Using Non Conventional Energy Sources

No doubt you are on target but unless they make it ilegal to disconnect from the grid and 'go camping' what can they realistically do?

Meanwhile if we gradually one step at a time reduce our energy dependence and find alternatives, by the time they realize what is happening it will be too late. By then any attempt to legislate against being independent of the bureaucracy would cause a major ruckus possibly even a civil disruption or instant expulsion from any elected or appointed position.

Arizona is getting a large solar generating facility soon, maybe.

SolarReserve Advances Permitting For Arizona Solar Project

I just had a discussion about methane generation with my wife yesterday. We were on a nice drive out to a local lake for the day enjoying our time when we were both struck with an overwhelming sensory overload. Turns out we were on a road just above a dairy farm, and the odor was ghastly. This got me wandering my mind about things I have read here, and elsewhere on the subject of methane gas retrieval. My wife was very interested in the fact that the cows could produce a gas in such a quantity. We discussed many things about the science of it, where that type of gas can be used etc.

She looked at me and said: "Why can't we catch all that gas and use it for something?"

My response: "Well, They do in some places, but it's a little known energy source with a large initial investment, which most farmers, swamp owners, and landfill owners don't have the money for".

Then we got off talking about garbage dumps, with their 20 foot tall methane torches burning 24/7/365 into the atmosphere with no gains, and sealed barns with methane extraction capabilities and so on and so on...

The conversation went on a half an hour later or so on the energy-in (to manufacture) VS energy-out (end user gains) for Solar panels, and the need to dispose of all the hazardous waste when the batteries are no longer any good.

Then it was onto how to store energy... yada yada yada, pump water up, run it down, the Dutch are awesome yada yada yada... then we were at the lake.

RVZ717 wrote: "most farmers, swamp owners, and landfill owners don't have the money ".

Considering the numberr of You Tube video showing low cost DIY installations that statement jus begs to be challenged.

Yes it can cost big bucks to build a mega sized project but this is scalable technology that can be sized to suit. John Fry, considered by many to be the authority on this subject started out with a few empty oil drums and gradually scaled up from there.

However this is exactly the kind of mis information being distributed by interests that would prefer people not learn the details of how it can be done.

The idea being to discourage people from even beginning to look into it.

Storage containers for digester methane gas range from latex weather ballons to big tire inner tubes to up side down oil drums. Naturally when someone decides to make a PROFIT from it it has to be cost effecvtive and the accountants and engineers entrusted to design such a project want to impress everybody and they make it big.

However it used to be a farmer would put a lid ( maybe even a tarp) over his manure pile and collect the gas for cooking and heat. Not only did it reduce the smell but it gave him an energy source he did not have to pay for.

We need to get back to thinking smaller and find appropriate technology.

While researching the subject I came across a report that said Europe had 25,000 registered farms doing this. I also found several companies that had off the shelf equipment for sale. When a digester project in BC was built, a NZ company was providing the technology for scrubbing the biogas so it met the purity requirements of natural gas. The resultant gas was injected directly into the pipeline used to distribute gas to consumers including a thermal power plant a few miles down the road.

A neighbor of the original digester decided to build one because he was running a 300 head dairy herd. He chose to go with a design / build company from back east in pensylvania.

The project encountered some teething pains and then they discovered the company had shut down leaving them with orphan equipment no one knew how to run or maintain.

I am not saying it is as easy as tossing a tarp over a pile of manure. But I have seen reports with photos and addressesof about a dozen projects funded in part with DoE and Ag department money and supervised by universitiies with an AG department. These projects were built and did work. The are countless more small scale projects like a DYI on You Tube which also work despite looking like a lash up instead of a professional factory built installation.

I don't blame your scepticism but this is precisely why this kind of system is not getting more promotion in North America. Here OIL is king and never mind looking elsewhere. Some people Like G W Bush would consider that unpatriotic and maybe even treason.

Outside the US there are plenty of non government funded projects. That's just an excuse. Jean Paine started out just doing it because he had a government imposed regulation that was costing him in labor and machinery time. He turned a liability into an asset Isn't that what you American admire so much?

From what I have read Nebraska also has several farms building digesters out of their own pocket.

Yes there are many poor farmers who cannot afford big $$ projects but look at what Joh Fry started with. If you can't afford to use the oil drums you get your tractor fuel and lube in you probably wont be farming for long.

Wher the H*** is that ole yankee ingenuity that was so much praised in days of yore?

