Power Generation General

[Cirrhosis_of_Liver]

You're definitely losing nitrogen with that cycle, but all the places I've encountered bamboo have been very soggy, so maybe that won't be too limiting? I imagine most micronutrients would still be in the ash, and I know ash has a goodly amount of phosphorus and potassium. Does it have enough to be an endless cycle? That would be really neat. Definitely a plant nerd question far above my paygrade.

 

[Doctor Love]

You're definitely losing nitrogen with that cycle, but all the places I've encountered bamboo have been very soggy, so maybe that won't be too limiting?

It doesn't need to be endless, and bamboo isn't fussy from what I know.

Property maintenance is one of those dynamics, where you can either think of it in terms of the present - where you can buy fertiliser - or the worst case - where you can just... grow bamboo elsewhere and steal the trees from your dead neighbours.

Bamboo isn't the only one, obviously you can go for cereal crops, sugar, vegetables - nigger, you asked for power generation and I said the first things that popped up. Easy bamboo, or the highest yield, algae blasted with a healthy amount of carbon monoxide for synthetic fuels and shit.

 

[Roman Guman]

Get rooftop solar panels (and an EV while you are at it).
>but I will need to fill the entire roof with panels to match my consumption.
And?
They will pay for themselves eventually, even if everything goes fine.
Gas generator will never ever make financial return on the investment.

The first thing that runs out or gets rationed is fuel. Look at England shortly after Brexit - half the gas stations had no fuel.
You will also need spare parts, oil, fluids, etc.
Ramshackle wood gasifier is a nice gimmick that might be useful in some fantastical scenario, but you will almost certainly never use it and will absolutely ruin the engine in the long run with coke buildup and corrosion (wood gas is not just CO, it's also NOx and sulphuric acid - that's why smoke irritates your eyes).
If you think a generator burning corrosive wood gas will outlast solar panels with no moving parts, I don't know what to tell you.

Also, get a fireplace or stove of some sort. Solar panels will work in winter, you probably would want to get warmer than it can provide on short winter days.

 

[I Digivolved Into A Loli?]

You're definitely losing nitrogen with that cycle, but all the places I've encountered bamboo have been very soggy, so maybe that won't be too limiting? I imagine most micronutrients would still be in the ash, and I know ash has a goodly amount of phosphorus and potassium. Does it have enough to be an endless cycle? That would be really neat. Definitely a plant nerd question far above my paygrade.

I don't think ash by itself would have the required nutrients, but what is stopping you from adding anything other things to your soil?

Say you had a little plot of bamboo that you grow for fuel. You could have some chickens that graze off of that plot for the bugs that will live in the shade of the bamboo. The chickens poop into the ground. Ground is fertilized. Now you've killed two self-sufficiency birds with one stone by having one of your food-generating systems feed into one of your fuel-generating systems.

 

[Cirrhosis_of_Liver]

It doesn't need to be endless, and bamboo isn't fussy from what I know.

If you don't get why growing bamboo to burn it, then fertilizing it with its ash in an endless loop is a cool idea, you're not invited to my birthday party.

 

[Jotch]

Get rooftop solar panels (and an EV while you are at it).
>but I will need to fill the entire roof with panels to match my consumption.
And?
They will pay for themselves eventually, even if everything goes fine.
Gas generator will never ever make financial return on the investment.

The first thing that runs out or gets rationed is fuel. Look at England shortly after Brexit - half the gas stations had no fuel.
You will also need spare parts, oil, fluids, etc.
Ramshackle wood gasifier is a nice gimmick that might be useful in some fantastical scenario, but you will almost certainly never use it and will absolutely ruin the engine in the long run with coke buildup and corrosion (wood gas is not just CO, it's also NOx and sulphuric acid - that's why smoke irritates your eyes).
If you think a generator burning corrosive wood gas will outlast solar panels with no moving parts, I don't know what to tell you.

Also, get a fireplace or stove of some sort. Solar panels will work in winter, you probably would want to get warmer than it can provide on short winter days.

I agree using gasoline for power will lose you money and will net you serious issues if things get bad. But it is a good short term solution, diesel/propane being good mid term solutions. And woodgas being a good long term solution.

I personally like woodgas because any source of carbon will work, so long as you do not find yourself in a complete barren wasteland you will always have some power available.
As to putting acids into the engine, I agree.
But I was under the impression however that running the output through a water bubbler stage would effectively clean the output since any nitric outputs would react with the water to form nitric acid, and sulphuric acid was very attracted to water. If there another step that would be needed to protect the engine?

