Thanks Kevin! 50 miles per hopper, 4 cyl and 2.3 liter.
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ah-ha. I heard something like we were exporting DME to china along with distillates but I didn’t know why. I find it a little disturbing because they are moving from using methane production from biomass in the big pits(methane digestors) they used for like centuries to cooking with FF’s because of the smell.
https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/emerging_dme.html
You probably won’t if it needs to be pressurized to be a liquid.
The larger issue is even in the US we don’t have enough biomass to cover our needs.
Really the only “fast” way out of this mess as a society goes is to install solar. Then it doesn’t cover ALL of the energy needs but it could take out a huge chunk which cuts demand for legacy fuels which in turn lowers prices, which in turn means people stop doing it. It is a vicious cycle.
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It was my understanding that traditionally they would burn dried animal dung, and this would make smoke in their houses which they didn’t like. But more recently they have started using coal. This comes from a National Geographic article.
It compresses to liquid at ~75psi. LP handling equipment can be used. We saw “DME ONLY” on the sides of fuel tanks on big trucks here in the Denver area, part of study by Oberon Fuels I think. A friend took a picture of an orange tank car behind a locomotive. Part of the same study, probably. If you see orange LP bottles, tank cars, or other equipment out there, you’ll know what’s up. In my opinion DME is on it’s way. Its just a matter of time.
Have you looked into solar hot air panels aka solar furnace. I think I see huge potential here to avoid fossil fuel use.
Rindert
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Right it is the compression part. It isn’t as bad hydrogen or even propane but I can see someone trying to use a harbor freight air compressor. if they figured out the synthesis part to begin with. Even if they do figure it out, I suspect it will have an adoption rate similar to methane digestors and other biomass handling alternatives. It is too much work for a lot of people.
I don’t think you are wrong about it replacing propane at some point either especially since propane is a byproduct of ng production and oil refining, and you see crimps in the supply that makes propane costs skyrocket.
You are actually right. Their methane digester program just dates back to the 70s, not centuries because they basically devastated the forests for firewood…
I have looked at those since the 70s. I have been in houses where they were getting 85 degree heat out of the panels while it was snowing out in late February. There is absolutely no question they work and they are far less picky about placement for things like shading.
Because the cost of commercial pv and thermal solar was similar back about 15 years ago. I would opt for a DIY build. You don’t get as good of efficiency, but you can build more panels, especially if you find a good source of old building materials to reuse. Plus you can make them stackable and modular so you can cover the garden area during december and january when there isn’t as much sun, and pull those up when the ones on the lawn can provide enough heat so the garden soil can warm up in the spring.
They can supplement wood and you don’t have to spend as much time processing wood and tending fires to get heating needs. Because it is uneven heat rather then steady heat, the traditional thought is cheaper to just burn more fuel. But especially after reading about why the chinese pushed the anaerobic methane digesters, I can see there being a wood supply shortage in Europe this winter or next year after the supply gets ravaged.
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I have seen efficiency numbers around 80%. Someone had used three layer plastic green house glass. I crunched a few numbers and came up with ~$2000 to make 80% of the heat for a 1500sqft house like mine. I would use 3 tons of black basalt rock 1-5 inches, (railroad balast) as a thermal battery aka attenuator. Small PV panels to power fans directly. Two 4x8’ panels is what you would see from the outside of the house. This would be for where we live in Colorado, about a mile above sea level. We get a lot of sun up here.
Rindert
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That sounds fancy 
I’ve never crunched the numbers on it. I have seen people with houses designed for it around here that get all but a few days and we are pretty cloudy most of the time. The thermal storage goes a long way.
I was thinking simpler and cheaper, but $2k for a whole system is a steal. And you could always add another panel or two even if it is temporary just for winter.
I know a lot of folks use convection, but i thought the ones who used a fan hooked it up to the hvac.
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Well maybe it would be a little fancy. I was thinking ahead to what a new owner’s reaction would be if they were to buy my house so I went a little out of my way to make sure everything would be obvious and self explanatory and not be a headache for the furnace guy to come in and install a new one. I don’t have AC so that took a lot of complexity out of it though. As I think about it I think I actually will do it. One big reason is for indoor air quality. Having two 4" fans pumping air through the house when it’s closed up just seems like a good idea.
