Has anyone here ever looked into building a power plant for home use? I am looking into building either a bio diesel generator, steam generator or something in that order. Has anyone looked into or built anything like this?
>>907473
>hire a company to dig an oil well on ur proprety
>down there its hot, dump water, comes out as steam
>??
>profit!
>>907479
It's about 10 dollars a foot to drill here and the most anyone around can only drill about 200 feet. I would have to bring in someone from out of state, which would cost even more.
>>907473
depends entirely on the resources you have available.
do you have a free flowing stream on your property?
do you have lots of sunlight or wind where you live?
do you have a large spot of land to build some kind of power generation?
whats your budget?
how much power do you want?
>power plant
If you want to generate your own electricity it's incredibly simple to set up a windmill or solar panel set up.
You can also buy diesel generators, they're common in areas where the power can get knocked out in storms.
I don't know why you'd use biodiesel, or want to construct your own steam generator. Steam in particular is difficult to work with and can literally blow up in your face. A nice regular diesel or gasoline generator is better and you can store fuel in a nice certified tank somewhere on your property.
>>907494
I live in Upper tennessee with 300 acres, as far as a budget, I am a machinist with my own machine shop, so I can make most of the metal stuff also I am pretty decent with electronics. I have a good stream on my property but it is a good ways away from my house. I would like to completely power my 2700 square foot house.
>>907507
You cant run a diesel generator all day and consider it cost effective.
Atleast when you are producing your own fuel you are cutting a corner.
>>907540
For what purpose? If you're trying to get power more economically, it probably won't happen. You'll quickly find out that generating power reliably, in large amounts that's there when you need it and not being wasted when you don't is actually really hard. Getting off the electric grid is not going to pay for itself in any kind of financial terms.
If you want temporary power, like a backup generator, then getting a diesel generator is the way to go. Convert it to biodiesel if you want.
Assuming it's legal to dam your stream, you can probably rig up some kind of home made turbine. It certainly won't be big enough to power your house by itself though.
>>907637
It depends. If someone has a pond downstream or upstream they can take legal action if your dam causes their pond to dry up or overflow.If you live in the middle of nowhere and you have neighbors that don't have ponds/lakes then go ahead.
>>907914
Dams don't dry up ponds. What goes in must come out. Either through the turbine, through a bypass or over the top of the dam.
>>907920
Sorry, I forgot that this was a hydroelectric dam and not a dam that blocks the waterflow. I had to take action against a guy who blocked up a ditch here in Indiana. It caused my pond to get extremely high and almost flood my yard. I went down to him and told him what had happened and asked him to remove his "dam" which was a large pile of wood and trash. I thought it was a mistake or some kind of accident. He refused and told me he had blocked it so his woods would flood because he likes to duck hunt. I dropped a name of a lawyer known around here for being the best money could buy and I guess he realized that telling the judge "Sorry I blocked this public waterway, but I really wanted to poach these ducks without a license" wouldn't really hold up.
Would any one have a suggestion as far as building my own stator and magnet design
>>907473
The only one I have heard of that seems interesting other than the standard wind/water/solar power is wood gasification.
You can diy and hook it up to a regular generator for free power.
I have also heard the main issue with it, which is that the complex hydrocarbons can gum up the motor (If you're using a regular gasoline motor instead of a wood gas one), but that if you first make charcoal out of the wood and then gasify the charcoal, it is much less of an issue because those have already burned off.
This seems like it would work well for home use, especially setup with a good power system as an on-demand backup for when the batteries are low and there's no solar/wind to charge them, so your freezer doesn't let that deer meat go off.
It CAN be a cost savings, because a big part of the cost that would be paid for a company to compete would be for the tree farm, which for you is basically free.
No question hydro is more reliable with less work, but is hard to setup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYGKn12Weu4
>>907637
Solar is possible to do cheaper with the drop in the price of solar panels, it's just only available during the day on days with good sun. Wind is unreliable. Hydroelectric is an issue because it's expensive to get a dam up and most of the really good sites for it are already taken.
>>908140
Wood gasification seems like a likely winner, I am also looking at designing something like a vertical wind turbine just laid on its side for a water wheel. The creek starts on my land and bottle necks to a fast stream, I believe the water wheel would work out better then damming it up.
