Re: GAS-L: Engine Experience

[Harmon Seaver <hseaver@cybershamanix.com>]

On Mon, Sep 02, 2002 at 01:42:02AM +0100, David Reynolds-Lacey wrote:
> Tom,
> 
> You've kind of taken the wind out of my sails with
> your post because those are some of the questions
> that I was going to ask as part of my next post. I
> was also going to raise some questions about steam
> turbines and flash steam as an viable? alternative
> to gasification but now that seems to be being
> covered briefly but are there any more comments on
> steam?
> 
> I  append the other questions that I was going to
> ask.
> 
> 
> What are the advantages of running a diesel engine
> on gas if gas is to be the sole fuel (can it be?),
> I presume the engine will need to be converted to
> spark, so would it be better to use a petroleum
> engine?

   No, you want the higher compression of the diesel. You can either convert to
spark or just run small amounts of biodiesel (or straight waste vegetable
oil) to provide ignition.

> Is there a stage when a gas turbine becomes
> preferable to a reciprocating engine?

    The gas turbines in sizes comparable to diesel truck engines (or even car
engines) don't seem to be anywhere nearly as efficient, and although they have a
lot less moving parts to wear out, the blades suffer badly from erosion and are
very expensive to replace. That's why so many people are interested in building
Tesla turbines -- obviously a turbine, if it were cheaper, longer lasting, and
even just as efficient (35%) as a diesel engine would be more desirable. 

> What additional problems (if any) can one expect
> with a gas turbine and does the gas need to be
> pre-processed in any different way to gas for a
> reciprocating engine?
> 
> Is it feasible to store producer gas?
> 
> David
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Harmon Seaver	
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com

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