Gasification PowerExchange Workshop #6:
GEK Building and 10kw Genset Configuration

Gasification Lecture and Demo: Friday, October 23, 7:30-9:30PM
Building and Testing: Saturday and Sundday, October 24-25, 11am – 7pm
Location: ALL Power Labs, 1010 Murray Street. Berkeley, CA
Contact: jim ^at^ allpowerlabs.org
Cost: FREEMore Info: http://www.gekgasifier.com

ALL Power Labs is starting a quarterly series of free gasifier workshop weekends to help bring more people to successful operation of small scale gasifiers. These workshops are open to GEK user/owners, as well as anyone with any other type of gasifier- or just a budding interest in the whole thing.  If you have a GEK and want personal instruction in how to run it, or you want to build a GEK with oversight from the mothership, this workshop will be a great opportunity to do either.

Hello everyone, here’s the latest news from All Power Labs on our work with gasification and biochar.  We got some great news coverage, better assembly and first fire instructions, more user reports, and as always more research and testing data.  It’s all part of our ongoing mission to put the information and tools in your hands, so you can make it yourself, or make it run even better.

Hope you enjoy, and as always feel free to get in touch with any questions, feedback, or user reports, and of course it’s always good to check in on what’s happening in our forums: http://gekgasifier.com/forums/

-All Power Labs.

1- Farm Show magazine reports on the GEK, calls us “a leader in turning wood and other biomass into fuel” and “a leader in putting syngas to work.”

If you’re not familiar with Farm Show magazine, you should be. A sort of how-to bible among people in the agricultural community, it’s an advertising-free monthly covering the latest inventions and innovations that are of interest to farmers, which is why hearing they wanted to write about us was so exciting.

To see a full size image of the story you can read, click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/68943702@N00/3926992124/in/pool-allpowerlabs

This story, and what he wrote, was all the more important given that the writer, Jim Ruen, has been covering this issue for a long time. In fact, he wrote an article about gasification for The Farmer magazine way back in the 1980′s, so we feel pretty honored to get that kind of feedback.

Note: there was one typo in the story; it referred to a complete system as costing $5,000. The GEK Level IV is $2495, but closer to $5,000 with all the add ons like the pyrocoil heat exchanger, automated fuel auger, and Gasification Control Unit.

2: Better support: new and improved instructions:

Our Chemist In Residence, Jay Hasty, has cranked out a whole bunch of new instruction info, on how to assemble and fire up your GEK.

The Assembly Instruction are here:  http://gekgasifier.pbworks.com/How-to-Build-and-Run-the-GEK-Gasifier

and the First Fire instructions are here: http://gekgasifier.pbworks.com/First-Run+Start-Up+Instructuions+for+GEK+v30

We’ve already gotten great feedback on them, like this posted on our wiki: “Great techie info with honest performance expectations., thanx and well done, Gents, Graham”

3: GEK Powered Thing Conquers The Rocky Mountains!

Frank Mannix in Colorado is at it again. This week, he sent in a photo of himself driving his GEK-powered VW Thing over the 11, 307 foot Berthoud Pass high in the Colorado Rockies!

Frank writes:

“Please post this picture, taken this afternoon, Thursday Sept 17 after I made it to the top of
Berthoud Pass 11,307. My house is at 8665 ft, which makes the climb over 2750 feet
in approx 15 miles, average grade over 6%(it’s downhill to Fraser, then up)

The GEK performed flawlessly going up hill, but I always have trouble going downhill,
and had to boost it with gas a few times (3 or 4 ticks of the electric fuel pump)
It’s like the throttle being closed down strangles it.
But it flies uphill (steady load- wide open – 2nd or 3rd gear,
and I even get some reaction from my “carburetor”- the butterfly valve.
Usually, I am on full woodgas- I suspect I have some vacuum leaks.

Frank”

4: Avalanche of hard data from the APL skunkworks continues

Bear Kaufman in our research lab continues to churn out impressive testing and analysis. His latest: a complete run down on a hopper of soft wood chips.  If you’re into this sort of thing, you’re going to love it. Here’s an image from the test, link to all the hard data below.

http://gekgasifier.pbworks.com/Instrumented-Softwood-Chip-Run-091609

That’s it for this week. Thanks for your interest and support.

-All Power Labs

Here’s the latest news from All Power Labs and our ongoing work in gasification.  We’re happy to announce the sale of our 100th unit, and even happier to unveil our latest design innovation, the “Tower Of Total Thermal Integration”, (aka: the “Hot TOTTI”) and point you in the direction of some of our testing data of late.

GEK turns 100
Actually, make that 107. We’ve just sold the 107th GEK, a pretty incredible number considering we started just over a year ago trying to help give people tools for open source power hacking.  Here’s a map of the world showing they’ve ended up:  http://tr.im/uwKI And for those who are curious, #100 is heading to the USDA Coastal Plains Soil, Water, and Plants Research Center.  Very interesting folks down there, check ‘em out here:  http://tr.im/uNSN

This brings to 12 the number of research facilities or universities which have ordered the GEK to pursue their research in gasification. The others include: Lamberton College (Ontario); University of Alaska, Fairbanks; Ashton University (UK), Maharashtra Institute of Technology (India); University of California, Merced; University of Minnesota, Morris; Louisiana State University; Mississippi State University; Morrissville State (New York); and the University of Rome (Italy).

