|
Alternate Fuel References/Guides |
| EERE Alternative Fuels
Data Center
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/
|
 The
EERE's alternative fuels site. A wealth of information on
alternative fuels: properties, incentive programs, models,
infrastructure... |
| BioDiesel |
| Getting Started Making
Biodiesel Graydon Blair
Energy Self Sufficiency Newsletter
http://www.rebelwolf.com/essn.html
|
 Good
article on how the process of making biodiesel fuel works. An
easy to understand explanation of the chemistry involved and the
processes used to go from vegetable oil to biodiesel.A good
starting point. |
| Mike Pelly's biodiesel
method
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_mike.html
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library.html
Which is part of the Journey to Forever site:
http://journeytoforever.org |
 Nice
clear explanation of how to make biodiesel, and some of the
chemistry behind it.The Journey To Forever site is very
interesting, with a good collection of information on biofuels
and many other fine projects. |
| The BioDiesel Community
http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/
|
 A
good site for getting started with BioDiesel. Lots of free
tutorials, equipment building, etc.How-to on making the
Appleseed Biodiesel processor.
Some good links to other Bio Fuel resources. |
Homebrew Biodiesel and
Biodiesel Equipment Building Classes,
Maria 'Mark' Alovert
http://www.girlmark.com/
|
 Classes
and a biodiesel guide book from the inventor of the Appleseed
biodiesel processor described just above. |
| The New B100-WH
Biodiesel Reactor
http://www.b100wh.com/
|
 Quite
a detailed how-to on making biodiesel from fryer oil (vegetable
oil).Lots of detail. |
Green Myth-Busting:
Biodiesel,
Clayton Bodie Cornell -- From Green Options
http://gas2.org/...
|
 A
good and detailed article dispelling some of the myths
surrounding biodiesel fuel. |
| Getting Off the
Petroleum Grid with BioDiesel Scott Durkee
How to get articles from Home Power ... |
 Home
Power Magazine -- Issue 93.Good how to article on making
biodiesel. |
| Utah Biodiesel Supply
http://www.utahbiodieselsupply.com
|
 Some
good good detailed tutorials on biodiesel, including a series of
videos and pages on everything from biodiesel chemistry to
making biodiesel.There is some obvious commercial slant to
the videos, but also lots of good and helpful information.
(Thanks to Karen for suggesting this)
|
| Bozeman Bio-Fuel
http://www.bozemanbiofuels.com/index.htm
|
 This
is the site run by Paul, our own Bozeman biodiesel powerhouse.
Helpful information on biodiesel, EV's, and conservation.
Paul even offers a renewable energy cottage to rent while
visiting the Bozeman/Yellowstone area. |
|
Vegetable Oil (WVO) |
| Frybrid -- Vegetable
Oil for fuel Forum:
http://www.frybrid.com/forum/index.php?
Much Vege Oil Conversion Info:
http://www.frybrid.com/test.htm |
This site has a wealth of information on conversion of diesel
vehicles to run on straight vegetable oil.
The site also hosts a very active discussion forum on vegetable
oil for fuel, conversions, etc. |
|
VW Jetta Conversion to Vegetable Oil Jeff
|
 Jeff
describes his conversion of a 1998 VW Jetta Diesel to burn
straight vegetable oil. VERY detailed.
Thank you Jeff! |
| The Fry Guys
http://www.green-trust.org/wiki/index.php?title=Fry_Guys
|
 Quite
a bit of information on WVO. Collecting it, converting cars to
use it, heating homes with it, ... |
Heating with veggie
oil,
Posted on the Fieldlines.com forum
Details ... |
 A
posting on Fieldlines.com explaining how the poster uses veggie
oil and other oils to heat his home. |
| Generating Power From a
Lister Engine using Vegetable Oil
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wastewatts/
|
 A
project in work to generate electricity and heat from a Lister
diesel engine using waste vegetable oil as fuel. |
| Source for Lister Type
Diesels
Central Maine Diesel ...
|
 One
source for Lister type diesels in Maine.Information on
powering generators and running on vegetable oil.
