# Generator engine



## Guest (Mar 2, 2012)

I would like to have a way to generate electricity if the grid goes down in a SHTF situation. I want something that I can power without petrolem fuel. Solar is still very expensive. I am thinking of powering it with a wood gas generator. Steam power seems dangerous. 

I want a system that will run at 1800 rpm because they are much more dependable than generators that run at 3600 rpm. I think the engine has to be oversized because wood gas only has about half the energy of gasoline. This rules out RV generators, welder generators, and any generator where the motor is integral with the generator. 

The old gas engines had flywheels. This seems to me that they would store up energy in the flywheel and be better able to crank a generator when the demand was suddenly increased. Wouldn't one of the old engines be better suited to crank a generator head than one of the newer ones?


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## AVanarts (Jan 2, 2011)

I always skip by the wood gas idea because of the issue of fuel. It sounds good, but cutting and drying enough wood to make it work would be too labor intensive for the output.

Depending on your situation, bio-gas, might be a better solution. For anyone on a farm with access to lots of poop, I would think it would be the best solution. Used copies of the old "Mother Earth News Handbook of Homemade Power" are sill available: http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Earth-...3270/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330713157&sr=8-1 Some of the stuff in it is BS, but the section on bio-gas (methane) is pretty good.

I like the 1800 rpm idea, or even 1200 with a 1:3 ratio between the engine and generator and have thought of using something like a small 4 cylinder car engine. The advantages of a car engine include liquid coolant and an oil system with a pump and filter that is not found on smaller "generator" engines.


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

Hmm, wonder if you just limited yourself to half the rated capacity of the generator or maybe a third to be on totally safe side? Otherwise you are into homebuilt generator with belts and whatever...


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## InvalidID (Feb 18, 2011)

How about a diesel powered genset and you grow enough sunflowers to fuel it?


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

The purist' will po-po me . 
.But ya got to admit that the ultra long storage life and the ease of storing propane is very hard to beat.
And because of burning so clean, that 1800rpm engine will have a long life.......


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## Ross (May 9, 2002)

InvalidID said:


> How about a diesel powered genset and you grow enough sunflowers to fuel it?


 Soybeans are likely easier. I grew 2 acres of sunflowers last year, the birds loved it. Mind you it was my first time and I did get the seed stock I wanted!


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## InvalidID (Feb 18, 2011)

Ross said:


> Soybeans are likely easier. I grew 2 acres of sunflowers last year, the birds loved it. Mind you it was my first time and I did get the seed stock I wanted!


 I can't keep soy planted here. The deer will come from miles around and through electric fence to get at it. :flame: I would prefer to grow a little of both to be honest. Sunflowers pull nutrients up from deep in the soil as they have a serious tap root. Then soy is a nitrogen fixer. A combo of the two could be rotated around the fields to help rejuvenate AND provide fuel.


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## Darren (May 10, 2002)

Nimrod said:


> I would like to have a way to generate electricity if the grid goes down in a SHTF situation. I want something that I can power without petrolem fuel. Solar is still very expensive. I am thinking of powering it with a wood gas generator. Steam power seems dangerous.
> 
> I want a system that will run at 1800 rpm because they are much more dependable than generators that run at 3600 rpm. I think the engine has to be oversized because wood gas only has about half the energy of gasoline. This rules out RV generators, welder generators, and any generator where the motor is integral with the generator.
> 
> The old gas engines had flywheels. This seems to me that they would store up energy in the flywheel and be better able to crank a generator when the demand was suddenly increased. Wouldn't one of the old engines be better suited to crank a generator head than one of the newer ones?


Mother Earth News had a bunch of articles. I'm wondering if you'd do better with a big block like a 460 to get enough power from the wood gas. You could add a big flywheel between the engine and the generator by building your own skid.
.


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

Ross . .Have you plugged in any figures on your two acre harvest . . ??
How many bushel . . .??
What does it take (normally) bushel / gallon for the oil . . .??' 
Two acres sounds good (and looks good). . . .but is it enough to get how much volume of oil . . . .??

a good press is big bucks........


