Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Shannon Bradley on February 6, 2013 at 12:24pm

Hi,

Not sure, but I thought you should save your wood and make/burn alcohol to make steam ?

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Permalink Reply by Elac on February 7, 2013 at 5:45am

Solar powered still using parabolic reflectors, to refine that alcohol for the steam engine.
And parabolic reflectors to pre-heat the water so less fuel is needed. Also a condensing tank to cool and return the spent steam back to the water holding tank. Condensing tank could also have tubes running through it circulating water that would be heated or pre-heated by the steam for hot water in home use. Steam power is great.

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Permalink Reply by Shannon Bradley on February 7, 2013 at 11:15am

Ya, really good. I like it. Not sure why I thought alcohol for steam. But if your going to make steam - alcohol may be a faster renewable than wood. I'm no pro at this for sure. I just have to wonder... what do you do when you run out of wood ? Steal some ?

Wood is cool. Our Native American;s moved to new locations to be near new wood and let the old re-grow. I'm not sure that is possible any-more. You can grow food for alcohol to run steam, (we might need some chain saws that run on that too).

Don't worry... I got it cover. I think I have a better solution. I'm just chating...

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Permalink Reply by Jordan Weller on February 9, 2013 at 7:10pm

Great suggestions.

What can we do in the way of microsteam engines. Any design or parts ideas.

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Permalink Reply by Shannon Bradley on February 14, 2013 at 11:46am

Wow!

Micro-steam engines... I would have to wonder if parabolic solar wouldn't work an micro-steam engines. Thats interesting Jordan. Maybe after our next major solar flare we will be back to steam engines or the 60's. We seem to drift from our elementary basics that our lifes depend on. I think thats why true progress has stalled. We are lost out on a evolutionary limb and we need to climb back down to move ahead.

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Permalink Reply by Shannon Bradley on February 15, 2013 at 10:02am

I Just want to add Jordan,

That I'm assuming that when you say micro you really mean miniature or sub-miniature engines as I don't see how one could tool and engine micro. Heat is cool in the sense that the energy loss's can be captured and used. There are such great loss's in electromagnetics. I'm not sure what kind of torgue you would have with such a small size engine and what the stroke would need to be shorten too. But I have seen steam engines run from the heat of a single candle. I don't talk about my work. Lets face it-to make a solar panels it creates a lot of hydrocarbons. Micro ? Am I missing some-thing ?

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Permalink Reply by Jordan Weller on February 17, 2013 at 4:25pm

Yes I was thinking miniature initially. I was thinking more about revolutionizing the steam engine. I have thought about a rotary style engine. Of course electric is better but I want something more 3rd world.

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Permalink Reply by Erik Homme on March 24, 2013 at 3:10pm

A steam engine/turbine would be a neat project, but their Carnot efficiency is limited to (I believe) 50%. You can extract more energy from the wood through gasification: heating wood without letting in oxygen produces various tars and gasses that can be burned for even more heat or can run an internal combustion engine. Or, a simpler, cheaper way is to use a big compost pile to convert wood into methane to run an engine... like this guy in France:

http://www.journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_pain.html

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Permalink Reply by Shannon Bradley on March 25, 2013 at 9:21am

  Nice link Erik,

In the summer one could use the heat from the sun to get the compost going and the heat tubes could be coved within the compost. I think it would take a lot of compost to get a lot of heat. Composting is hard work...  Later,

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