"Wher the H*** is that ole yankee ingenuity that was so much praised in days of yore?"
I wish I knew...
The America of today, is full of consumers... Not many people know how to produce anymore it seems, without the governments help.

I have built my own bio-boilers to turn brush and bio garbage into steam/heat/hot water for my Spa/Sauna. It worked GREAT, and sure was nice to not be tethered to a 220V line all the time. I have multiple mobile units which all provide their own heat. I used to run a mobile hot tub sauna rental company for a few years, on the weekends, more or less for fun simply because I had all the resources at the time to build everything. You could rent one of my units for the weekend, I would deliver to your site, hook everything up, set up the water, and pick it up when you were done. I had optional 220V, 110V, point of use propane system, and the custom Bio-boiler. The boiler was always my favorite, simply because I could pull a Tub/Sauna unit out camping, next to a river, pump it full, grab all matter of burnable forest stuff, and be having a nice Spa approx 6-8 hours later. Great for winter camping/hunting.
I have pics if anyone is interested.

If it's so easy, why are the projects needing funding?

Dairies may not be so bad but in the event certain diseases get into chicken/turkey houses they just close them down - forever.

Be kind of tough if you had a big investment in using the droppings and then they stopped coming. Trucking manure most likely will not be at all cost effective.

Russ I don't know from where you get your information. I get mine first hand. I lived right in the middle of where the avian flu epedemic started. Roughly 19 million birds were destroyed.

Only after the fact did they realize much of the disease spread was on the boots of the inspectors going from farrm to farm. The outbreak and spread was finally stopped by having sterilizing boot baths and sprayer equipment for all vehickles entering and leaving these premises. Every single chicken and turkey house was back up running within a year. A few exceptions where the owner who decided to retire from working.

This area is now the location of one of the largest methane digesters built. More are being planned because the economic viability has been proven.

North Carolina where there are no doubt one heck of a lot more chicken & turkey farms and from when I lived there.

I Don't know what the bug it was that caused the problem but a large number of houses were shutdown - permanently as in never again would they be leased by the companies.

I remember well the owners whining. They had made an investment they though gave them a guaranteed easy return - they were wrong.

Must have rather backward operations there. The sanitary procedures such as you describe are mandated by the chicken/turkey companies and have been for at least twenty years in NC.

Look up Jean Paine and see what he accomplished. I get a kick out of seeing his farm vehicle with the biogas tank on the roof. In recent times I have seen You tube videos of other people making what is now calle Paine Piles.

When I was in California I noticed they had local regulatins requiring people clear up brush etc just like Jean Paine was required to do. Seem to me there is an opportunity here.

I think I understand Elanv. He is talking about the one at time energy project. Not the 'think big' mentality that consumes most of the converation.
Why must everyone "think" that making money is the only objective to any worth while project? My father has always told me not to pay anyone for something I could do for myself. He is still correct at 97. I built my own solar thermal collector and it simple and inexpensive. There are many DIY projects that will save each of us money. The time is coming where we will not have any alternative but to do it ourselves. Duke Power in the Carolinas just announced an 18% increase in energy costs for the consumer. All of our local co ops get their power from Duke. All of will feel the pain soon.

For a mobile home living retired couple, that will raise their electricity bill to over $500 a month. My figures are from my local electric co op. For solar hot water alone they could save 25% of their bill. ( figures from the electric co op). It doesn't take long to save the initial cost and after that the hot water is free. Add in hot water radiant heat and the savings is much more. In 2-3 years they could be using only 40% of the electric they had used before solar hot water. They might even be able to afford their medications and a hamburger once a week.

In the book Energy Transitions, by Vaclav Smil, he concludes his lengthly and largely boring discusson of the history of energy by stating that the "only" source of energy capable of feeding the energy needs of the entire world is solar energy. All others have drawbacks. Solar thermal is the only one that garners the highest percentage of energy conversion. PV is a long way down the line and is largely inefficient.

Welcome Michael

Yes that is exactly what I mean.

When I worked in a naval design office we had to install 10 ton chiller system to air condition the whole boat. All sixty feet of it. However over night only the owners sleping cabin really needed air conditioning so a half ton unit was sufficient. And best of all it would run on an inverter wheras the big unit would not. Now an owner could anchor out and be comfortable over night without running a fuel guzzling and sometimes noisy generator. Think small!

I built part of my reputation by showing how to run air conditioners on inverters something conventional thinking said could not be done.