(Thanks to mark for finding this) |
| How do BioDiesel and
straight vegetable oil compare?
|
There is a bit of a
controversy between the BioDiesel folks and the WVO folks. Here
is one assessment from Journey To Forever:
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_svo.html If you know
of other good and factual material on this area, please let me
know:
Gary |
|
Making Veggie Oil |
They're Doubling The
Value Of Their Soybean Crop, Walder Mfg.
From Farm Show Magazine
www.farmshow.com/issues/30/05/300506.asp
|
 Fairly
good description of a farmer made press that extracts about 1
gallon of oil per bushel of soy beans, and leaves a high quality
protein meal. The system uses two presses to get a better oil
yield and higher quality meal. From Farm Show Magazine |
|
Making Ethanol |
| Corn to Ethanol a bad
idea?
Cars and People Compete for Grain...
|
There appears to be a
consensus emerging that the large scale use of corn to make
ethanol for motor fuel is a bad idea because: 1) the energy
balance is poor -- that is, the energy you get out of the corn
based ethanol is little more than the fossil fuel energy that
went into making the ethanol, and 2) the use of corn to produce
ethanol puts it in competition with petroleum, and results in
price increases in corn when petroleum goes up. |
| Make Your Own Fuel
http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/index.html
|
 A
wealth of information on all aspects of making and using Ethanol
(alcohol) as motor fuel. |
| Ethanol as a fuel
http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol.html
|
An assessment of
Ethanol as a fuel for vehicles from Journey To Forever. |
|
Making Methane |
|
Picture from
Auto Blog
Green ... -- a great green auto news site. |
Utilizing Natural
Design Parameters
for Methane Digesters, Al RutanEnergy Self Sufficiency
Newsletter
http://www.rebelwolf.com/essn.html
|
 Article
in ESSN Newsletter by Al Rutan covering the basics of methane
generation with information on a small scale methane generator.
The ESSN has carried a number of good articles on bio-fuels.
|
Collection of Methane
Articles
Home Power Magazine, issue 26Al Rutan, the Methane Man
www.HomePower.com
Search the Home Power article archive for issues 26, 27, 28,
30, and 40, and order them.
How to get articles from Home Power ...
Some of this material may be available here:
http://www.green-trust.org/2006/11/self-reliance-in-troubled-times-al.html |
 More
from Al Rutan. Home Power Magazine articles, Issues 26, 27, 28,
30, and 40.
A very good collection of articles from Home Power by Al
Rutan.
|
Cows Power Plan for
Alternative Fuel,
USA Today
www.usatoday.com
|
 Dairy
farm uses cow manure to make methane that power a generator
producing electricity to sell to grid.
Reduces green house gas emissions, provides some added income,
and "green" electric power. |
Building a Poly Bio
Digester,
University of Adelaide
http://www.fao.org/...
|
 The
University of Adelaide has a lot of hands-on material on
generating and using biogas, including very detailed plans for
making an inexpensive poly bag digester to produce methane.
(Thanks to Dave for suggesting this) |
Turning Waste Into Fuel
-- Methane Biodigester Basics, Ilan Adler
How to get articles from Home Power ... |
Home
Power Magazine article, Issue 116.
