# Small scale steam to electric - any ideas?



## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

I have some ideas for making steam. It's a pretty old concept, really. And I've been doing some exploring in the area of distilling water. And while thinking about some of that stuff, it came to mind that steam might be useful in making electricity.

But how would a person go about turning that steam into electricity in a practical way?

I've always been told that the old steam engine, like would be used for a train locomotive, was terribly inefficient. What about small steam turbines? Are they available? Are they more efficient?

It's just something that's been rolling around in my mind and thought maybe I'd see if any of you might have some ideas or knowledge of specific equipment that might be worth checking out.


----------



## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

I think you'd be better off going with wood gassification, assuming you're using wood for boiler fuel, and feed wood gas directly to an internal combustion run generator. Efficiency is higher I think.

Steam doesn't lend itself well to small scale generation.


----------



## AgrarianDr (Mar 25, 2011)

You are not alone. I'm always looking at taking advantage of whatever energy source I may be overlooking and steam has crossed my interests on more than one occasion 

What I found, was that it was too complicated for what I wanted. It works - just look at all those CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) providers out in the desert. They heat up liquid in tubes in a parabolic trough which pumps the steam through turbines and viola! electricity! 
But - like most things the devil is in the detail, and there are a LOT of details, especially on a small scale.

First, it is not set and forget. You cannot walk away from it, at least not for long. You have to stay with it and constantly throw in wood (assuming you are doing a wood fired) and monitor the pressure.
Steam requires pressure to work. Pressure means things can and do literally blow up (if not monitored). For me at least, the hand holding of the boiler and the fact that if I got called away or distracted that it could go boom was a deal breaker.

If however, you are looking at using it like a generator only to be used while you are doing a specific task, like working in your shop area or charging your off grid batteries - AND you can use it like a CHP (Combined Heat and Power) well THEN you might have something.

FWIW, might sound morbid, but I always look at things from a postmortem viewpoint: If I died, could or WOULD my wife be able to do "X" without me.
Maybe your wife could, but for she who I obey - steam would be hands down out of the question

To really answer your question you need to tell us what your fuel source is, and if distillation is our primary goal. And have you considered a Stirling engine? Not very common, has a bad weight to power ratio, but is far more efficient than steam. And yes, wood gas could be another option as well


----------



## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

There's lots of reasons steam isn't used very much any more.. the biggest reasons is it's not cheap, efficient, or the safest..


----------



## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

Basically, I've been observing some of the intense heat available through either reflectors or fresnel lenses. Either of those can run a distiller pretty decently if set up well. 

That's where the question came from. I've just been mulling over how to take it to the next level and make steam do some actual work. 

I'm not so much interested in working with burning wood or gas or coal although I'm sure that could be done. 

I do know there are limitations on the number of hours in a day that would work well for making steam. And I know there will be cloudy days. So I am well aware that it wouldn't be something that would work 24/7/356. Just something that fascinates me.

Thanks for the thoughts!


----------



## AgrarianDr (Mar 25, 2011)

Bellyman said:


> Basically, I've been observing some of the intense heat available through either reflectors or fresnel lenses.


Unfortunately I don't think you will get much "work" done out of a fresnel lens. You would certainly THINK you could, given how intense and destructive those things can be. I've got a 36" x 48" fresnel that will cut a steel pipe (well, almost). 
But like a lot of the alternative energies that never make mainstream acceptance, unless you can get a strong, controlled input for an extended period of time, then it might be fun and novel, but really doesn't end up being very productive



Bellyman said:


> I'm not so much interested in working with burning wood or gas or coal although I'm sure that could be done.


If you choose to limit your input options, I'm afraid you are going to be severely limiting your output results.


----------



## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

AgrarianDr said:


> Unfortunately I don't think you will get much "work" done out of a fresnel lens. You would certainly THINK you could, given how intense and destructive those things can be. I've got a 36" x 48" fresnel that will cut a steel pipe (well, almost).
> But like a lot of the alternative energies that never make mainstream acceptance, unless you can get a strong, controlled input for an extended period of time, then it might be fun and novel, but really doesn't end up being very productive
> 
> 
> ...



What I'm driving at is not so much limiting my input options. I know that I can make electricity with a photovoltaic panel. I know I can run a wood gasification setup to power quite a variety of different things. I know I can run a generator with gasoline, diesel, natural gas or propane. Plus some other stuff, too.

What I'm trying to explore is steam via solar input. I would agree that the fresnel lens idea probably isn't the best option even though there is a 30MW power generation setup in Spain using fresnel lenses. But there are some large scale projects using either steam or some other thermal method of power generation not related to photovoltaics. I'm trying to think a little more towards a small, homestead sized setup that would allow something similar. It may not exist. But I'm not quite ready to write it off as impossible.


----------



## AgrarianDr (Mar 25, 2011)

Ever been to http://greenpowerscience.com/ ? 
He does some really neat projects with fresnel lenses.
Has been a while since I have visited that website, but pretty sure I recall him using a fresnel setup to get a Stirling kicking out 80w or so. 
I wish someone was making Stirlings at a reasonable cost. As a "heat" engine they are hard to beat. But.... hardly anyone makes them and those that do place me right back to where I started, looking seriously and realistically at cost/benefit


----------



## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

AgrarianDr said:


> Ever been to http://greenpowerscience.com/ ?
> He does some really neat projects with fresnel lenses.
> Has been a while since I have visited that website, but pretty sure I recall him using a fresnel setup to get a Stirling kicking out 80w or so.
> I wish someone was making Stirlings at a reasonable cost. As a "heat" engine they are hard to beat. But.... hardly anyone makes them and those that do place me right back to where I started, looking seriously and realistically at cost/benefit


Cool website. Have enjoyed browsing through some of their stuff.

