GAS-L: Gases for domestic cooking

["Tom Reed" <tombreed@attbi.com>]

Dear Nandu et al:

 

PROPANE is my favorite 20th century fuel because

 

It burns very clean as a gas

It stores as a liquid at relatively low pressures (<15 atm, boiling point -42C)

It is self delivered (no fuel pump)

It has a very high energy both on a liquid, gas and weight basis

 

Unfortunately it is <3% of the oil barrel and as oil prices go up will be ever less available to those who need it least.  It can't be synthesized from other oil components or biomass.

 

DIMETHYL ETHER, DME is my favorite 21st Century fuel because 

 

It burns very clean as a gas and is being considered for diesel engines (and I suspect, spark)

It stores as a liquid at relatively low pressures (<15 atm, boiling point -42C)

It is self delivered (no fuel pump)

It has a very high energy both on a liquid, gas and weight basis

It is even easier to make from synthesis gas than methanol, my favorite liquid fuel

   

METHANE is not nearly so nice, because

 

It is a permanent gas (BP = -164C, lots of energy to liquefy, stored in VERY heavy cylinders), so hard to store

Pipelines cost >$10/mile.  Do you have any domestic methane in India?

Less than half the energy of propane

 

BIOGAS has most of the faults of methane with only 2/3 the energy due to 1/3 CO2 content.

 

However, I wonder if it isn't easier to liquefy than methane because the CO2 boils much higher AND MAY FORM A HYDRATE.

Does anyone know about this (i.e. Dendy Sloan)? 

 

PRODUCER GAS is the worst of this list because it contains 50% N2  BUT

It is very easily made by the air gasification of all sorts of biomass, and can be used locally for heat or power generation, a well proven technology (www.gocpc.com)

 

SYNTHESIS GAS in my favorite synthetic gas from biomass, since proven processes exist to make it into methanol, DME, diesel gasoline or ammonia, all the necessities of our current civilization.

 

Comments?

 

TOM REED                             BEF GASWORKS

 

Dr. Thomas B. Reed
1810 Smith Rd., Golden, CO 80401
tombreed@attbi.com; 303 278 0558 Phone/Fax

----- Original Message -----

From: A.D. Karve

To: stoves@crest.org

Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2002 10:38 AM

Subject: cooking devices for rural India

LPG has become popular all over India because of its extreme user friendliness.  Housewives have changed their ethnic and cultural cooking habits, scrapped their traditional cookpots and purchased new ones that suit the LPG stoves. Biogas has the same qualities as LPG but the biogas technology failed to become popular in India because everybody was supposed to make his own biogas. We are working towards establishing rural enterprises producing and selling biogas.  The so called community biogas plants have not at all been successful in India, but we feel that we have the right formula to make them successful. I am trying to get funding for establishing a pilot plant based on my ideas, and shall report about it when it gets going.

A.D.Karve