Good practical article on how designing biodigesters that
produce methane fuel. Details on how to build a simple one from
poly tubing. |
Anaerobic Digestion:
Biogas Production and
Odor Reduction from ManureJeannie Leggett, Extension
Assistant
Robert E. Graves, Professor of Agricultural Engineering
Les E. Lanyon, Associate Professor of Soil Fertility
Penn State Agricultural Extension
Full Paper (85K pdf) |
 An
overview of methane production from manure on farms. Covers how
it works and the major issues involved. |
| Methane Generator
Calculator
http://biorealis.com/wwwroot/digester_revised.html
From Biorealis Systems |
 A
calculator to estimate methane production based on various
organic materials inputs. |
| Biorealis Methane
Generator
http://biorealis.com/digester/construction.html
From Biorealis Systems
|
 Complete
plans for a small methane generator. |
| Small Biogas Plant
Plans
Nepal Biogas Plant -- Construction Manual |
 Another
farm size biogas plant with full construction plans. |
| 3 - Cubic Meter BIOgas
Plane -- A Construction Manual VITA -- Volunteers in Technical
Assistance
Full Plans |
 Very
interesting paper on making a family scale BIO gas plant that
produces methane from manure.Lots of detail on the design,
construction and operation. |
How to Build a 100 cu.
ft./day Methane Gas Plant,
Mother Earth News, November, 1971
http://www.motherearthnews.com ...
|
 Fairly
detailed instructionfs for building a 100 cubic ft per day that
runs on 100 lbs of manure. |
How to Generate Power
from Garbage,
By the Mother Earth News editors,
Mother Earth News, May 1970
http://www.motherearthnews.com ...
|
 Building
and operating methane producing digesters fueled by manure. |
| Methane Generation in
China Mother Earth News
http://www.motherearthnews.com
|
 Interesting
article from 1981 Mother Earth News on the use of home scale
methane generators in China.
Wonder what the story on this today is? |
| The Marvelous
Chicken-Powered Car Barry Grindrod
www.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/batesmethane.htm
|
 Article
on converting a gas IC engine car to run on methane that was
produced from chicken and pig manure.
The article is fairly detailed, and the car has been running for
years.Other useful methane generation and use information
here:
http://www.green-trust.org/methane.htm |
|
Wood Gas for Internal Combustion Engines Please be
careful!! -- There is a Carbon Monoxide poisoning hazard with
all wood gasifiers |
| Wood Gas as Engine Fuel
-- Design Manual
Food and Agriculture Organization -- UN
paper 72 (pdf)
|
 A
very complete 1986 design manual for wood gas generators to run
IC engines. Includes design, construction, and operating
experiences for a number of types of wood gas generator
applications.
Both vehicle and fixed applications are covered.
|
| Plans for a Wood Gas
Generator to Power IC engines
www.gengas.nu/byggbes/contents.shtml
|
 Very
complete set of plans for building a wood gas generator. The
gas produced by this generator can be used to power internal
combustion engines.
A
picture of it
WARNING -- One of the components of wood gas fuel is Carbon
Monoxide -- a highly poisonous gas. |
| Alternatives To Fossil
Fueled Engine/Generators Clifford W. Mossberg
How to get articles from Home Power ...
.
|
 Home
Power article in issue 21 covering how to produce wood gas, and
how to use it as a fuel to power internal combustion engines. |
| WOODGAS.com
http://www.woodgas.com/index.htm
|
 Quite
a bit of material on generating wood gas as a fuel.Books,
stoves, ... |
| The Gas Producer -
Science and Construction
members.tripod.com/~highforest/woodgas/woodfired.html
Note: This link is not working as of 1/2010.
The
Wayback Machine has a copy of it here ...
Thanks to Mike for relocating this.
|
 Some
material on constructing and using a trailer mounted wood gas
generator to power a car. |
| Some Interesting Wood
Gas Generator Experiments
Preheated air gasifier:
http://allpowerlabs.org/ ...
GMC Truck:
http://whatiamupto.com/gasification/woodgastruck.html |
 Some
interesting experiments on various kinds of wood gas generators
made from various materials.All Power also offers various
levels of kits for building their gasifiers as well as detailed
free downloadable plans.
There is also a
Wiki
and a
User Forum -- so much stuff its a little hard to keep it all
straight, but lots of interesting stuff.
