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[jimmason]

we've been having a debate over on the bioenergy gasification list about what to call the gas made via air blown gasification (the type that produces a low energy density nitrogen diluted gas like we all are making).  various cases have been made for the relative merits of syngas, wood gas, producer gas, suction gas, generator gas, etc.

without reviewing the grueling details  of the debate, here's a post i made with statistics on actual usage in the world which i thought might entertain the nerdy here.

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below are some interesting tools to look at word use and search
frequency both in books and online.  of course frequency does not =
meaning, but seeing the use history and current trends of these terms
is interesting and at times quite revealing where things have been and
are going.

the first one is the new google book term frequency tool which has
humanities professors yelling apostasy in news articles daily.  as
these are ultimately my people, i feel their pain.  but still, the
tool and resulting charts are much better than the previous nothing we
had (or at least helpful in confirming ones biases).

i generated the chart with the following terms: wood gas,producer
gas,syngas,suction gas,water gas,gasifier,gasification,biochar.  this
is 1870 to 2008.  there is near nothing pre 1870, which makes sense.

http://ngrams.google...s=0&smoothing=3

note the early 1900s spike in "water gas" and "producer gas", then a
precipitious decline.  then the big spike in "gasifier" and
"gasification" around 1980.  (tom reed, did you really publish that
much back then?).  syngas is non existent until 1975 (casting some
doubt on its claimed long standing meaning and use) and shows a steady
rise since.  wood gas and producer gas aren't moving much either way.
biochar is making fast progress.  gasification continues to top the
charts and sully the others.

here you can see more detail in the 1970 to 2010 range.

http://ngrams.google...s=0&smoothing=3

it is easy to redraw the chart to explore the periods and terms you want.


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now for online content.

here's the google return for the average online search term frequency
per month.  sadly, my favorite term of all of them, "biomass thermal
conversion" is off the bottom of the chart.  if there is any
term/phrase that deserves our proactive attention, it is this one, as
it is the most descriptive and generally accurate umbrella term for
our broad endeavor.

otherwise, the online frequency numbers are in the same general order
as what we see in books in contemporary times, though wood gas gets a
bit of a boost online, and producer gas gets a bit of a demotion.
compare and interpret the other words and numbers yourself below.

gasification     90,500
gasifier           40,500
wood gas       40,500
biochar           27,100
syngas           22,200
producer gas  6,600
synthesis gas 4,400
suction gas    720
biomass thermal conversion      210

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now if you want to see how these search terms have change overtime
online (at least from 2004 to now), you can look at the google search
term frequency tool.  you can only do 5 terms at a time here, but you
get a chart similar to what you get with the book tool.  this
particular search link compares: woodgas, syngas, producer gas,
gasifier and gasification

http://www.google.co...date=all&sort=0

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again, this says NOTHING about meaning.  meaning is famously
interpretative.  nonetheless it is interesting to see the trends of
what is getting used and not used.

and finally, we all might try to remember what confucius said several
millenia ago:  "man who try hold back tides of language get very wet".
or something like that.  (ok, yes, i made that up . . . ;-)  )

j