No OP, but does anyone know anything about methane Bio-disgesters or ever owned one? I have a homesteading book, but it's only one page of information and I'm having trouble finding solid numbers online.
How much manure do you use regularly? How many watts do you generate or do you just burn it for heat? How do you store it and pressurize it? Ever convert a car engine to run on it?
>>908557
I was looking in to using chicken manure but all of the Tyson chicken houses around me shut down. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SbcwpAYi2w4 I seen a great video on it, where they used ballon bladders then package the left overs for natural fertilizer. But I can't find it right now I will look more later.
>>908557
the gas itself creates the pressure.
by increasing in volume it pushes the slurry into the overflow tank. whose location is higher than the gas tank.
IIRC 10 meters is 1bar and regulair burners use like 20-30millibars.
should be like 30cm/1ft of height diffrence
>>908557
the concept is cheap, but it's not perfect. The slurry will get stuck and no new biomass will flow down, so you have to get down there and dig the hole free. No nice job, i guarantee
>>907473
microhydro is great if there's running water on the property
http://www.motherearthnews.com/renewable-energy/hydroelectric-power-systems.aspx
>>910004
All was solved long long ago via design. Also, you NEVER go into one of those units for any reason unless you have self contained breathing apparatus. One inhaled breath can knock you out and kill you. Hydrogen sulfide does not fuck around.
>>910006
Most systems have the microbes create their own heat by burning a portion of the gas to make heat to keep it warm. There needs to be a burn off tower anyway. You get more out of it than you put into it due to the microbes themselves.
>>908557
I've made several. Just small ones. The largest was a 55-gallon drum. The smallest was a 5 gallon bucket. It is super easy to make and get started. I used it only for cooking and heating. It was unpressurized and stored in tractor tire inner tubes, well as much pressure as those hold.
You can use just about any biomass source so long as the ratio is right. If you have an animal farm, mow the lawn, or divert your septic you'll have more than enough for domestic use. However, if you want to pressurize it into tanks for use in vehicles, that is a different matter entirely. Otherwise, you can use it fairly unpressurized for a generator.
Here:
http://en.planet-biogas.com/biogas/biogas-calculator/
http://www.biowattsonline.com/
>>907473
Hydro/Microhydro
Solar
Biomass (biogas methane, diesel, wood gasification)
People (some gyms have their machines wired to make power now)
Wind
Pick one.
Hydro/Microhydro.
I've not done these yet. The river here has way too many trees that tear everything up during the floods and nearly dry at other times. I'm considering a micro hydro plant on my gutter. It gets a great amount of water through it all the time. Nothing major, but enough to top off some ultracaps and small batteries for LEDs.
Solar
This is great for passive heating for home and water. I've used it only for water heating, home heating, and battery charging for electric fence and LED lights.
Biomass (biogas methane, diesel, wood gasification)
See >>910051 for biogas methane. I've not done anything else, but I really want to make a Sterling Engine for electric generation that can run off either passive solar or my woodstove.
People (some gyms have machines wired for making power)
I repurposed an old exercise bike into a recumbent bike generator. I really need to make one similar to the one in this video, with a flywheel and everything,
At 7m 40s Free Electric stage2innovations
https://youtu.be/YY7f1t9y9a0?t=461
Mine can only do about 35 watts right now until I make some design changes and add gears that can be changed. It can essentially trickle charge a car battery, not fun, but it can also charge all my ultracaps very quickly and easily.
Wind
I love making wind turbines. So far I've only been making little ones for charging things like AA batteries and ultracaps. I prefer VAWT design instead of HAWT design. Here's one I made form trash that charges a AA battery. Start small, learn, then build big.
With all the above things I've done, the biggest solution to energy and cost has been learning to turn things off and find non-electric hobbies. Saving and conserving energy has been far easier than creating it cheaply or without lots of work. Now my electric bill is around $30-$40USD.
oldie but a goodie kek
there was a serial killer who built a nuclear reactor in his parents garage...
>>911770
The boy scout turned SK?
>>911770
It was a garden shed, it never achieved critical mass, and he never killed anyone.
>>911882
>boy scout serial killer apologist