(thanks to Les for sending this in) |
|
Wood Burning & Masonry Heaters |
| Hearth.com
http://hearth.com/info.html
|
 Very
extensive collection of articles, FAQ's, and a searchable data
base of questions and answers. |
Wood For Home Heating,
FNR-79, Purdue University
http://www.ces.purdue.edu/extmedia/FNR/FNR-79.pdf
Residential Wood Stove Installation,
FNR-100, Purdue University
www.ces.purdue.edu/extmedia/FNR/FNR-100.html |
 Lots
of good information on wood burning. Heating value compared to
other fuels, payback, wood burning and cutting hints.
Installing wood stoves. |
Design, Construction
and Performance of Stick-Wood Fired Furnace For Residential and
Small Commercial Application,
Richard C. Hill, University of Maine, 1977Download this paper
here:
http://hotandcold.tv/wood furnace.html
|
 A
research paper on the development of a fairly simple, clean
burning, efficient wood furnace.
Quite a bit of good practical experimental work and measurements
leading to this furnace design, as well as a number of
variations that did not work and why.
The design shown is a water heating furnace.
(Thanks to Tom for suggesting this) |
| Advance Combustion Wood
Fireplaces Natural Resources Canada
Advance Combustion Fireplaces
|
 Overview
of advanced design fireplaces that achieve 50 to 70% efficiency
and cleaner burning through the use of secondary combustion air
and other features. |
| Masonry Heater
Association of North America
http://www.mha-net.org/index.htm
|
 A
great site for learning about and building Masonry Heaters.
Information, pictures, plans, newsletter, ...Note that the
"bookstore" at MHA offers detailed plans for 5 masonry
heater designs that they have built and tested.
A good sequence of pictures on
how a Masonry Heater goes together....
Masonry heaters work well for heating well designed homes --
they burn hot a clean for a relatively short time, and store the
heat in the mass of the heater for slow release over the day. |
| Masonry Stove Builders
http://www.heatkit.com/index.htm
Construction and planning info:
http://www.heatkit.com/html/guide.htm
Helpful doc:
http://heatkit.com/docs/Man00.PDF |
 Quite
a bit of construction information on masonry stoves and ovens.
The "gallery" pictures are good.
|
| Hybrid Masonry Stove
http://geopathfinder.com/9597.html
|
 "we
used a style common in Germany, the hybrid masonry stove. It
uses a steel or cast iron stove for the firebox but wraps
masonry around the metal on 4 or 5 sides, excluding the loading
door and, optionally, a cook-top. We added a large masonry
chamber behind the stove to allow flue gases to circulate
through some extra mass, boosting the total masonry weight to 2
tons."
|
| Masonry Heaters from
Gimmie Shelter
http://www.gimmeshelteronline.com/masonry/
|
 Gimmie
Shelter is a Wisconsin home builder that often includes masonry
heaters in their homes.
Their website section on masonry heaters provides a lot of good
detail on masonry heaters, including a pretty detailed
construction series. Lots of examples of heaters they have dome
-- some works of art. |
|
Doug's Masonry Stove ... |
 This
is Doug Kalmer's version of the traditional masonry stove. Doug
constructed this massive and beautiful stove (along with the
rest of his house).
It provides many of the advantages of the traditional masonry
stove with less somewhat less mass, cost, and labor.
See all of
Doug's solar projects ... |
Building a Tiled
Masonry Heater,
Vladimir Popovac,
Fine Homebuilding, January 1992
How to get articles from Fine Homebuilding ... |
 A
nice and detailed Fine Homebuilding article on designing and
building a masonry heater.These heaters provide a very clean
(hot) burn and the masonry retains heat and radiates to the room
for hours. |
| Sawdust Burning Heater
Mother Earth News
www.motherearthnews.com
|
 Plans
for a sawdust burning heater from the Mother Earth News
archives.
Cautionary feedback on the sawdust heater:
www.motherearthnews.com - feedback |
| Outdoor Wood Furnaces
www.ecy.wa.gov/ ...
http://www.vtwoodsmoke.org/index.html
www.motherearthnews.com/...
|
 Outdoor
Wood Furnaces burn wood in a furnace located in a separate
enclosure away from the house. They heat water, which is piped
to the house for space heating.
