Wayne Keith is a modern-day woodgas pioneer, a "deacon" of the woodgas community, if you will. Back in 2008, Wayne and crew won second place in the Escape from Berkeley alternate fuel race.
I had the pleasure of spending Friday, November 19, 2010 with Wayne Keith and family. Wayne first demonstrated his woodgas F150 experimental platform, as well as his woodgas Dakota "daily driver". Later we took the Dakota out for a spin around the backroads of St. Clair County, Alabama. Then, Wayne decided we should "stretch its legs" a little, so onto the Interstate we went. With a good head of woodgas and about 640 F coming into the headache rack heat exchanger, we topped out at about 85 MPH - but only because of traffic! We just couldn't get the cars out of the way on the stretch we were running. But since that is almost twice the current official record of 47 MPH, so we decided to call it a day. If it looks like we were going fast in the video, it's because we were! As you will see, Wayne startled me a little when he took the exit ramp like he had a little Earnhardt in him. No, we didn't roll the Dakota - I just quit videoing. What a fun and instructive day! Many thanks to Mr. Wayne and his family!
Wayne Keith's unofficial woodgas world speed record video:
More on Woodgas
Woodgas is quite simply a combination of H2 & CO, with a little CH4 or other heavies, plus the N2 that comes along for the ride from the air. Woodgas is produced when wood is pyrolyzed and the products are partially combusted and then reduced, forming the CO and H2.
The "technique" of producing woodgas has its roots dating to the early 1700's. Those early 1800's gas lights in Paris and the US were not from gas wells, but rather from producer gas - aka town gas or hydro gas - which is a cousin to woodgas, and is usually produced from coal.
Woodgas burns with a beautiful pink/purple flare, and is conducive to higher compression and advanced timing setups when used in existing internal combustion engines.
Video of the pre-startup flare from a Power Pallet, at the October 2010 All Power Labs workshop:
Woodgas falls into the partial solution category, with respect to our coming liquid fuels crisis. Woodgas burns cleaner than gasoline or diesel, but it is problematic in terms of operation, at least in terms of the expectations of today's drivers, who expect to be able to turn the key and drive without another thought as to what is going on in the engine. Operating a gasifier and the related systems currently requires mechanical experience and attention to detail. However, it may be possible to work out some of these issues. Also, the difficulties of dealing with a gasifier might be more palatable when it is your only choice for getting from point A to point B in your vehicle.
As an example of this line of reasoning, the Department of Energy thought enough of woodgas as an emergency fuel that in 1989 their FEMA arm sponsored the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to design a makeshift woodgas generator which could be constructed out of commonly available materials - in this case metal trash cans and a stainless salad collander, and a few other parts! The resulting design was problematic in terms of tar production (not desirable for engines) so it is shunned in woodgas circles. However, the fact that the DOE was interested in the technique as a potential, partial solution to a severe petroleum shortage - should be instructive. Gasifiers were used to power approximately one million cars, buses, trucks, trains, boats and generators during WWII, in Europe (Egloff 1943).
We have referred to woodgas in a few prior posts:
The coming liquid fuels crisis: the natural gas partial solution.
Oilpatch engineer replies to peak oil activist.
Last month I attended a wonderfully interesting three day workshop on gasification at Jim Mason's All Power Labs in Berkeley, California. Jim has unselfishly created an open source project to further the development of woodgas, and All Power Labs now has several products available for developers. The Gasifier Experimenters Kit, or GEK, is available for purchase, as is the Power Pallet - a pallet-sized package consisting of a GEK supplying a 10 KW Kubota genset with woodgas. During the workshop, with the assistance of Jim's friendly and motivated young staff, I was able to help construct a GEK and a Power Pallet. We also witnessed an extended run of the Power Pallet - it is amazing to watch ordinary woodchips be converted into electricity on a small scale! I intend to "write up" the workshop - the people, the experience and the education - but have not yet had a chance to put the notes in final form. In the meantime, details of the workshop and some pictures and videos can be found on All Power's website:
http://www.gekgasifier.com/
Showing posts with label natural gas vehicles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label natural gas vehicles. Show all posts
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
NGV incentives: Are we making some progress here?