We’re now working to build a platform specifically for research facilities, so results are sharable and comparable between sites, and published research is augmented through a common test bed.  Best of all, we’re keeping the equipment inexpensive, so those outside the University can work on top of the same test bed.  This commonality of test bed, and growing network of serious users, promises many good things to come for gasification and pyrolysis.

Our work was recently used as the basis for a project by the Denver Zoo, to power their new Asian Tropics exhibit, using elephant dung for fuel. You can see a video of that project, showing our GEK and auger, by clicking the link below:

Introducing the TOTTI: the Tower Of Total Thermal Integration
As you likely know, there are a few general pathways for solving the known problems of gasification. One school of thought focuses on filtration–add enough of it, and you’ll eventually get cleaner gas. We’re focusing on another approach– fix the problem in the reactor itself, with improved hearth configurations and thermal recycling systems, and avoid having to build a long train of compensatory vessels.  Here’s our latest effort in this regard:

Larger photos here:
http://gekgasifier.pbworks.com/Tower-of-Total-Thermal-Integration

From Jim Mason:
“The waste heat in output syngas and IC engine exhaust has tremendous potential for augmenting the various “thermally challenged” processes in a gasifier.  By well recycling and reusing these “waste heats”, we can remove the majority, if not the totality, of all the “thermal drags” on the combustion zone in the gasifier.  The result is higher combustion and cracking temperatures for improved tar conversion, increased tolerance for high moisture fuels, and increased total gasifier efficiency.

The GEK Tower of Total Thermal Integration (TOTTI) demonstrates a powerful new method to achieve this full thermal integration of waste heats in a gasifier and IC engine system, and do so in a compact and easy-to-build form factor.  Full thermal integrations are common on large-scale gasification equipment What is new here is a method and apparatus to achieve the same at the small and mid scale.  The usual attempt at this solution is to throw the entire kitchen sink at the problem– building a long train of filters, exchangers and cooler components, all tied together with a mess of plumbing and condensate management.  And the result is always a complex and expensive system only a government bureaucrat could love (or afford).

ALL Power Labs now demonstrates the same can be achieved through an economical combination of counter-flow vessels, directly mounted to each other, without a large elaboration of redistribution plumbing or auxillary vessels.  All waste heat is reused and returned to appropriate temp processes. Cool things are made hot and hot things are made cool, in sync and in order– thus there is no need for the usual radiator/cooler/condenser at the end to hide your “thermal sins”.

The GEK Tower of Total Thermal Integration is the culmination of all our air pre-heating, heated auger and PyroCoil work of late.  It is our best solution, and likely final answer, for establishing the correct total system thermal relationships, while also attending to the rest of the 3-D thermal-chemical-mechanical-gravimetric puzzle that is gasifier design.”

More design data and images available here:
http://gekgasifier.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134

In Lab Testing Results:
Our own Bear Kaufman and chemist-in-residence Jay Hasty have been doing some very impressive testing on GEKs using various fuels. Here’s an image from one just this week, you really should stop by here and check them all out.  Their goal: figure out what fuel runs best at what configuration, then share that with everyone else. Details here: http://gekgasifier.pbworks.com/Walnut-Shell-Run-072709

We also wanted to let you know about a new video series we’re starting, called Channel GEK.  Basically it will be short You Tube videos exploring how the GEK works, various gasifier designs and applications, how to assemble and run a GEK, common problems, that sort of thing.  If you have something you’d like to see us cover, please do write tom The purpose of these videos is to explore, critique, debunk, and demystify the biomass thermal conversion arts, so do let us know what you’re interested in learning about, and we’ll do our best to get it online.

That’s it for this week, thanks for your continued interest and support.

-All Power Labs

Amongst the hundred GEKs sold during our first year a  highlight has to be the one we sold to John Kinstler and the Art Institute of Chicago. He took our GEK to a very unexpected place, Milan for Salone del Mobile 2009.   John’s project was developed within the 2000 W Living studio at the Art Institute of Chicago.

2000 W Living refers to the average amount of power consumed by the average person living in a non-Western, not wealthy country. The average amount of power consumed by the average American in the US is nearer to 12,000 W. The goal of this studio was to explore ways of challenging we Westerners to reduce our power consumption.

His project conceives a world that can re-invent itself in the face of unprecedented challenges. Using the base form of the GEK to build from he shows the importance of harvesting new sources of locally generated energy in radically re-designed cities. Of course those radically re-degined cities will be in need of radically re-designed appliances, ie. Biomass Energy Appliances.

John is helping us all see what a future with Biomass energy will look like.

Read more about John’s project Here: http://johnkinstler.com/section/103486_Biomass_Energy_Appliances.html

The GEK went to university….University of Minnesota at Morris to be exact. UMM was awarded a grant of $174,258 by the Renewable Energy Marketplace – Alliance for Talent Development (MNREM) initiative to develop new curriculum in biomass gasification technology.  Jim Barbour at the university partnered with ALL Power Labs to use the GEK as the platform for learning in this three-week intensive course. The Class, Renewable Energy with Biomass Gasification, taught principles of biomass gasification with a focus on chemical, biological and economic considerations of biomass energy production. All students benefited through a curriculum of  hands-on training in chemistry and biomass with classroom and lab activities. APL’s Jim Mason went out as a guest lecturer for the last few days of class.  The class had an amazing lab set up.  Great data was gathered and more people were indoctrinated into the cult of the black goo.  Look at their set-up. Gasification – It’s a gas! Cheers, Jess and your GEK making crew