Its an appealing concept, but unfortunately the current
generation of these furnaces are half as efficient and 20 times
more polluting than certified indoor woodstoves.
There is some effort underway to offer cleaner versions. So, if
you are interested in one these, do your homework on certified
versions, and think about impacts on your neighbors. |
| BioMass Cooking Stoves
http://www.bioenergylists.org/
|
"This site exists to help people develop better stoves for
cooking with biomass fuels in developing regions"
Especially good section on efficient stove design. |
| Woodstoves for Tub
Heating (or for heating thermal storage tank?) Chofu:
supplier (one of many):
http://www.thesolar.biz/Chofu.htmMother Earth News article:
www.motherearthnews.com
describing the Chofu
www.revolutionearth.com/download/ChofuDataSheet.pdf
Snorkel and Scuba Underwater Woodstoves:
http://snorkel.com
|
 Chofu:
This is a simple, wood fired heater for soaking tubs.
It uses a simple thermosyphon system to circulate heated water
(no pumps, no electricity). The full stainless steel case is a
water jacket for efficient heat transfer.
 Snorkel
& Scuba: These wood stoves for heating tubs actually live in
the tub water, so heat transfer is directly from the stove walls
to the water.
It seems like this might be a simple, and greenhouse gas
friendly way to add heat to a solar heat storage tank when
there is not enough sun?
|
Woodstove Water Heating Coils
A metal pipe loop or coil can be placed in
the firebox of most woodstove and connected to a water storage
tank to provide "free" hot water. "Free" is always nice, but
the main thing to keep in mind for these systems safety.
Steam explosions are literally like a bomb -- they can
be deadly. Its very very important to do
these installations safely. I strongly recommend the "Hot Water
From Your Woodstove" booklet listed just below not only because
it provides good information on designing and sizing a system,
but also because it covers what you need to do for a safe
installation. |
| Hot Water From Your
Woodstove
From Lehman's....
If the link above does not work, just search the
Lehman's
website for the title. |
 This
is a 45 page booklet available from Lehman's that covers heating
domestic water using a coil in your wood stove firebox.It has
quite a bit of detail on both thermosyphon and pumped systems,
including a lot of advice on troubleshooting and adjustments
when things don't work quite right on the first try. It also
has a lot of emphasis on safety, which is very important for
these systems. |
| Heating Water With a
Wood Stove
http://www.woodheat.org/dhw/dhw.htm
|
 This
excellent article on domestic water heating with a wood stove
provides descriptions of several good systems, and covers the
features a good system should have.
It also provides safety information which is MANDATORY
READING for anyone adding water heating to a wood stove. |
| Preheating water with a
Wood Stove
http://www.michigan-horse.org/preheater/
A similar arrangement from Mother Earth News:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/...
|
 A
design for a system to preheat water with your wood stove that
does not require major surgery on the wood stove.
Be sure to read the material on safety in the article above --
especially on placement of valves and pressure relief. There
should be a pressure/temperature relief valve mounted in the
line closer to the stove. |
| Water Heating Heat
Exchanger Coils for Wood Stoves
http://www.hilkoil.com/product.htm
|
 One
source for coils that can be placed inside a wood stove firebox
to heat water.Be sure to read the article just above on how
to do this safely.
Installation instructions... (pdf)
These instructions look pretty good and show
several plumbing arrangements.
|
|
Corn Burning |
| Ontario Ministry Of
Agriculture
Burning Shelled Corn as a Heating Fuel
|
A very good paper on
the basics of burning corn as a heating fuel. Covers the
equipment, process, and economics. Well written. |
| Burning Shelled Corn As
Fuel Penn State Agricultural and Biological Engineering
http://energy.cas.psu.edu/shellcorn.html
|
 Some
good and reliable advice on burning shelled corn as a heating
fuel.The Penn State Extension section on shelled corn as fuel
has been recently updated, and is quite helpful. |
| "I Burn Corn"
http://www.iburncorn.com/
|
 "I
Burn Corn" a fine personal site on the practicalities of
burning corn for fuel. Great source of practical, hands-on
corn burning experience.