 

[Doctor Love]

But I was under the impression however that running the output through a water bubbler stage would effectively clean the output since any nitric outputs would react with the water to form nitric acid, and sulphuric acid was very attracted to water. If there another step that would be needed to protect the engine?

It would need oil, maintenance and other generic shit. It's an "okay" power source, but unlike other sources - a gasifier is pretty much the most important thing you could get your hands on, for its versatility.

And yes, you can clean it that way - but for efficiency's sake, you should try to recycle as much heat as you can. Heat exchanger for the outlet/inlet before you try to filter it through wastewater.

Acid gases are also able to be neutralised through hydroxides, so you can spray it with potassium hydroxide, so "wood ash solution" - I'll be frank, I have no fucking clue if they're included in marketable ones.

Spoiler: additional boners

Iron Oxide and Carbon Monoxide make a thermite reaction, that's not super hot, but still releases heat. You don't need a massive source of energy to actually refine most metals, a gasifier is, essentially, a blast furnace. They work by blasting hot carbon monoxide to reduce the iron, like with thermite.

Gasifiers are unbelievably versatile, hence my fondness - you can also reduce SO2/NO2 into S/N2 with CO-CO2. If you are concerned about any kind of waste, though, if your CO is hot enough or if you burn it a little bit and blast it like a jet through water, you'll remove most impurities and get plenty of Hydrogen instead. Hydrogen is a bastard and actually would damage it.

Ramshackle wood gasifier is a nice gimmick

Ramshackle?

Get rooftop solar panels (and an EV while you are at it).

Yup. Even just having a box of motors would go a long way, I've made some good uses of mine.

If you think a generator burning corrosive wood gas will outlast solar panels with no moving parts, I don't know what to tell you.

You're right, kinda, it's the hydrogen that fucks up engines, though.

I actually do agree, though, for most people - but for people who don't have large tracts of land, it's best to have access to both. They aren't mutually exclusive - even the bamboo can be used in conjunction with solar panels.

Infact, you can put the solar panels on top of a shed. All it would do is make whatever resources you have, last longer.

 

[God's drunkest driver]

An important consideration for solar is shading, depending on the panel type even shading from a few branches or a pole can significantly cut power output despite not obscuring much of the panel. I have a small (<8kW) rooftop solar installation and a built from spares and a small engine generator. I pushed my treeline back and saw a significant increase in power in the morning because the long shadows were no longer obscuring about the bottom 6th of one row of my panels. I have no delusions of ever being able to run that generator long term if there were a collapse or a civil war, it's more for outages due to weather. Multi-fuel is useful for a home generator, mine will run on gas/propane or gasoline with a little bit of tweaking because it's a fuel injected engine with a gas carburetor as a throttle body.

Water power vanished the instant steam engines where invented. They are not practical for generating a useful amount of power unless you are building a big fucking waterwheel. Like something big enough that will show up on google earth and get the state's attention.

That depends. How much power do you need for your post collapse life? How much water flow do you have? You can easily charge a battery bank to run more power hungry items or run small appliances off of a small water turbine/wheel if you have a decent amount of water flow. An example of this from a fairly popular youtuber. It can supplement wind and solar, and it's good to have multiple power sources available anyway.

 

[Roman Guman]

Ramshackle?

To my knowledge you cannot buy a wood gasifier anywhere. All examples I've seen some diy abomination from dented barrels and rusty soup cans hooked up to engine rescued from junkyard. For a good reason. Modern direct fuel injection turboengines would die even faster than atmospheric carburetor engine. So you would need to butcher some vintage car, a 2002 eco-box won't do.

Washing it first is doable (it's how hookah works), but that water soon becomes dilute acid soon enough (adding ash or lime would indeed help). But any filter means you are losing pressure on outlet. Not to mention you are adding water vapor into your air-fuel mix. The wood gas is hot and the water will start to boil. That's not good either. And you cannot really eliminate coking that will gum up the engine from inside. You are probably right about embrittlement being an issue, personally I'm not sure if that's the main issue here.
Yeah, you can technically run engine or generator on wood gas, but that's definitely not a long term solution.

I personally like woodgas because any source of carbon will work, so long as you do not find yourself in a complete barren wasteland you will always have some power available.