"PV is a long way down the line and is largely inefficient."

Conversion of sunlight to vegetation is about one percent efficient. PV is about 14% efficient.

Competing with Mother Nature now? We will loose every single time.

I would be highly interested in the actual source for that 1% figure, and gain some understanding as to how they came up with that.

PV panels do have a ways to go in my opinion. They look wonderful when you look at the sales brochures, and great figures they give you, which are in no doubt based on the middle of the Mohave desert, with a lack of atmosphere at high noon.

What you wont find in that sales brochure, is the energy consumed during the mining/manufacturing/transportation process, and from my personal experience, the rated life is most likely based on an indoor installation in a sealed room under a vacuum, as mine died at approx half the rated life. The Panels I had just barely made enough energy to pay for themselves... not including all the energy required to build them and send them to me. So when I crunched the numbers they appeared to be a net consumer of energy, not a producer. I will give you that these panels were purchased in the 90's, and the tech has come a long way since then, but I have a sour taste in my mouth from them.

They do have really great applications, when power is needed remotely, or on the move, or for small devices such as remote security cameras, lights, phone chargers etc.

I haven't looked into them recently, maybe I should take another look, to see how far they have come.

The batteries are another topic altogether.

A little perspective. For a recent solar panel installation I did (power for a mountain top radio repeater), the battery was three times the cost of the panels. The panels have a "rated" life expectancy of 20 years. The batteries have a "rated" life expectancy of 10 years- but they are unlikely to last that long- powering an environmentally controlled chamber to house them in "ideal" conditions is not feasible. So, if all the components reach 50% of their rated life (a reasonable expectation, assuming no one steals them), the cost of storage still works out to six times the cost of the panels themselves.

Panel efficiency is a smoke screen perpetrated by the solar industry to disguise the true cost of the installation. Doubling the efficiency of the panels would have minimal impact on the cost of the installation...

That sounds about right...

thus:

"The batteries are another topic altogether."

Will you be charged to dispose of those batteries as well? Maybe you can get a "Core Charge" for the metals inside?

I guess you are just playing 'devils advocate on this'

Something I found

excerpt;

"While the technology for farm-based methane production has been around for two decades, economics and resistance from the utility industry have prevented all but a handful of California farmers from transforming their animal waste into energy.

While there are 1,950 commercial dairies in operation in California -- which leads the nation in the production of milk and cheese -- and nearly 2 million dairy cows, Straus' methane digester is only the fifth now operating in the state.

But thanks to two pieces of recent legislation, 13 additional methane systems are now under construction, and renewable-energy advocates predict that scores more are sure to follow. The Straus project is the first of 14 methane projects to receive matching funds from the California Energy Commission, one result of the rolling blackouts that plagued the state during the summer of 2001.

"There was an emergency session (of the state Legislature) to create fixes to the energy problem," said Mike Marsh, president of Western United Dairymen. "One thing they funded was renewable energy in the form of methane digesters."

A $10 million pool of matching funds for farmers wishing to install methane digesters was created that year, followed in 2003 by a law allowing utilities to set up "net metering" agreements with small biogas generators."

$10 million seems a 'urination in a large body of water' for a state plagued by 'brown outs' <pun intended.

Interesting- $280,000 for a 75 kW system...

Here's a look at one of the cali digesters

http://westernfarmpress.com/methane-digester-converts-dairy-manure-electricity

there are more than a few dairies putting them in to reduce water quality issues

the key just like for grid tie solar, is the utilities buying the excess power

And how do you get the poo to the generator? Do the trucks driving day and night run on poo-power?

More than likely some will be. Interestingly enough the presence of this digester has spawned a new company. My friend's son who is a licenced welder got hired by a new company and they manufacturer trailers specifically designed to handle loading and off loading manure. Existing manure spreaders such as the farmers were using before were not suited for road transporting and automated auger unloading into a pipeline. So a private company set up to fabricate a suitable product. The fabrication shop is having trouble finding enough qualified welders to meet production demands.

That is Great news! I'm always glad to hear about companies who saw their opportunity and ran with it! Good for them, I hope it makes it that much easier to implement the systems for a few less dollars and headaches.

I have for some time been investigating biogas alternatives for remote, off-grid locations. Primary cooking fuel is usually wood. It is virtually impossible to breathe in the village at dinner time, if there is no breeze blowing, and fuel source is getting more and more scarce as the natural forest recedes further and further due to population pressures.

