Steam Engine Electricity Generation System

No.

That seems awfully small for steam applications, but your unique fuel situation could make things different. You might search on "micro-turbines" and come up with something. Even check out "Live Steam", which is geared somewhat toward model railroading; they might have steam engine designs in that range.

Good luck--project sounds interesting.

In my area of the country, we now have some biomass boilers going in for heating usage, but I don't know if any are set up for electricity generation.

Gee whiz..............................

I wonder how the OP could ever have missed this, after the diligent searches we all know he did????

Right.

Maybe someone can send this to bravo88 :

How to Search the Internet - Southern Oregon University

Well given your link hits nowhere close to what the OP is wanting..........

RE read closer?

My response was to Tornado's link: here

My point was the OP demonstrates total helplessness whenever he comes here, and apparently doesn't know how to look for information on his own.

Sorry mine was in response to post three not four.

Shows what happens when my wife babbles on about stuff I can't follow while trying to type.

Some of the early pix in the link were of steam units that generate steam; further along there were steam units that generate electricity. Too bad the phrase "steam generator" is used ambiguously.

There you go again, keep telling people, as if people really need to know, the sun rise from the east.

There is nothing like real experience. Read my post a bit more carefully. I would very much like to learn about other people's real experience.

If there were anyone here with real experience with "free wood and dry leaves" as fuel, they probably would have responded.

Tornado gave you a site that lists steam generators of the capacity you say you need.

Now, the only thing left for you is to resolve is the cost of "free wood and dry leaves" vs diesel fuel per unit of power generated.

This is a global forum. You are in a specific geographic location that is unique to you.

You obviously have no local contemporaries to use as your source of information, so you turn to the forum to do your research for you.

Hire a consultant.

You have the knowledge, skill, ambition and intelligence to pull it off.

The OP does not.

Would I be considered pretentious if I said some days I wish there were more people like me in the world?

Actually my boiler was not a perfect work of art first time around. I think in the 12 or so years I have been running it I have done at least 4 major redesigns and another half dozen smaller mods of the flues and control systems to get it to where it's at.

But yes at this point I do feel that with a bit of studying and research my skill sets would allow me to build a actual medium pressure steam boiler that could drive a steam engine without getting me or anyone else killed.

Pretentious? You? Never!

You just wouldn't want them too close to you, right?

I grew up on a farm, and can still make lots of things out of coat hangers and a torch.

But, I had to move to the big city and never went back, except to visit, which I still do.

The art of making do with what you have on hand is lost on 99% of the population.

Yes, the OP's knowledge, skill, ambition and intelligence are limited, that's why he asked and hope people who happens to have the experience would share it.

I beleive, as of today Peltier is still far too expensive and too inefficient for electricity generation

It all depends on the application and the magnitude of the electricity required. Deep space probes use the heat produced by nuclear decay to power the probes that have gone to the outer planets and beyond. These power units are certainly not cheap, practical power sources that somebody trying to be frugal getting power from waste bio-matter should consider. Nonetheless they do fill a niche where efficiency is paramount.

Why don't you just let people share their experience rather than presume: "If there were anyone here with real experience with "free wood and dry leaves" as fuel, they probably would have responded."

If you really need to know, everyone knows how to do Internet Search.

Yeah, we got that.....

https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1333&bih=639&oq=+50kw+steam+turbine+generator&gs_l=img.12...2976.2976.0.4399.1.1.0.0.0.0.82.82.1.1.0....0...1ac.2.26.img..1.0.0.2tXkk-zhxRU&q=50kw%20steam%20turbine%20generator

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=+50kw+steam+turbine+generator&oq=+50kw+steam+turbine+generator&gs_l=youtube.12...97498.105207.0.110969.6.6.0.0.0.0.106.503.5j1.6.0...0.0...1ac.1.11.youtube.8dg-LkpiV0M

Diesel gensets will shut down on malfunction, tell you why, and wait for you, safely. The power goes off, that's all that happens.

Steam power plants will blow sky high if they run out of water. Wood fire boxes require constant monitoring, as does the steam engine.