That's another point - Solar panels do work in a completely barren wasteland.
Yeah, I know gay libtards like solar panels, so that's a moral issue, but they do work without any inputs (other than sun).
You don't need to cut down trees, chop them up, dry your firewood, periodically change oil/filters, scrape off coke/tar and whatever else there is - all that is a lot more work than you probably realize, work that could be spent more productively.

 

[Doctor Love]

Water power vanished the instant steam engines where invented. They are not practical for generating a useful amount of power unless you are building a big fucking waterwheel. Like something big enough that will show up on google earth and get the state's attention.

Water "wheels" aren't, but not because water power is gone. We don't use big ass wooden wheels anymore, because the science has moved past it. You don't need a big wheel, you can use a pipe and gravity.

Hydro is 1/6th of the global supply. It depends primarily on height - the head of the fluid body is more important than anything else. So yeah, if this guy lives near a big hill, he could dig a pond/reservoir on the top and let it go at the bottom. Run that through a small turbine, it would work.



This one's a low speed, wide-mouth type for low heights. It's literally a waterwheel.

I'm going to be buying some land soon and I'm curious if I should add access to some brook or stream to my list of demands for the realtor.

So you should, firstly, always have access to water for non-power related reasons. It's free water. Power - eh, you shouldn't depend on it - but a big stream which isn't going to flood you is a benefit in any circumstance. That's not because it's impossible or lacks viability, it's just that shit's expensive and niche and you have problems like "oh the only lubricant this will accept is too high in some shit and the council won't let me use it"

Look for a higher elevation difference - if this is up in the mountains and there's a 100m difference between the water source and the edge of your property, absolutely - at those levels, 50-100L/s, so a pipe that's only got a square foot in "cross-sectional area", is going to be worth up to 50KW. But a water wheel isn't really how it's done, these days - you still could but a wild running stream isn't as efficient as a big hydroelectric turbine.

It's something where, if you have it, you can use it - it's a "good idea" but also a catastrophic ballache.

To my knowledge you cannot buy a wood gasifier anywhere

I know what you mean man, dw. I'm talking from the perspective of either someone with a lot of money, or a lot of autistic attention to detail and tools, and aiming to fortify their property with bespoke shit while yours is more liveable.

Modern direct fuel injection turboengines would die even faster than atmospheric carburetor engine

CO would still work with gas generators, and you can cut the CO/H2 with woodgas to increase the inflow temperature, so you can squeeze out some more from your gas. Liquid engines can also work with propane with the same problems, it just depends on how much you're willing to sacrifice vehicles for the sake of practice.

 

[Oxyjen]

But a water wheel isn't really how it's done, these days - you still could but a wild running stream isn't as efficient as a big hydroelectric turbine.

Often a property with a decent stream will have an old mill on it, with lade, waterwheel and all that. Restoring the waterwheel can be an easy way to get a couple of kW out of a low head stream - and because it’s pre-existing you won’t have to beg local government and jump through hoops.
1 or 2 kW continuous is plenty of power for a home, especially combined with batteries and inverter, and a bit of solar to cover times when you need to stop the hydro for maintenance etc.

 

[Doctor Love]

Often a property with a decent stream will have an old mill on it, with lade, waterwheel and all that.

Yes, that's very good, too. You can also make artificial streams if you can dig a big ass pond.

 

[Troon_Patrol]

I'm dealing with a property that has a lot of grid reliability issues to due to the remote area. The 240AC lines are becoming so unreliable at times it's simply more convenient to go to the generator. I'd like to wire up this portable generator to the house main panel and use that instead of the grid losing power for 2-3 seconds or just long enough to shut down a PC make a modem reset etc and make me wait to reboot everything.

What I'm looking for is a very high amperage relay system (preferably weatherproof) where I can flip switch and cut the entire house off the grid/meter and onto my 240VAC generator instantly as in nothing loses power long enough to have to run around the house resetting the porch light automatic timer, stove clock and most important the modem/PC losing power and forcing a shut down in communication. Does what I'm looking for actually exist?

 

[Alex Hogendorp]

Our family has been planning on putting up solar panels on our roof along with other people in our neighborhood. We still have yet to install ours though.

 

[indomitable snowman]

What I'm looking for is a very high amperage relay system (preferably weatherproof) where I can flip switch and cut the entire house off the grid/meter and onto my 240VAC generator instantly as in nothing loses power long enough to have to run around the house resetting the porch light automatic timer, stove clock and most important the modem/PC losing power and forcing a shut down in communication. Does what I'm looking for actually exist?