The problem I keep coming up with is to find sufficient biomass or waste to guarantee a steady supply of gas. Of course, if we were dealing with a cow farm or pig farm or larger community with communal waste disposal, this might not be such an issue. But, it seems at this point in my studies that, if you don't have a pretty large scale waste stream on which to rely, biogas generation may actually be more environmentally damaging (because they will start cutting down the forest faster to feed the gas generators...)

Charles

Have you looked at the stove design WHO sponsored a contest for. These top lit down draft wood gasification stoves burns so clean you do not get any smoke. This was in fact the principal criteria for the contest. WHO determin e s well over a million people died each year from smoke inhalation such as you mention.

We had one at our sales booth as a gimmick and had it burning all day iunder the tent yet no one noticed until we pointed it out. We were in fact promoting the gaasification pellet stoves we sell.

I'm not talking about the 'rocket stoves' so many people are now promoting. There are in fact a number of websites showing howe these stoves can be built from empty food cans .

Here on the island animals are not allowed. Only the pastor has 2 cows. There is a chicken farm, privately owned that could have some perspectives. Heat, except to generate steam here we don't need. I still think it is better to incinerate used oil and fat and recover the heat than to throw all this junk in the bush. The other possibility is to make bio -fuel of it and run diesels. If I could get a block of people interested a thermal solar system combined with the last. it could be manageable. Problem is the steam generators and turbines come in too big sizes for individuals. And the Stirling motor is not developed for (yes) than again the other extreme, bigger applications as used for now. Solar + Stirling + generator is only for a couple of watts now. Is Stirling on board?

Chicken manure is an excellent feed stock for a methane digester. I agree you do not need heat but methane can be used as fuel to power an electrical generator for lights.

It makes GREAT tomato fertilizer, too.

All the reports I have read about methane digesters say that provided no chemicals, steroids and food contaminants are fed to the chickens, the fertilizer value of the remaining solids after the methane is extraced makes for great deoderized plant nutrient.

Here chicken get more antibiotics than food. They die otherwise.

No need to reinvent the wheel, unless you do it for fun. Look thru the Popular Science for the last, maybe 6 years. They reported on the staged development of modular and small converters for garbage and offal into oil.

Check it out.

If you live in an area which provides water, electricity and sewage removal, remember that if you don't get charged for using the services, you may still be charged for having the services pass your door or run thru your backyard. eg I pay $120 per quarter here in Australia to have a water line and sewage line provided. I use only 2000 litres a quarter (2 kl) town water, as I have a plastic rainwater tank 7000 litres. It cost $1500, good for 10 years at least. Really only good against drought times, providing the drought doesn't last more than 6 months. In cost terms not worth it. Probably cheaper to build a DIY concrete tank, which would last longer. Laundry water flushes the toilet.

Biomass means you don't compost, but grind up all organics, including paper, food scraps (not meat and fat) and garden rubbish. Don't forget to put your own pooh and piss thru the digester, and use the end result solids as fertiliser for your garden. You will of course become a great gardener and grow your own veges, feed them to your goat, and eat him when he gets old. But I thought we came to the towns and cities to get away from all this hard manual yakka.

Providing your own electricity and getting off the grid is great, except you usually cannot guarantee 24 hour supply, unless you live in a perpetually windy site, or near constantly moving water. You will need to store electricity, and that ain't cheap.

My PV cells, 1.5kW rating, mean I don't pay electricity bills at present, but if charges go above 30 cents a unit, I may have to install more panels. I get 44 cents per unit for excess generated electricity, and pay 18c for consumed town supply. The first set of panels cost $11 000. The next set on another house cost $6000. It is now possible to get 1.5kW for $2500. Government here still subsidises installation, but this may end with the price dropping. It will take to recover my money on the first set about 27 years (panel life 25y and 80% output at the end), 15 yrs on second set. If I'd waited, it would have been 6 years. Ah well!

Dream on, but in the meantime try to shower (not bath) using only 1.5 gals water max, catch all the shower water and use, wrap up your hot water system in min R3.5 insulating batts (and maybe your fridge and your stove) and save 25% or more electricity, use old CRT technology rather than plasma and LCD, turn off lights and appliances and pilot lights not used, turn down the thermostat in winter and put on more clothes (our inside temp in winter is 15C to 18C, 60F to 65F) and no heating used (a lot comes from our bodies, the cooking stove, microwave, computer, fridge), cook food in frypans (electricity heated frying pans) which sit in an insulated cavity with an insulated cover on top (allow for a little ventilation), check house insulation, stop up cracks, use feather eiderdowns on beds and flannelette sheets and pillow slips in winter, grow plants and trees that are drought resistant (don't need watering). To ventilate house, use heat exchanger, so air leaving house transfers heat to incoming air. Don't have high ceilings (more than 9 feet, maybe even 8 ft). If 2 story house, isolate top from bottom, so heat can't escape from bottom to top.

