KingM wrote:I want to ask some advice of the tremendously knowledgable people on this site. I've got some experience with wood boilers, but I'm not an expert or an installer. I've written up my advice and experiences
right here, and am hoping a few of you who know what you're talking about could take a look at it and give me any suggestions on things I might have missed or could add to make this more helpful.
Muchas gracias.
Hi King M (Is that a reference to one M. King Hubbard?)
I have JUST the contacts for you. You see, I've been fooling about with steam since I was in my teens, and now am a self-appointed expert on it.
OK, start small...what is it that you want to power? A 1200 MW steam turbine to be spun up to 3600 RPM and weighing in at several tons? In which case: FORGET IT.
Secondly: you correctly point out that the "emissions" from the traditional wood-fired set up were objectionable. What you DON'T point out is that the emissions were actually an awful lot of unburnt fuel or partially burnt fuel. This is objectionable when you realise that somewhere about 2/3rds of the fuel one stuffs in went striaght up the chimney / stack / exhaust.
So a very intelligent fellow by the name of Livio Dante Porta studied the problem and decided to use some traditional science to fix it.
He was studying steam locomotives (as I do) and realised that a very old method of making what's called "producer gas" could solve quite a few problems. What happens is that any form of carbon combustion (the best known is coal burning, but this applies even to something as awful to burn as bagasse) when exposed to steam will produce a very complex
endothermic (heat-absorbing) reaction, yet will produce a burnable gas. In essence, you get two fires for the price of one. The heat absorbing reaction also increases the boiler's efficiency because the heat-absorbtion efficiency of a boiler is measured by the difference in the temperature of the steam to the exhaust gases. Lower the exhaust gas temp and your boiler automatically becomes more efficient.
Secondly - if one increases the length of "burn" of the flame, efficiency goes up. This is what the producer gas does and combines a burnable substance (the producer gas) with another burnable substance ( the "volatiles" as they are called) from the actual fuel over a vast source of ignition (the fire-bed) and you get a very long burn.
This means that the emissions are less than 10% opacity (that is they can barely be seen). If one uses (say) bagasse, which is the left-over of sugar cane refining, then one is having a carbon-neutral fuel, anyhoo, so the Greenies objections (BANANA: Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone) can be mollified.
So, in essence, one can have wood-fired
anything without the smoke & particulates - if one wants to.
In the steam locomotive application, one can build a steam locomotive that costs about 1/2 as much as a diesel, is at least twice as powerful as the best diesel, and costs 1/10th to run. And is very much better for the environment.
PLEASE BE AWARE If you intend to operate a boiler at over 30 PSI (Pounds Per Square Inch for the metricised) you WILL need a boiler attendant's certificate. Unles the boiler is mounted in a steam launch, in which case (in Australia) it sorta falls between the regulatory planks and then (for reasons I do not know why) you don't need a Boiler Attendant's Certificate.
Go figure.
In any case, I return to my original question: what the heck do you plan to do with it? If you are planning to generate electricity, then the work's been done for you, and here's a guy you should invest in:
Ted Pritchard's Homepage
.
"To Get Rich you have to:
*Get up early;
*Work Hard;
*Strike Oil"
J Paul Getty