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## Ross (May 9, 2002)

I was more interested in pressing it for cooking oil and selling it for more than fossil fuel is worth TBH. But yeah there would be crappy batches that would end up gettign used as fuel. 
The two acres was never intended to be pressed, it was always a seed stock plot. I wanted Russian Peredovik seed as its OP and a high volume oil producer. This was also a trial thing to try planting growing and harvesting them as its a totally new crop to me. Several things were apparent. My planter sucked and I don't really have a suitable one unless my drill can be rigged to do the job. I had emergence issues and that held up harvest so the birds got a lot. (not much point checking yields under those conditions. )
My combine also was less than ideal, no doubt there were losses off the header although the cylinder and shakers did a good job. 

So needing a combine and a planter makes buying a press the least of my worries! You can get a chinese press for around 5000 and theres a Turkish press food grade for around 7000. I had lots of links and figures done but a hard drive crash took it all. If I remember right to make a 1000 litres of oil you needed 10 acres? 

So i have seed but need so much I probably won't go further with the idea. I might change my mind you never know. One of the pictures in this years HT calendar is of my sunflowers. 

Oh and sunflowers are subject to the same white mold problems as soy so you can't really rotate them


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## InvalidID (Feb 18, 2011)

Ross said:


> I was more interested in pressing it for cooking oil and selling it for more than fossil fuel is worth TBH. But yeah there would be crappy batches that would end up gettign used as fuel.
> The two acres was never intended to be pressed, it was always a seed stock plot. I wanted Russian Peredovik seed as its OP and a high volume oil producer. This was also a trial thing to try planting growing and harvesting them as its a totally new crop to me. Several things were apparent. My planter sucked and I don't really have a suitable one unless my drill can be rigged to do the job. I had emergence issues and that held up harvest so the birds got a lot. (not much point checking yields under those conditions. )
> My combine also was less than ideal, no doubt there were losses off the header although the cylinder and shakers did a good job.
> 
> ...


According to Journey to Forever sunflower oil yields should be around 950 liters per acre. Soy is way down around 450. Peanut oil is suppose to be up around 1060 liters per acre if you are better set up for that, though it doesn't sound like it. Rapeseed is of course a really good one if you're just looking to grow your own fuel at almost 1200 liters of oil per acre.

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html

I haven't been to Canada in awhile but if I remember right you guys aren't warm enough for Palm trees right? Oil Palm appears to produce some 6k liters of oil per acre!


The OP was asking about producing power in a grid down situation. My thinking has always been someone that produced oil crops for cooking could sell them today as cooking oil. If the grid went down the value of high end cooking oils would plummet, but the value of fuel would rocket. I pictured it as a hedge really.


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## Ross (May 9, 2002)

Seriously don't take my 1000 liters per 10 acres as fact, my memory is terrible and its been a long day.


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## Ross (May 9, 2002)

The value of food grade fats really can't be underestimated. If the grid is down the demand for food will skyrocket. I don't disagree having food AND fuel is a great position to be in. It was one of the crop's more attractive aspects for a small farm.


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## InvalidID (Feb 18, 2011)

Ross said:


> The value of food grade fats really can't be underestimated. If the grid is down the demand for food will skyrocket. I don't disagree having food AND fuel is a great position to be in. It was one of the crop's more attractive aspects for a small farm.


 You make an interesting point there. Where I live beef and hogs are so easy to raise I often don't think much about fats as a big item.


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## StL.Ed (Mar 6, 2011)

InvalidID said:


> According to Journey to Forever sunflower oil yields should be around 950 liters per acre. Soy is way down around 450. Peanut oil is suppose to be up around 1060 liters per acre if you are better set up for that, though it doesn't sound like it. Rapeseed is of course a really good one if you're just looking to grow your own fuel at almost 1200 liters of oil per acre.
> 
> http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html


Interesting site, but be careful with the numbers. I think they are listing liters per hectare. Judging by the gallons per acre column, a hectare must be a bit more than 2.3 acres. 
(OK, i just googled it...hectare = 2.471 acres)


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## InvalidID (Feb 18, 2011)

StL.Ed said:


> Interesting site, but be careful with the numbers. I think they are listing liters per hectare. Judging by the gallons per acre column, a hectare must be a bit more than 2.3 acres.
> (OK, i just googled it...hectare = 2.471 acres)


 Good catch, I missed that. Thanks!


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

So from Ross's good reply to my question I gather that: For the small holder it would Not be at all easy to raise enough press-able material to be "self-sustainable" in the diesel-fuel area........

And from the other thread "How much do you use" . . .look at the amount that farmer 'Dale' uses . . . . .

