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Renewable energy...........

Started by local energy, February 20, 2006, 04:28 PM NHFT

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Pat McCotter

Quote from: Dreepa on April 25, 2006, 04:28 PM NHFT
Hey Pat,
How hard would it be to add a windmill or two if you already have a solar system an inverter and batteries?

Not difficult at all - technically. Politically you'd probably have an uphill climb.

Dreepa

I am not talking a huge one.  Just big enough.  (How big would it need to be?).

I am not worried about the political fallout.... it might be fun. >:D

Pat McCotter

Politically, size doesn't matter, height does. You'd have to have it high enough to catch the wind. That puts it in view of the folks on the hill that bought the view.

=======================================
Wind generators live on tall towers. And for good reason. Their "fuel" is way up there. As we'll see, the quality of your wind resource improves radically with height.

Physics
The power available to the rotor (that is, the spinning blades) of a wind generator is defined by the equation:

P = 1?2d x A x V^3

where P is the power at the rotor, d is the density of the
air, A is the swept area of the rotor, and V is the velocity
of the wind.

We can increase the power available to the rotor of a wind generator three ways — by increasing any variable in the power equation: d, A or V. Each variable in the power equation has its own effect on the power available to the rotor...
=======================================
http://www.homepower.com/magazine/downloads.cfm

http://www.homepower.com/magazine/downloads_wind_power.cfm

http://www.homepower.com/files/windsiteanalysis.pdf
http://www.homepower.com/files/towereconomicsseries.pdf
http://www.homepower.com/files/shuntregulationhp72.pdf


DC

There is a guy here that added a windmill to his solar pannels. It just sits there most of the time not spinning at all. He would have been better off adding more solar pannels. In the winter the length of the day up here is very short though. I was going to ask him next time I saw him if he thought about raising it to catch more wind. The politics might have been why he couldn't though.

Recumbent ReCycler

I've never heard of a "stress skin panel home", but earth sheltered homes use on average 10% of the energy of a regular stick built home, and the cost of manufacture isn't much more than a standard inefficient home.  One of my relatives powered his island home with a solar panel and a windmill.

mvpel

With an electric bill of a minimum of $100 a month, I've been mulling grid-tied solar, but the cost of inverters and panels seems prohibitive with maintenance and a very long payoff period.  Maybe I'm not looking at the right kind of approach, though.

Dreepa

Quote from: mvpel on April 25, 2006, 09:54 PM NHFT
With an electric bill of a minimum of $100 a month, I've been mulling grid-tied solar, but the cost of inverters and panels seems prohibitive with maintenance and a very long payoff period.  Maybe I'm not looking at the right kind of approach, though.
Depending on your bill... it might be about a 12 year payoff.

I am trying to get a VT company to send a rep out to my house to check on what it would cost.
If we could get them to visit 3-4 houses in one day they might be more inclined.

KBCraig

Quote from: freedominnh on April 26, 2006, 07:20 AM NHFT
Ted Benson has written a number of books involving  SIP construction, eventhough his forte and passion is post and beam homes.

Lots of new post & beam homes use SIP skins. It's a great matchup, since the SIPs can easily span the distance between beams.

Kevin

Jason Rand

For those interested in renewable energy, and considering different areas of NH, check out plymouthenergy.org.  I live in Plymouth and have been to a number of their meetings.  This is a great place to meet people working on all sorts of different energy and alternative building projects.  I haven't been involved with their 'energy raisings' (installing solar hot water systems) yet, but I think this is a great concept.  They have picked a system with excellent payback and they are getting organized for efficient installation. 

Also, I would highly recommend visiting dacres.org as well.  They give tours of their farm, and you can also stay there for a reasonable fee. 

Russell Kanning


Pat McCotter

Germany and straight veg oil

Click the British flag for English.
Click on list of filling stations and list of deliverers. These are in German.

This is how they deliver to your house. The truck says "Rapeseed oil."


Pat McCotter

Quote from: Dreepa on April 28, 2006, 09:52 AM NHFT
Cow Power:

http://www.vnews.com/04232006/3034908.htm

LTE in CM:

Old news, SALLY BECKER, Webster - Letter
Author(s):     / Date: April 27, 2006
Page: B06 / Section: Opinion
Re "Plugging in to 'Cow Power,'"Monitor, April 25): Nice article, but you guys are wa-a-a-a-a-y-y-y behind the times!

About 20 years ago, Ken Hadley, Dodge Hill Road, Henniker (works for North Branch Builders, I believe), was milking cows and selling his gas produced from the manure from the cows to PSNH or whomever. Guess it didn't catch on or blow up, huh?

He would scrape it from the barn right into this big holding tank, where it did its thing. Too bad it didn't catch on back then, as maybe we wouldn't be where we are now. Perhaps we should look into recycling down at the sewage treatment plant.

SALLY BECKER

Webster

KBCraig

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,195543,00.html

A New Twist for the Moonshiner: Ethanol
Monday, May 15, 2006

TULLAHOMA, Tenn. ? The still ? standard equipment of any moonshiner ? has a shot at becoming the must-have accessory of penny-pinching motorists.