Rindert
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This reminds me, I need to find the data packet my grandpa requested regarding solar heating from decades ago. I think even in the 70s he was looking to replace our then oil furnace. We use electric central heat&air now.
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Oh I figured you would be there for the next 50 years and it wouldn’t matter anyway or “that is someone elses problem.” 
No, the triple paned glass and only two panels and storage. plus solar electric for fans. it is pretty fancy. I was thinking repurposed plywood,leftover 2x4’s and may old window glass or just plastic sheet, no fan, no storage, etc. But I was aiming for like 100 bucks with less efficiency and more panels.
Everyone in the 70s was looking to replace their furnace or cut down on their energy costs. We heated with wood because we had electric heating that was resistance heating coils in the ceiling. I’m guessing the attic warmed up better then the rest of the house. I think my mom insisted on it because there was no ducting which might have dust in it. They switched to geothermal and installed the ducting. Then got screwed over on their taxes because they were supposed to get a geothermal tax credit but apparently no one ever said it was only if water out of the ground was over 90.
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To Add AC, if you can bury a pipe down like 40" you just blow air through it. I’m not sure how -long- it has to be, but it is cheap and easy especially if you already have equipment to bury the rocks for the solar heat. Then you can use one of the solar fans to pump cold air into the house and use the same piping really.
And while you are at it, might as well add solar hot water.
I was trying to figure out how to estimate what you actually need and ran across this:
which basically gives these rough rules of thumb:
— Start by working out the biggest possible system for your available space and work down from there.
— The collector array ratio is 2 square feet for every 10 square feet of floor space on the main floor of the building. Add 10% to the collector array size for a second storey. This gives a contribution of 40%-50% of the overall yearly heating load.
— The heat storage tank (liquid, not sand) ratio is between 1.2 gallons and 2 gallons per square foot of collector array. If your location gets plenty of sunny days in the heating season, aim for a higher ratio.
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I wouldn’t bury the rock, just put it in a cylinder shaped container in the crawl space.
I haven’t really studied that far into it but I was thinking that it almost always gets below 50F at night here even when it gets above 100F during the day. Because mountain weather. So maybe that box of rocks could be cooled at night and provide cool air during the day. Supposedly there are ancient Roman buildings in North Africa where all this was done 2000+ years ago.
Rindert
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You don’t even need to do that, the temperature about 40-50" down is constant at about 50F. Thus, if you have a pipe buried and circulate air, that is all you need for AC. It very similar to geothermal water to air heat pumps except they use water instead of air, and a compressor to extract heat or cold from the water.
And now that I think about it, you can also vastly improve performance of an air/air heat pump, by using the tube, because they just use outside air to extract cold from the outside hot air, and heat from outside cold out. By piping air through the tube to the outside heat pump unit coils, it would vastly improve performance for heating when the temperature outside is below 50F, and for cooling above 50F. You have to have enough airflow so you don’t change the static pressure in the coils or else the fan will break, but there are no new connections going through the house, and you are using the existing equipment so wifey, contractors, buyers, warranty, etc aren’t going to be an issue.
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Hi what does this have to do with JO’s gasified 92 Volvo. Let’s go back to the topic above. Just saying. This talk is great but now should have it’s own topic thread title.
Bob
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Point taken Bob. (twenty characters)
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Was a good film JO, gave me more to think about, thanks
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What a treat, a double feature!
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JO you are looking good and we all are proud of you 
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JO, l only managed to shell out a few words, but two stuck. The two we all can relate to; permanent provisorum 
Looking sharp JO!
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Tanks guys! @KristijanL, I didn’t feel too sharp at the moment I was fighting covid with a fewer at the time of Niklas’ recording.
@SteveUnruh, Niklas called me prior to releasing this last episode. I mentioned the request of making the videos cc enabled. He said he already tried but that it seems to him Youtube doesn’t support Swedish as a language for auto-translation and that anyone who may know a way around this is more than welcome to e-mail him at [email protected]
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While I’m at it I can explain what I meant.
Eager to try the Volvo out last summer I re-used the two of the old Rabbit’s “cooler manifolds”. I only added 4 fresh 2m exhaust pipes and a couple rubbers and tied all of it to the roof rack with bicycle inner tubing. My thinking was to fab a better looking cooler under the rack and add a roof box on top of it - bit more stealth. BUT - 7,000 miles on wood later, nothing happened
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