So get on with it and enjoy, you don't get out of here alive.

Manufacturing of solar panels and for that matter any electronic circuit boards involves use of some very nasty chemicals. I was a production manager of an electronic facility and know first hand how nasty these hazardous chemical can be. Why do you think electronics manufacturing was among the first industries to be moved to asia where no one seems concerned about the toxicity?

People seem to think solar is so clean. If only they knew the environmental cost at the manufacturing end.

It may not be as efficient or cost effective but I would rather deal with the enviro hazards of a wooden water wheel or a sail rigged wind mill like the dutch used to have. Remember Bophal

"political will"..."Political short termism"..."Political technology ignorance".

Non-conventional energy will revolutionize when the government finds a way to put a meter on the sun (and bill you for solar bits).

Thought! If earth becomes blanketed with solar panels, can the sun become a limited source?

The sun is already a limited source...

Not only is it limited in available energy, nothing grows under solar panels. If you have no plants, you have no insects, no birds, no small mammals...

There is a limit to how much real estate you can cover with solar panels before you start having a major impact on the environment.

What I understand from the posts is -

There is a conspiracy by somebody named 'they' to prevent RE - something to do with taxes. That is so off base as to be laughable.

From the OP 'Off-grid is now a minority but noticeable movement' - You must look very careful to find it. If grid power is available you will pay 10 times or more the cost for off grid power.

RE will be popular when the cost is realistic - right now solar PV is on the radar only because the neighbors have to help pay for it. Take that subsidy away and it would die in 24 hours.

The mW power generation mentioned in Spain is the same thing - raping the generaş public for the benefit of a few.

Cost - cost - cost - get the cost down and RE will grow on it's own.

Russ wrote:

"From the OP 'Off-grid is now a minority but noticeable movement' - You must look very careful to find it. If grid power is available you will pay 10 times or more the cost for off grid power".

I submit this depends on where you are and where you look. Where I live there are plenty of people living partially or completely off grid. In Izmir I would be surprised if you would see any trend. I have an acquaintance living there building a boat so I have some inkling of conditions there. Its very different from where I am.

Given the number of websites not to mention bloggers dedicated to going off grid it is more than something rare to find and requiring great effort in seaching.

Cost of going off grid will vary widely depending on location.

Not talking about Izmir - there is nothing at all of that movement here. There are no subsidies or incentives - just expensive systems. Lots of solar thermal for DHW but zero for power. I am talking about the US where I grew up and am a citizen of.

I am a moderator on one of those blogs you mentioned - any solar blog where they are not lying to you will give you the 10 x more costly or higher for off grid. That does not include green blogs as most of them are little more than BG with a green bow wrapped around it.

The amount of off grid is next to nothing - not surprising as the amount of grid connect systems is barely noticeable in the national power supply statistics.

Off grid makes sense when it would cost you too much to have power lines run to a location - even then one must analyze it carefully. Many costs are hidden and life style changes are mandatory for most - you can not generate and store enough power to live a 'normal' life style - unless your name is Gates, Jobs or the like.

Russ I am not sure what you consider RE and what you consider non conventional energy sources. Iceland is making full use of geothermal something which is not considered conventional energy is many places. New Zealand is about the only other place where true geothermal is being used. Although we have several hots springs they are only being used as tourist attractions at present.

Locally we have plenty of trees including many thousand acres of beetle killed trees. Many local people cut them up for firewood but there really is not any concerted effort at using this possible resource completely. There have been several proposals to make better use but they have been abandoned. We do have pellet plants that ship pellets in bulk to over seas markets. Yet we do not use pellets here at home in any great amounts. For what ever reason people prefer to import energy from elsewhere at great expense. You figure it out.