UPS would be good for the PC and modem to keep them up. I think it would be prohibitively expensive for a whole house UPS.

 

[Badungus Kabungus]

UPS would be good for the PC and modem to keep them up. I think it would be prohibitively expensive for a whole house UPS.

Yeah, if the only requirement is to give a few devices time to gracefully shut down, the best option would most likely be a couple of UPSes spread around the house.

But if you want to build on that and later on add solar panels or some other form of power generation then may as well start setting up a proper battery bank with a boost controller, should be possible to set up a switch like described.

 

[Troon_Patrol]

If I were too fire up the generator connect a high amperage 240 AC switch the the home and then disconnect from the grid AFTER connecting my generator would that cause a power surge? As in my 110-120 outlets damaging my electronic devices if a generator making 240VAC and a the grid were connected simultaneously?

My understanding is the current in the wall would remain 240VAC and 120 VAC and not double if I connected a generator and a grid simultaneously. Do I have this correct? Once again to clarify I am trying to obtain uninterrupted power and obviously avoid a surge that would damage anything. I Know there are generators that have built in batteries and sensors when the main grid goes down they sense it and kick on with their own electric starters. There's about 3 -5 seconds between grid off-generator-on of course. Maybe I'm asking a lot but, I just want to be able to switch between grid and a generator and not have the modem reboot or have my PC shutdown and other shit around the home.

 

[IdiotPlusPlus]

Does what I'm looking for actually exist?

An ATS Panel sounds like what you need, the thing they use to switch to battery/generators backup power automatically when there is a power cut

https://www.regency-generators.co.uk/kb/article/581

Edit: Just saw the follow up

I Know there are generators that have built in batteries and sensors when the main grid goes down they sense it and kick on with their own electric starters. There's about 3 -5 seconds between grid off-generator-on of course.

You can also get a UPS inverter(AC-DC-AC), to smooth over the transition, so you would go ATS->UPS->House, that way the UPS only has to cover the load till the Genset kicks on, plus the Inverter can do power smoothing to clean up the output of the Genset if it's a bit dirty.

 

[Jotch]

If I were too fire up the generator connect a high amperage 240 AC switch the the home and then disconnect from the grid AFTER connecting my generator would that cause a power surge? As in my 110-120 outlets damaging my electronic devices if a generator making 240VAC and a the grid were connected simultaneously?

Connecting your generator to the grid is a really bad idea, for a couple reasons. First and foremost is that your generator will almost certainly be out of phase with the grid, meaning they will fight and the grid will definitely win.
Or a breaker will trip depending if you put one in.
The generator is justified onto the live line as well, so if you connected it to the grid in-phase and the voltage wave was a match you would actually act like a generator to the grid. But any disagreement in voltage would mean a rush of current back and forth to force the generator into correct position. You would be connecting another source in parrallel, so the voltage would be unchanged, and if at any moment the voltage was higher in once source than the other, the higher voltage source would "power" the lower voltage source.
Second, if there is a power outage you could ruin the day of/piss off anyone working on the lines by suddenly energizing them when they were supposed to be isolated.

Use break before make switches, they are ubiquitous for good reason. I liie the AC-DC-AC option because it allows for a lot of versatility. Like load averaging to avoid statistical analysis attacks on your power usage. Or the use of any other DC power sources without further retrofit, say if you get solar panels.

 

[Core1036]

When I first considered backup power I wanted a full house thing but at the same time, you realistically don't need 250A all the time. I do have a large industrial Generac diesel generator, but not everyone wants to have one or has the space, time, money to install and maintain it.
I find solar and lithium-ion storage works really well, since panels have been going up in efficiency and down in price, and so MPPT charge controllers and other solar kit. If you really want a "just works" solution then there are combo units (charger + inverter + battery + protection + logic) from companies you probably aleady know, but I would rather stick with racked up systems from Victron Energy, MPP Solar, SMA and Ericsson. If you buy something, please make sure it has RS485 and actually connect and configure it properly as monitoring is what keeps it from failing on you when you need it the most or setting your structure on fire.

In terms of what you power, I would say it should be the bare minimum (Network, NAS, CCTV, food refrigiration and climate control in one room where you will go to, ideally that is also your safe room) you need and have some reserve capacity to charge your battery powered things, and run small loads such as a laptop when you need it. Everyone has different priorities depending on location, building, climate and preference so if you are considering the solar option you would have to set your priorities based on your risks.