So what I 'could' raise on a couple of my acres is not going to take my truck or tractor very far . . . . . . .

back to the drawing board............


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## InvalidID (Feb 18, 2011)

Jim-mi said:


> So from Ross's good reply to my question I gather that: For the small holder it would Not be at all easy to raise enough press-able material to be "self-sustainable" in the diesel-fuel area........
> 
> And from the other thread "How much do you use" . . .look at the amount that farmer 'Dale' uses . . . . .
> 
> ...


 You get about 100 gallons of oil per acre of Sunflowers. Works great if you have an extra 20+ acres... From what I'm reading nuts give better returns on oil than crops so maybe that's something to look into?


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## Ross (May 9, 2002)

Dalek is cash cropping 1200 acres. Thats a very energy demanding business virtually on a corporate scale. You also have to remember the pressed seed is a high protein suppliment for animals too, another cash crop in its self. I do think its viable option but for personal reasons I'm not going there at this time.


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

Back to the OP idea . . .first paragraph . . . . .Upon rereading it I just remembered an answer to the question........

On fleabay right now is a Listor engine and the rest of the gear including batterys and inverters.
If I could produce that 100 gallons on an acre . . . that "oil" in the Listor set up (running at 450 or so rpm) could / would go a long way toward taking care of a conservative home electrical needs.........

For a long time I've wanted to "play" with a Listor . . . .
Tho at this time it is not to be . .. . . . . .
I would hook up my 14 foot trailer and go get that Listor
After I paid the guy the $7500 bucks...........

sound like too much $$$$$ . . . . not really, considering all the equipment offered...


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## Guest (Mar 11, 2012)

The price of Listers went up as soon as the EPA banned their import into the US. I too would love to have one.


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

That is yet another reason that the EPA should be struck down by the likes of Dr Ron Paul . . . 

For the amount of "work" a Lister can do, on very little fuel, and it can be veggie oil, that "ban" should be totally removed.
It is NOT like every one is going to have a Lister in their 'garage' and therefore making "dirty air".......

A good work machine banned by the more than stupid gobermint . . . . . .

Makes sence doesn't it . . . ????


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## tkrabec (Mar 12, 2003)

You might want to look at algae for bio fuel
"Microalgae have much faster growth rates than terrestrial crops. The per unit area yield of oil from algae is estimated to be from between 1,000 to 6,500 US gallons per acre per year (4,700 to 18,000 m3/km2Â·a).[17] This is 7 to 30 times greater than the next best crop" from Algae fuel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## solidwoods (Dec 23, 2005)

Your looking for a fuel to run an engine.
How Ya going to get fuel to grow/harvest/press seeds to make oil to run an engine to make electricity?
Gasifier is the way to go. If you have manure,, guess what? Gasifiers run on manure/cardboard/newspaper/junk mail/leaves sticks twigs acorns and on and on.
Home Â« Gasifier Experimenters Kit They make a 10kw a 20kw from cut out parts to partially assembled to fully assembled to turnkey package.
jim


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## farminghandyman (Mar 4, 2005)

I under stand the Idea, and would like it as well,

but say diesel and regardless of the yield, your down to hand planting, hand harvesting, and hand processing, if your out of fuel, and if you start to make enough fuel for all of that then you will need how much larger plots, 

the wood gasification come in the harvesting of wood in quantity for most likely heating your home cooking and my guess generating power, with out fuel your chain saw does not run, so it back to hand everything again,

solar or wind is the only two items I see that really fit the bill with going into total hand mode,

I think I would suggest to get as many of the critical needs of that use electricity to some form of alternate operation, or so it can be operated by alternate means,

figure it out how to preserve your food, and operate with power, or need of refrigeration, 

if the stuff hits the fan, and power is down for an extend time, Unless there is truly critical needs, making power will be a difficult and time consuming and expensive for all practical concerns, 

even considering a methane production you need a supply of biological wast, and with out power you will not most likely have dry lot animals or even grain for the most part to feed critters in the way we do with power, 

unless one is just needing power for short bursts of time, then I do not think there is really a practical way of doing it, 

(I think for me wood gasification would be the easiest but my supply of raw materials is very limited, (do not know if grasses would work or not), but still very labor intensive),

wind or solar and some batteries, and an inverter, would be the easiest way if you can get reliability, out of the system, 

I am working on wind my self,


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