Elnav,

Biomass is a perfectly legit energy source. Unfortunately, if even 10% of the house holds were using it, we would quickly run out of available trees. There is not a source available for energy except the sun to supply all our needs. We can douible up on different types of energy sources; biomass and solar, or algae and solar and/or anything else you can think of and solar and it all works as long as the 'other' is replenishable. Even wind energy is coming into scrutiny as it is killing eagles by the dozens. Goodbye wind if peta gets involved. In the US we are energy hogs and are like junkies on the stuff. Happiness is not judged by the number of watts consumed. That may come as a shock to many people. Happiness is inside; we don't plug into it.

As far as I know, the normal local code forbids coal and wood burning stoves within city limits. Due their emission of particulates. Minor obstacle.

This may be true where you live Leveles but not everywhere. You are correct many places do have restrictions on some types of heating appliances but it is also true that EPA gas certified new products as meeting the most stringent emission standards. Do some further checking on wood gassification stoves. At one show we ran one pellet stove all day long and many people did not realize it was running. Especially when I was leaning my hand against the chimney stack. Several manufacturers now have EPA certified stoves.

Some people have the mistaken impression that alternative energy advocates are suggesting one particular type of energy source is some kind of silver bullet replacement for oil. It is not!! Sensible use of available resources means using a mix of power sources to suit the task at hand.

Another misconception is that whatever replacement energy source will permit us to continue in the same old energy wasteful lifestyle we used to indulge in.

In the seventies and eighties the manufacturing industry was bombarded with slogans like work smarter not harder. The same kind of idea should be applied to energy conservation.

We need to rethink what and how we use energy. Maybe we can rethink how we keep houses cool. The are plenty of ideas but no one seems interested in applying them. Do we really need to decorate suburban homes with several kilowatts of decorator lights left running all night, every night. Whether its for security or just to brag to the neighbors that you can afford to waste so much power, maybe there is a more energy efficient approach.

RE is generally includes hydro, geothermal, solar, wind, biomass for a few.

Geothermal is used in many places in the US and around the world - it is not without it's problems.

The beetle killed timber wold feed a methanol plant(if there was a functioning one) for a short while - then it has to be moved. You can not transport biomass much distance to a commercial consumer and stay competitive in the fuel market. Pellets are probably the best use of those beetle killed trees.

Agreed that pellets could supply much more than at present.

The newest EPA approved stoves are quite clean but if I remember right they are still not allowed in some cities.

Russ 123 wrote:

"The newest EPA approved stoves are quite clean but if I remember right they are still not allowed in some cities".

That is true but sooner or later city councils have to wake up. When we were doing one show a guy comes up and asked if our product was certified yet. He explained that he was on the council and they were just waiting for the approvals because they wanted to approved the pellet stoves for use in town. He himself wanted to buy one. A year later he showed up again asking the same question. Eventually we could tell him EPA had certified these stoves.

You might be surprised how far wood is shipped . We constantly see chip trains going 600 - 700 kilometers down to the coast where the chips are loaded on barges to deliver them to the island power plant. One of the few thermal generators in the province.

There is still talk of building an ethanol plant. However pellet plants seem to be more attractive, judging by how many are being built. The local plant built only 2 years ago is undergoing the second exxpansion since it was built.

To move chips that distance to a thermal power plant there is some kind of game going on I expect. A big problem with bio-mass plants is the transport of the raw material - it is a killer.

Of course when the government gets involved everything becomes possible - tax payer footing the bill.

I believe you meant a methanol plant - wood chips to ethanol?

No doubt politics are involved. Always has been, probably always will be. Around here most land is crown land meaning the province owns it along with most of the land area of the province. Does that tell you something? Logging companies bid on cutting rights they do not necessarily own the land.

Yeah it was methanol from wood chips but the pellet guys figure they needed all the resources so a methanol plant would deprive them of raw feed stock.

Latest logging practice is to bring in a huge chipper with a 40 foot tractor trailer and chip all wood not needed for dimensional lumber mills. Trees go to saw mills and chips go to pellet mills. That leaves nothing for local people to scrounge for fire wood. Given 90% of the locals rely on these scrap tree remains, its going to be very slim pickings. At the very least they are stuck buying a $5,000 pellet stove installation and buying pellets at premium prices. Hard to do if you have been unemployed the past 3 years because most of the mills have been shut down due to the economy.

Just to chime in here, most of the the lumber mills here in NW California co-generate their electricity with biomass. And, I suspect, most mills in the Pacific Northwest do as well. But, of course, the biomass is readily available as part of the business.

I have installed many small RE systems for people out here and the one's that make sense are the places where the grid is prohibitively expensive to extend to, or where micro-hydro is available (which is plentiful where I am). Photovoltaics where the grid is available doesn't add up. Although PV's are the cheapest I've seen them with a wholesale cost of $1.40/watt.