Don't know if you've seen this webpage... I still haven't gone through all of it but lots of interesting reading... 

http://www.steampower.com/featured.html


----------



## JeepHammer (May 12, 2015)

The concept seems simple, fuel, water...
I'm with the 'Post Mortum' idea, more to the point, what killed me!

Commercial boilers that can produce enough pressure to make effective electrical power are large, expensive, and are supposed to be inspected regularly.
They also take control systems that are fairly complicated and expensive to keep them from going 'Boom!'.

You don't hear about boiler explosions anymore, but in earlier times they went off like bombs fairly regularly.
Probably the reason for such tight controls now.

There is a water source/water recovery issue.
If you vent steam directly, you are going to need a lot more RELIABLE water.
Steam/water recovery is expensive and takes up a lot of room.

Then there is the electrical generator...
A turbine is most efficient, but takes large volumes of steam to make it work efficiently.
A piston type drive for the generator would need a pretty big flywheel to even out and control shaft speed to the generator so you kept in the speed range to produce 60 cycle power that most AC stuff runs on.

If you go DC, then you have big losses in conversion from AC to DC.

Its possible, but I don't see Practical in there anywhere...


----------



## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

JeepHammer said:


> The concept seems simple, fuel, water...
> I'm with the 'Post Mortum' idea, more to the point, what killed me!
> 
> Commercial boilers that can produce enough pressure to make effective electrical power are large, expensive, and are supposed to be inspected regularly.
> ...


Yeah... I guess I'll put this one back on the shelf for a while. Maybe someday, something will "click" and I'll have a new idea.

Anyway, thanks for the thoughts, guys.


----------



## JeepHammer (May 12, 2015)

Not that I wouldn't help with a project if someone was trying it!

Big generators recover steam, condense it (Radiator?) and reuse the water.
Those are the big venture shaped cooling towers you see at power plants.
There was a couple of steam powered cars that also recovered/recycled water on a small scale, I don't know how they condensed that steam and returned it to the boiler.
A guy might research that...

There were hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of steam powered factories, steam turned into rotary or linear motion. 
I'm aware of only two, piston/flywheel and turbine...

EXTERNAL Combustion Engine, where the combustion takes place OUTSIDE of the work cylinder might be a search topic.


----------



## biggkidd (Aug 16, 2012)

Ahha found some short videos of what I built.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JPcWwYtPc4[/ame] 
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOJe2hiBfGw[/ame]
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3xiGHuos4g[/ame] 

Please ignore the mess! lol 

Now I did give up on this project. Although I am probably going to revisit it this year. I will basically have to tear everything back down to scratch to go back to the original design as you see above. I modified it to the point it hardly ran at all. I was moving more and more to valves and such that had worked for a hundred years but didn't work for me. The junk I first cobbled together worked the best. It was a twin cylinder single flow design using a log splitter valve. Hindsight has made me realize the first design was the best one I tried the problem I had was my boiler was to small and about the worst design ever made. Yes it was ALL mine I made that junk! But the next one will not be. I may also go to a double flow design instead of single flow. Just have to have (2) log splitter valves instead of one. But like I said I will have to go back to step one and hope I can salvage some of what I have used. If not I'll look for more scrap to play with... 

One thing I didn't mention above is that I did manage to make just shy of 40 amps @ 12 volts for short periods with the setup in the videos. 

If anyone is interested in this project I can try and document it as I did my rocket stove water heater build. 

http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/co...ocket-stove-water-heater-build-pic-heavy.html

*I should say seriously interested as documenting adds a lot of time and effort! 
*


PS

I will also have to build a new boiler! Thankfully I bought most of those parts a few years ago before I got busy with other things and gave up on this. Boilers are extremely dangerous and require top grade safety gear.


----------



## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

biggkidd said:


> Ahha found some short videos of what I built.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JPcWwYtPc4
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOJe2hiBfGw
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3xiGHuos4g
> ...


Cool! Thanks for sharing!

I know "documentation" is a royal pain and everything takes 10 times as long to do. But I hope you'll at least make some notes and take some video. I'd definitely be interested in seeing how it goes when you do.

Thanks!


----------



## Prismseed (Sep 14, 2009)

Bellyman said:


> It may not exist. But I'm not quite ready to write it off as impossible.


Impossible just means it hasn't been done yet. Experiment maybe you'll find the solution, or something even better!:goodjob:


----------



## markt1 (Dec 15, 2013)

Get a burn barrel. Wrap many turns of copper tubing around it. Use a 12 volt pump to force water through the coil. The far end extends into the top cover of a second barrel and steam escapes through the end and rotates a wind turbine mounted inside. At the bottom of the second barrel the steam condenses and is re-pumped back to the coil. The wind turbine charges a small battery/inverter. Might work...


----------