Also provides a number of good links, references, and a
discussion forum. |
|
Corn Storage, Cleaning and Burning Pictures
|
 Pictures
of some of the odds and ends you need for a complete corn
burning system. |
|
Yahoo Corn
Fuel Group |
This is a good Yahoo
discussion group for getting the latest on using corn for
heating, and for asking questions. |
|
BioDiesel and Waste Vegetable Oil Burning |
| Journey to Forevers's
Forced-Air BioFuel Heater
http://journeytoforever.org
More material on waste or veggie oil burning:
http://journeytoforever.org/...
(includes material on Mother Earth News burner)
The original Mother Earth burner that above are based on:
http://www.motherearthnews.com ... |
 From
Journey to Forever: Plans and design information on burners that
will burn biodiesel and/or WVO.Quite a bit of design
information and experiences with prototypes. |
Heating with Compost
While often associated with greenhouse heating, these heat
from compost schemes can and have been used for space or water
heating. |
| The Composting
Greenhouse At New Alchemy Institute - A Report On Two Years of
Operation and Monitoring, Bruce Fulford Heating a greenhouse
with compost
The Report (pdf)
|
 Very
extensive and detailed report on heating a greenhouse with
compost.
Two years worth of testing on design and type of compost issues. |
Heating from Large Wood
Chip Compost Piles
Jean PainThe Methods of Jean Pain: Or another kind of garden,
Ida Pain, 1980.
This book is out of print, and I was not able to find any used
copies of this for sale --
a pdf copy can be downloaded here... (thanks
to Ken for finding this)
Two Mother Earth New articles on the Pain System:
www.motherearthnews.com/ ... (April 1980)
www.motherearthnews.com/... (July 1981)
Journey To Forever on Jean Pain:
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_pain.html
A good two part video showing details of a large compost to
heat and biogas pile and more:
http://www.youtube.com/... (part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/... (part 2) |
The book covers Jean Pain's research in using compost for both
agricultural and energy production. There is some good,
practical information on building large compost piles for the
production of heat for water or space heating.
One example 50 ton pile provided the equivalent of 200 MBTU over
a 6 month period -- enough to heat a house.
Picture from the video -- finely shredded wood with plastic pipe
to capture heat and fermentation vessel in middle to make
biogas.
(Thanks to Curbie for finding the video!) |
| Heat free (nearly) with
a compost furnace
http://energymd.wordpress.com/...
|
 This
is a very nicely thought out space heating scheme that uses a
large compost pile to generate heat.Marc has worked out a
design that provides for aerating the pile, keeping it moist,
collecting the heat, and insulating the pile for greater
efficiency.
More from Marc and his results for the first year of
operation... |
| The mb-soft compost heating schemes
Details here... |
 This
is an interesting set of concepts that use the heat generated
through the decomposition of organic mater for space and water
heating.
Details... |
| Composting Greenhouse
with Straw Bale Foundation, From Experiments in Sustainable
Urban Living
www.appropedia.org/ ...
This uses surplus heat from a large compost pile under the
greenhouse floor to heat water for the house. You get water
heating and greenhouse space with the same structure! |
 This
is a pretty slick idea for heating water with heat generated
from compost, as well as providing greenhouse space.
The thing that intrigues me is that you can apparently have
working greenhouse space above the heat generating compost
pile?
I'd like to hear from anyone with composting experience on
how workable this all seems?
Gary |
The Methane Midden,
One Straw: Be The Change Blog
http://onestraw.wordpress.com ...
|
 Here
is an ongoing experiment with a Jean Pain style compost to heat
and methane generation.We will |