If you have the location then micro hydro is a definite first!

Those mills are using a very local source for biomass and have a good deal going.

PV panels are the cheapest ever but there is much more to a system cost and that hasn't changed unfortunately.

Micro Hydro is a great idea provided the Department of Fisheries allows it. with fisheries declining anything remotely possible as a cause of declining fish stock is prohibited. A friend whos garden abuts a stream is not even allowed to land scape the banks of the stream because it 'alters' the stream bank and 'might' posssibly affect spawning grounds. Installing any sort of power generation -- forget it!

That is why I said in an earlier post; these days the only hydro-electric possible is tapping into an existing water fall.

Here is an idea I had back in the 'shipping container' days...

basically uses small in-stream micro hydro turbine/generator units (in a welded stainless box, painted to blend with the environment, and those are connected together with a DC? power cable... an owner might string a dozen together over a kilometer. (I realize the dc might be a problem at this distance)

they are screened/designed, so as to prevent any damage to wildlife...and also don't interfere with the banks. each unit would capture only a portion of the water, not enough to create a significant back up of water (no flooding), and can also be adjusted for variations in flow (swing gate)

drop in a shipping container for batteries, inversion, and grid tie... and you can use what you want and sell the rest... if you own a couple of kilometers of stream.., it could amount to the equivalent of 20 feet of head.

not necessarily a great idea.. and certainly not proven.. as all I did was make a picture... it is, I think, a possibility. (although probably expensive, unless the turbine/generator units are mass produced)

A micro-hydro installation I recently completed for a client that had good head/good flow in a mountain stream came in at $3000/kW (pure DC, before adding storage batteries)...

Charles Which brand of micro turbine did you use? Is this $3k per kilowatt an installed cost?

It was a Harris microturbine. Installed cost did not include piping (several hundred feet of PVC from source spring down to the turbine installation) or batteries (ultimately, batteries cost on the order of $2400, but the system was also expanded to include some solar trickle charging- again, added after the initial installation), but did include an inverter/battery charger. The client was really expecting a bit more out of his water stream...

I have installed Harris, ES&D and now have switched to Alternative Power and Engineering from Grants Pass, OR. They build a much more robust unit than either of the other two, with bearings rated to last 15 years and outputs to 2kVA. The cost per unit is also much cheaper than Harris or ES&D at around $1800. He also will upgrade the Harris and ES&D (using their runners and case) for around $1000.

Thanks for the information...

You're welcome.

A California company has made a turbine generator small enough to be back packed. The product was featured in Gizmag ezine last year. I recall the name being Osborne ( sp) but this is such a commmon name I got too many hits of non relevant items with a Google search. The nice feature was these uinits could be ganged together for greater output. Primary use was military for power generation at rivers lacking vertical drop but having sufficient flow. In some ways this resembles the grid-tie PV panels with built in controller and small inverter so you can add as many modules as you want / need. Ther real issue is political and bureaucratic. Washington state used to have regulations similar to what I describe but a friend who lives there said they realized a better approach was needed and they amended their regulations.

Spawning season only last a short while. The rest of the time there is no fish migration. Floating water turbines or paddle wheels do not alter stream beds or banks or spawning habitat.

In centuries past floating boat mills powered much of industrialized Europe without harming fish populations.

Its the bureaucrats who needs updating.

We already have the technology. What is needed now is better rules that will allow its use without harming the environment.

Those floating monstrosities have been popular on the green sites in the past - how many does it take to make 1 mW let alone 500 mW.

They are toys and nothing more.

How many homes consume one megawatt of power?

floating monstrosities??? I think we are talking about different products. I am talking about submerged hydro turbines.

Monstrosities - the thingies you place in the river - yes. Think about flood stage and debris going down river.

They have to be fixed in position in some manner - not easy and can obstruct passage.

Such a turbine may provide a small amount of power for a house by infringing on the rights of many others.

So now you class boats as monstrocities as well? okay!

Guess I should have said, 'The things you want to place in the river' - meaning the turbines.

This is another concept that has been beat to death over the past 5 years.