From Tom Whipple, 7/13/09 update:
"A bill to increase tax incentives for buying vehicles fueled by natural gas is making its way through Congress."
"A bill to increase tax incentives for buying vehicles fueled by natural gas is making its way through Congress."
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
The Coming Liquid Fuels Crisis: the Natural Gas (partial) Solution
Recently, Dr. Robert Hirsch wrote an article titled "Peak oil - what do we do now?". This brief but content-laden article opined that Peak Oil was essentially past tense, and it correctly implied that little mitigation has taken place, to date. The last paragraph included some mitigation action ideas, but notably missing was any mention of natural gas. Perhaps it was simply an oversight; but with a future liquid fuels/transportation fuels crisis in the works due to Peak Oil, citizens of the United States of America - and their leaders - need clarification.
The truth is, current natural gas prices confirm that there is a substantial surplus of natural gas deliverability in the United States. This surplus is largely due to a rapid development of several huge gas fields which were only discovered in the last several years. These new fields are often referred to as "resource plays", or "shale gas", or "unconventional gas". They are termed "unconventional" because they produce from rock that was formerly not believed capable of being a reservoir, and also due to the fact that this rock forms both the source and the trap for the natural gas.
The two largest of these plays are the Haynesville Shale, located in East Texas and Northwest Louisiana, and the Marcellus Shale, located primarily in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and West Virginia. The Haynesville might cover around 3.8 million acres and, according to Chesapeake Energy's Aubrey McClendon, it might become the world's largest gas field, with 1500 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of reserves in place. The Marcellus, according to Penn State's Terry Engelder, encompasses 31 million acres, and contain 363 TCF of gas in place. These two plays are only about 2 years old - essentially old enough to have a rough idea of their potential, but brand new from a depletion standpoint. Both of these plays are excellent from both the deliverability and reserves standpoint.
To put that combined 1863 TCF into perspective, the total annual consumption in the US is under 25 TCF. So, with a recovery factor of 50 %, these two fields alone could supply the US with gas at the current rate, for about 40 years. But wait, there are lots of other fields in the US, both conventional and unconventional. And, there are even two more large shale plays, the Fayetteville Shale and the Barnett Shale. In addition to these "Big 4" shale plays there are others which are in the early phases of exploration and development.
So now you are starting to understand why this author is perplexed when folks say that natural gas may be in short supply.
Many of us in the "Peak Oil community" believe that in 2008, the worldwide rate of oil production likely reached a level which, for all practical purposes, will never again be exceeded. In other words, we believe Peak Oil likely occurred in 2008. Dr. Hirsch, in the 2005 report he co-authored for the Department of Energy, said the following:
* "Initiating a mitigation crash program 20 years before peaking appears to offer the possibility of avoiding a world liquid fuels shortfall for the forecast period."
* "Initiating a mitigation crash program 10 years before world oil peaking helps considerably but still leaves a liquid fuels shortfall roughly a decade after the time that oil would have peaked."
* "Waiting until world oil production peaks before taking crash program action leaves the world with a significant fuel deficit for more than two decades." (emphasis added) Additionally, he went on to say, "Late initiation of mitigation may result in severe consequences."
Perhaps we could say that some of the actions taken over the last several years - due to oil price signals - would count for a year or two of preparation; essentially, though, we are set up for Dr. Hirsch's "severe consequences" scenario.
So, given:
* our status regarding preparation for/mitigation of Peak Oil (or
lack thereof).
* the current and near term surplus of natural gas, and the
intermediate and longer term "sufficient" supplies.
* the ease of converting existing vehicles to natural gas.
* the ease of delivering new, dual fuel NG/gasoline vehicles.
(aftermarket conversions, if necessary)
* the existing natural gas infrastructure in terms of transmission
and distribution lines.
* the current availability of small gas compressors for home use.
(yes, they are expensive for one user, but there could be
work-arounds)
* the immediate "commuter solution" (fuel at home, drive 40 miles, return) provided by natural gas vehicles using current, off-the-shelf parts versus the still-being-developed vehicular electrical storage solutions.