An upstart Tennessee business is marketing stills that can be set up as private distilleries making ethanol ? 190 proof grain alcohol ? out of fermented starchy crops such as corn, apples or sugar cane. The company claims the still's output can reduce fuel costs by nearly a third from the pump price of gasoline.

Buyers of stills need a federal permit to make ethanol on private property. In what amounts to an honor system, they are to add a poison to their homemade alcohol so it isn't white lightning.

"We make it very clear that it is against the law to drink what comes out of it," said Shelley McClanahan, a spokeswoman for her family's business, Dogwood Energy.

Phones are ringing with orders at the business that mostly sold pellets for wood stoves before pump prices bounced high by Hurricane Katrina focused new attention on a modified still designed by McClanahan's father, inventor-mechanic Bill Sasher.

Since word started getting out in recent weeks about Sasher's still, Dogwood Energy has added 10 employees, McClanahan said.

Sasher's new creekside assembly warehouse in south-central Tennessee ? down a backwoods road, next door to a noisy rooster and less than 5 miles from the distillery that makes Jack Daniel's whiskey ? has orders for about 45 assembled stills.

The company is building four or five stills a day and has sold 45 in recent weeks, more than 125 since September, to meet the demand from customers ranging from small businesses to thrifty individuals.

"You can save a lot of money. That's what this is all about," McClanahan said.

A bushel of the fermented starch crop, mixed with yeast, water and sugar, and allowed to sit for about 2.5 days, then strained and heated to boiling, makes about 2.6 gallons of ethanol, which is then added to gasoline to produce a blended fuel.

Dogwood Energy says it costs about 75 cents per gallon to make ethanol at home. Adding 15 percent ethanol to $3 gasoline reduces the cost of a fill-up to $2.40 per gallon, McClanahan said.

A blend with 85 percent ethanol cuts the cost to $1.09 for a blended gallon, she said.

Sasher's stills, which stand about 6 feet tall and easily fit in an airy garage corner, sell for about $1,400 each. Blueprints each sell for about $45 and buyers who are good salvagers can build a still themselves for less than $1,000, McClanahan said.

Marrcus Mollenarro, a Kenosha, Wis., businessman, has bought one of Sasher's stills to make it cheaper to run his six personal and business vehicles.

"We don't have to use oil from the Middle East. There are options," Mollenarro said

Dubose Porter of Dublin, Ga., a state representative and editor of The Courier Herald, said the newspaper has ordered a still to help offset delivery costs.

"The still idea is intriguing for a small company like ours," he said.

Using ethanol to power cars isn't new. The Model T Ford was originally built to run on alcohol.

Sasher said any modern-day car can run on a mixture of 15 percent ethanol and 85 percent gasoline. Most vehicle engines can use blends of up to 25 percent ethanol.

More than 30 models of new flex-fuel cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles ? including General Motors' Yukon and Ford's Taurus ? can use up to 85 percent ethanol, known as E85 fuel.

McClanahan said most of her customers go to the gas pump "fill up 80 percent full and fill up the rest with alcohol."

Her company advises its customers to check their owner's manual and consult with the manufacturers to see what blend of ethanol their cars can use. The Web site http://www.e85fuel.com provides advice, too.

The Dogwood Energy still is one that Sasher, 57, developed by modifying designs that date to the 1970s gas shortages.

Its great advantage is cooking the mash at just the right temperature, 170 degrees, according to John Franklin, a former engine company design engineer and educator in Evansville, Ind., who has ordered two of the stills.

"If the temperature is too high then you are losing the alcohol. If it is too low you are not able to recover enough of that alcohol that is pure enough, that is fuel grade," Franklin said.

"It really isn't rocket science," Franklin said. "He makes it to where it is much more automated. He does that with that mechanical temperature control valve. That is half the expense of the still. His still is much more automated and much more precise."

Ethanol already is routinely added to gasoline in New York, Connecticut, California and the Midwest, and makes up about a third of the gas sold in the U.S., according to Kristin Brekke, a spokeswoman for the Sioux Falls, S.D.-based American Coalition of Ethanol.

Finding E85 gas is more of a problem. The 30 or so states with public E85 fueling stations are mostly in the corn belt.

Brekke said demand for ethanol is increasing, with about 4 billion gallons produced last year in the United States. With 97 plants producing and 34 under construction, output is expected to increase by about 1 billion gallons in 2006.

The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil industry, is all for putting ethanol into gasoline but questions the wisdom of doing it yourself.

"Normally when people fill up with gasoline with ethanol in it, it is blended by professionals," API spokesman Bill Bush said. "If we are talking about doing something other than that, by people who don't normally blend their own gasoline, that raises safety considerations."

McClanahan said no customers have reported accidents with the stills.

Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association that represents ethanol producers, has heard of Dogwood Energy.

"You've got to appreciate Americans' entrepreneurial spirit," he said.

He hasn't heard of anyone making homemade ethanol, though.

"The only ethanol I know being made at home is still the beverage," Hartwig said.

Brekke also doesn't know anyone using the still but she understands the motivation to buy one.

"People just want to do something to try and make the situation better as far as gas prices," Brekke said.

Russell Kanning