Another dead horse to flog.

what is the way forward then?

every form of energy has large subsides propping it up

any distributed generation capacity has the advantage of reducing transmission losses

in the end the cheapest watt is the one you don't use

The way forward -

1) To quote you, 'in the end the cheapest watt is the one you don't use'

2) Insulate and seal the home - in many cases this can pay big dividends

3) Solar hot water is good though at present the dedicated heat pump style water heaters are the most economic over 10 years

4) Consider solar air heating - with the right location it can be very cost effective.

5) In a new home design plan on expensive power and design accordingly to use any natural draft for cooling. For example, it is hot here - especially in town. Here on the bay we have yet to use the heat pump in the AC mode in three years.

Note - both solar water heating panels and solar air heating are more suitable for DIY types that have reasonable skills. In both cases there should not be any problem with the utility (none of their business) or insurance company providing whatever electric devices used are UL (or equivalent agency) approved.

See www.builditsolar.com for many free plans.

When we talk about subsidies it gets confusing - tax breaks that are available for any business are considered to be subsidies by some when they want to beat on a particular industry.

Making the general public pay a premium for electricity or with their taxes so a relatively well to do group can have solar panels on their roof and get a break on power costs does not seem right. If people install a solar PV system, CHP unit, micro hydro unit or other at their own cost then I certainly have no argument against it.

Solar hot water for example - here you see zero solar PV installations as there are no government handouts for them. You see solar water heaters on most homes meaning they are considered cost effective. Electric power here is about 15 cents US per kWh at present.

here's a really alternative idea... yes... another crazy idea from me...

a step along the way of being able to harness lightning.

if one were to fire a powerful ionizing laser/maser through the atmosphere from say geosynchronous orbit.. targeting fixed ground receiving stations that was able to receive the bolt,, and do something to transform the lightning to usable energy. (I haven't quite worked out that part of the mad scheme yet)

the basic idea is to be able to choose where and when the energy of the lightning in the clouds is to be captured... so a group of orbiting satellites could monitor cloud charges (hopefully this can be sensed somehow) and with the satellite able to change its orientation, it could fire at the ground targets from different angles (with the higher powered Ionizing beam), but at more optimum times... The ionization of the atmosphere would provide a direct path to ground for the atmospheric charges...

if an array of ground stations were set up across the continents, then this could provide pulses of power across the grid.... conditioned to match grid requirements of course... and tamed... perhaps stored, or used in other ways.. steam or something.

the system would have to only allow firing when the satellite has a lock on the ground target.. and of course, the ground target system has to be engineered to receive the energies... big task. millions of volts and all... but perhaps with the system working in a different pulsed way, energy can be tapped that is more reasonable, and in smaller quantities than we are used to thinking of as 'lightning'. What if a single laser pulse could deliver a few amps to ground? even on a sunny day, or the dark of night...

the satellite itself could have a variety of different energy sources from nuclear to solar... I don't know... I'm just stirring the pot.

I realize that this is pretty close to being a weapon.. but what massive energy source isn't, or can't be used as such... the politics is what keeps weapons used appropriately... we hope.

I do have a hard cover copy of Arthur C. Clarke's 1957 book where he describes geosynchronous satellites for the first time... pretty simple idea... but huge ramifications when it got going.

btw.. of course one could try ground based lasers.. but for a variety of reasons, I don't 'feel' they are a right fit.. cheaper yes.... the whole range of options should be explored

the charged atmosphere is an alternative source of energy... Tesla was fascinated of course... has anyone else learned to tap it?

Chris

Chris-

There is an easier way (and cheaper) to induce lightning. The following images are from an EPRI report from back in the 1990's- the investigators in Florida were firing rockets with copper tethers into thunderclouds:

I think before you try this, however, you have a better handle on how you are going to capture the energy...In the experiments, most of the test infrastructure was pretty well destroyed...

"In the experiments, most of the test infrastructure was pretty well destroyed..."

well that is why I was thinking the space based system had an advantage... because the lasers couldn't be easily affected by the electrical charges. (no ground) and also the pulse based system might be able to 'bleed' a storm cloud, or even dry air. by patterning the pulses around the center of the charged area.. if there were enough 'ground' stations or nodes... the currents could be much lower.

or perhaps the ground stations might run in tracks leading towards cities, and the energy captured and converted would help offset the city energy peaks.

I'm not even getting close to saying this is entirely plausible... all I'm saying is that there could be an effect here that might be usable...

exactly how that works would be figured out by smarter and more knowledgeable people than me.

Chris

Will they loose in beauty when and after you harness them

I'm getting closer to saying this is a feasible idea.

watch the bit at the end of this video. (about 3:40)

chris