* the carbon advantage of natural gas versus coal. (half our
electrical production is from coal, and natural gas produces half
the carbon when burned, in comparison to coal)
* the efficiency losses of converting coal to electricity and
delivering it for use as a car fuel.
* the badly needed jobs provided by the exploration for and the production of natural gas, the conversion of existing vehicles, the production of new dual fuel vehicles and the construction of fueling infrastructure.
... this author doesn't understand why our "policy" does not include natural gas vehicles (NGV's), as at least a partial mitigation to the coming liquid fuels crisis?
One idea, in order to solve the commercial fueling station/NGV availability "Catch-22", would be to subsidize fleets - such as school districts - to immediately incorporate NGV's into some portion of their fleet, while making the resulting fueling infrastructure available to the public. In other words, don't do a full conversion of all gasoline and diesel fleet vehicles to natural gas; rather, let's hedge our bets and get some infrastructure going by converting some of our fleet vehicles to NGV's.
In summary, given the abundance of low carbon emitting, domestic natural gas, the likelyhood for future oil supply shortages and the easy conversion technology and the need for domestic jobs, it is difficult to understand why action is not being taken to promote NGV's as a partial solution.
Endnote: Natural gas should not be counted on for a total replacement of liquid fuels. As James Kunstler would say, we need to re-think "Happy Motoring". With respect to transportation, we need to implement conservation, carpooling and mass transit retrofits, and we need to re-design where/how we work and live. In addition, we need to push the development of algal and biomass fuels, but with consideration of their total environmental costs. We should be accelerating research on electrical storage devices for vehicles so that the plug-in hybrid and full electric car can become reality. In all of the above there are wonderful opportunities for good jobs and a great economy. Natural gas can serve as a clean, convenient, low carbon transition fuel while all of the above are being rapidly implemented. Finally, a natural gas vehicle can become a renewable fuel vehicle. Yes, the same engine that runs on methane produced from a gas well will also run on methane produced from cow manure or sewage sludge, or gas that is pyrolyzed from wood or biomass (1800's technology).
My belief is not that natural gas vehicles will reduce oil imports; rather, oil imports will be reduced by physics, namely "Peak Oil". Natural gas vehicles are simply a very effective tool to help mitigate the effects of the coming liquid fuels crisis - to help get our kids get to school, to help keep our country running - while we develop alternative transportation methods and lifestyles over a twenty year period.
We need to get rid of the divisiveness of, "fossil fuels bad, alternate energy good". Likewise, we need to avoid the reverse. For the next twenty years, we need BOTH fossil fuels and alternate energy.
The truth is, current natural gas prices confirm that there is a substantial surplus of natural gas deliverability in the United States. This surplus is largely due to a rapid development of several huge gas fields which were only discovered in the last several years. These new fields are often referred to as "resource plays", or "shale gas", or "unconventional gas". They are termed "unconventional" because they produce from rock that was formerly not believed capable of being a reservoir, and also due to the fact that this rock forms both the source and the trap for the natural gas.
The two largest of these plays are the Haynesville Shale, located in East Texas and Northwest Louisiana, and the Marcellus Shale, located primarily in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and West Virginia. The Haynesville might cover around 3.8 million acres and, according to Chesapeake Energy's Aubrey McClendon, it might become the world's largest gas field, with 1500 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of reserves in place. The Marcellus, according to Penn State's Terry Engelder, encompasses 31 million acres, and contain 363 TCF of gas in place. These two plays are only about 2 years old - essentially old enough to have a rough idea of their potential, but brand new from a depletion standpoint. Both of these plays are excellent from both the deliverability and reserves standpoint.
To put that combined 1863 TCF into perspective, the total annual consumption in the US is under 25 TCF. So, with a recovery factor of 50 %, these two fields alone could supply the US with gas at the current rate, for about 40 years. But wait, there are lots of other fields in the US, both conventional and unconventional. And, there are even two more large shale plays, the Fayetteville Shale and the Barnett Shale. In addition to these "Big 4" shale plays there are others which are in the early phases of exploration and development.
So now you are starting to understand why this author is perplexed when folks say that natural gas may be in short supply.
