wont be me! lol Yeah start with charcoal first get simple low cost unit to market, but make sure it works. Get it to where it can consume a full hopper load without user intervention and with the generator at its maximum self sustaining load first. Once you have achieved this you have a marketable product. If you attempt wood fueled stationary systems, plan on putting that into a longer term development plan and make sure it works. Tar must be 100% impossible for it to be a consumer level product. If it can produce one drop of tar its a no go not to mention it will need to be self sustaining. Honestly you would be way better off putting innovation into the retort process and making waste energy loss usefull instead. The two systems together will be more efficient and usefull.
I donât know the situation in Mozambique. If your petroleum fuel supply is unreliable perhaps you will succeed. If there are times when you will be the only one driving this will help you. Also if you can find very remote locations where it is difficult to find petroleum fuel you may have success there.
Rindert
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