If you have plenty of steam qualified engineers to stand three shifts, seven days a week, go ahead with steam. Otherwise pay for the diesel, and charge accordingly.

I thought in the age of iPHONE5 , steam technologies have moved forward a little bit and make things a bit easier.

I think, this will lead to enviromental damage. increase deforestation.

But surely lead to some other invention - more energy efficiant power generation - more eco friendly enventions...

So, keep dreaming....keep on searching.... all the best..

The biomass are from leaves which are pruned regularly from oil palm trees. Biomass is carbon neutral.

An environment friendly and more economical way is to use wood, leaves and other biodegradable waste etc. in Digester, produce Bio Gas and use in Gas Gen Set.

If you already have a diesel gen set, then you are not required to invest in new Gas Gen Set, instead convert existing Diesel in to Dual Fuel (using up to 60% of Gas depending upon ambient).

I came across Pallet type digester sometime back, do not have the link (can find on the net). Also ready kits off the shelf are available to convert diesel to duel fuel.

And you will be generating natural manure in the digester which you can use for organic farming.

Best or luck

Thanks for this updation.. Powersolutions..

This will be more interesting..and inspiring

Dear Bravo, eager to see further developments

Using bio-digestor will be even less cost effective, it will take up too much space and construction cost. If I am not wrong , gas from digestor has a lot of impurity which need to be removed.

Wood powered steam generation is very much capable of replacing diesel as a source of energy for generation. It is cost effective. I was a field engineer for a large company, and many of our users had turbines driven by wood waste but the level of generation was usually above 20 MVA, smallest I saw was 5 MVA. I am assuming that you are looking at a much smaller unit. I have seen a few home brewed units that used a reciprocating steam engine. These are practical but it will take a considerable time to pay back equipment costs via fuel savings. They also require for safety many special features which are tricky and not cheap. The fuel input must be carefully controlled and the steam pressures monitored with appropriate safety devices. The small ones I saw were done by individuals with the knowledge and expertise to accomplish the task. I would recommend against pursuing this as a goal, unless you want to study it completely. If you do be sure to stay with low pressure steam for safety.

I do have a thought of some of the wood powered cars that ran in Japan and Europe after the Second world war. I know that some were steam powered and tended to explode and kill people, but there were also some that would burn wood partially and drive off gases which chould be burned in an engine normally designed for gasoline. I think the Japanese were the best at that. Actually when first starting out, Honda tried to market a powered bicycle to run on wood. Research that, if it is impractical, which it probably is, at least it will be interesting wood gas wood powered auto

For steam engine, after so many decades , the most problematic one is still the boiler, which require careful monitoring. Hopefully someone should come up with a fail-safe boiler that does not require licensed technician to monitor. THe next hurdle is a low cost high temperature high performance polymer based steam engine. Such moldable plastic is already available.

What I am hoping for is some commercially available integrated unit like Diesel genset, operate as easily as diesel engine, all it needs is for people to chuck wood and leaves into it. Anyone know if such system available in the world?

thx for the link!

Compare the efficiency,maintenance,initial cost,running cost,environment,space required etc for steam engine,windmill,solar panel,petrol engine,diesel engine,gas engine,steam turbine,gas turbine,waste fired boiler etc

Your safest bet is likely to be a wood gasifier to avoid the boiler operation safety aspects. You are going to need to regularly fuel it but you could come up with some form of semi-automatic fuel feed design.

Here's a simple one to start

http://www.woodgasifier.org/

and here's one for 40kW

http://www.fao.org/docrep/t0512e/t0512e0o.htm

Thanks for the very good link.

Wood gasifier is no doubt safer, but has one serious drawback, it is very bulky and require substantial on-site construction work. From the report by FAO, the capital cost seems very attractive only about USD$17k, but this is cost in Africa.

So, it is possible.

Probably , a better option is using stirling engine, no boiler to worry about, no bulky set up, I read somewhere even small stirling engine (< 1kW type) has effciency close to 30%.

But, why no one make stirling engine of this size? or made cheap? There are definitely many places in the world where there are plenty of free biomass, but diesel is option is not available

Would be curious to see if these guys have a packaged Stirling engine solution for you;

http://www.stmpower.com/

good link again!