Many of us in the "Peak Oil community" believe that in 2008, the worldwide rate of oil production likely reached a level which, for all practical purposes, will never again be exceeded. In other words, we believe Peak Oil likely occurred in 2008. Dr. Hirsch, in the 2005 report he co-authored for the Department of Energy, said the following:
* "Initiating a mitigation crash program 20 years before peaking appears to offer the possibility of avoiding a world liquid fuels shortfall for the forecast period."
* "Initiating a mitigation crash program 10 years before world oil peaking helps considerably but still leaves a liquid fuels shortfall roughly a decade after the time that oil would have peaked."
* "Waiting until world oil production peaks before taking crash program action leaves the world with a significant fuel deficit for more than two decades." (emphasis added) Additionally, he went on to say, "Late initiation of mitigation may result in severe consequences."
Perhaps we could say that some of the actions taken over the last several years - due to oil price signals - would count for a year or two of preparation; essentially, though, we are set up for Dr. Hirsch's "severe consequences" scenario.
So, given:
* our status regarding preparation for/mitigation of Peak Oil (or
lack thereof).
* the current and near term surplus of natural gas, and the
intermediate and longer term "sufficient" supplies.
* the ease of converting existing vehicles to natural gas.
* the ease of delivering new, dual fuel NG/gasoline vehicles.
(aftermarket conversions, if necessary)
* the existing natural gas infrastructure in terms of transmission
and distribution lines.
* the current availability of small gas compressors for home use.
(yes, they are expensive for one user, but there could be
work-arounds)
* the immediate "commuter solution" (fuel at home, drive 40 miles, return) provided by natural gas vehicles using current, off-the-shelf parts versus the still-being-developed vehicular electrical storage solutions.
* the carbon advantage of natural gas versus coal. (half our
electrical production is from coal, and natural gas produces half
the carbon when burned, in comparison to coal)
* the efficiency losses of converting coal to electricity and
delivering it for use as a car fuel.
* the badly needed jobs provided by the exploration for and the production of natural gas, the conversion of existing vehicles, the production of new dual fuel vehicles and the construction of fueling infrastructure.
... this author doesn't understand why our "policy" does not include natural gas vehicles (NGV's), as at least a partial mitigation to the coming liquid fuels crisis?
One idea, in order to solve the commercial fueling station/NGV availability "Catch-22", would be to subsidize fleets - such as school districts - to immediately incorporate NGV's into some portion of their fleet, while making the resulting fueling infrastructure available to the public. In other words, don't do a full conversion of all gasoline and diesel fleet vehicles to natural gas; rather, let's hedge our bets and get some infrastructure going by converting some of our fleet vehicles to NGV's.
In summary, given the abundance of low carbon emitting, domestic natural gas, the likelyhood for future oil supply shortages and the easy conversion technology and the need for domestic jobs, it is difficult to understand why action is not being taken to promote NGV's as a partial solution.
Endnote: Natural gas should not be counted on for a total replacement of liquid fuels. As James Kunstler would say, we need to re-think "Happy Motoring". With respect to transportation, we need to implement conservation, carpooling and mass transit retrofits, and we need to re-design where/how we work and live. In addition, we need to push the development of algal and biomass fuels, but with consideration of their total environmental costs. We should be accelerating research on electrical storage devices for vehicles so that the plug-in hybrid and full electric car can become reality. In all of the above there are wonderful opportunities for good jobs and a great economy. Natural gas can serve as a clean, convenient, low carbon transition fuel while all of the above are being rapidly implemented. Finally, a natural gas vehicle can become a renewable fuel vehicle. Yes, the same engine that runs on methane produced from a gas well will also run on methane produced from cow manure or sewage sludge, or gas that is pyrolyzed from wood or biomass (1800's technology).
My belief is not that natural gas vehicles will reduce oil imports; rather, oil imports will be reduced by physics, namely "Peak Oil". Natural gas vehicles are simply a very effective tool to help mitigate the effects of the coming liquid fuels crisis - to help get our kids get to school, to help keep our country running - while we develop alternative transportation methods and lifestyles over a twenty year period.
We need to get rid of the divisiveness of, "fossil fuels bad, alternate energy good". Likewise, we need to avoid the reverse. For the next twenty years, we need BOTH fossil fuels and alternate energy.
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