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Methane digesters
The Tamarians
make extensive use of methanogenesis to provide lighting and cooking
fuel. An overview of that process can be found at Keith Addison's
"Journey to Forever" website. Here's a link for interested
readers to follow:
Journey to Forever
One caveat I
would like to add concerning the application of digester sludge to soil
for food production, is that it must be
aerobically composted first. I described this in the second
edition of The Edge of Justice.
This is a Harold Bate design. You can find more info here:
Gas
Power UK
The
AFEX process
Ethanol fuel
production from cellulose materials, such as straw and agricultural
waste, is an integral part of Tamaria's fuel resource. Most of
the papers on this topic are dated and rather technical in nature, but
in essence, cellulose materials are mixed into a pressure vessel with a
1:1 ratio of ammonia. Adding heat increases internal pressure for
several minutes, allowing the ammonia to penetrate cellular
walls. Opening a ball valve results in a sudden pressure
release. Ammonia liquid flashes to vapor, bursting cell
walls. The ammonia can be recovered and re-used. The
cellulose materials are then treated with enzymes, fermented and
distilled.
AFEX Process
Off axis solar trough
Providing heat energy
for
industrial processes in Tamaria is often accomplished by concentrating
sunlight on a pipe, using a mirrored, off axis parabola. Raleigh
Meyers is a champion of such devices, and this picture is his.
And
this photo comes from
Sandia Labs, where this technology has been investigated to provide
industrial process heat.
In my books, the
Lithians
perfected light concentration, using mirrors and lenses.
(Several permutations of this idea exist.) Their factories were
powered by intensely focused daylight, something
we call solar flux. Precisely curved mirrors change the
direction of light, similar to the way a satellite dish reflects radio
waves to a point. In this manner, daylight can be concentrated from a
few hundred to tens-of-thousands times of the normal intensity of the
sun at the Earth's surface. This brilliant
luminescence creates and sustains extremely high but very
localized temperatures. Even modest concentrations of 2500 suns
can easily burn through 6 mm steel plate. The surface of a
material exposed to high solar flux also heats rapidly while the base
or substrate remains relatively unaffected. Such rapid surface heating
allows advanced surface processes such as ceramic metalization and
chemical vapor deposition to be performed. The Lithians use this
process in factories called "light forges" for general manufacturing,
weapons production and the generation of electrical power.
Fluidyne Heat Pump
This is such an incredibly
simple idea, I don't understand why it hasn't come into common use!
This diagram comes
from a book
by Colin D. West entitled "Principles and Applications of Stirling
Engines." The tubes pictured above can be made of simple pipe,
partially filled with water. Ordinary air can serve as the
working fluid, but more effective heat exchange is possible with
hydrogen or some other noble gas in the connecting tubes.
Normally, a fluidyne engine operates in a sinusoidal rhythm (like a
heart beat) driven by gravity.
In this case, however,
heat is
applied to one of the "hot" chambers, by virtue of an internal heat
exchanger that is not pictured. This heat comes from burning bio
gas produced by methane digestion. The heated
chamber becomes the "drive" cylinder in the process. The
expansion of gas forces water in the "cold" side of the tube to go
down, which in turn, forces the water on the "hot" side of the tube to
go up, resulting in compression of the working gas in the smaller
tube. Compression raises the temperature of the working gas,
which can be extracted by another heat exchanger and used for domestic
purposes.
The heat energy that
is
concentrated by this process comes from an insulated thermal
reservoir buried beneath a building. During the summer, heat from
the building's attic is forced through this reservoir by virtue of a
solar chimney. (This also serves to keep the building
cool.) Insulated water pipes bring this warmed water to the
"cold" side of the heat pump during the winter. Expanded gas on
the "cold" side absorbs this heat energy, releasing it by virtue of
compression on the "hot" side of the cycle.
By clever arrangement of such
tubes, this heat pump can be expanded to tremendous size. One set
of cylinders would be utilized to circulate water to and from the
thermal reservoir, while all the others can work to deliver summer heat
into a building during the winter.
Cool, huh?
Tin Can
Stoves
Both
Algernon and Garrick make use of tin can stoves in The Long Journey. The basic
operating principles are outlined in this image, taken from the Wings
website. Some brilliant person named Winiarski designed this
stove:
It
looks ridiculously simple, and really, it is. I've built a few of
these and found them a little tough to start. However, once a
fire gets going, they produce a lot of heat with a small amount of fuel
and virtually no smoke. I bought a commercial wood gas stove that
has a battery powered fan, and I use it regularly when taking my family
out for summer picnics. I can cook an entire meal using nothing
more than a handful of dry sticks! For more infomation and some
different stove designs, check out the following link:
This is what a commercial gasifying stove
looks like in operation. The burn is very impressive! While
I don't own this particular model, it's very similar to the one I use
and it's actually available by following the link below:
Masonry Stove
In Crisis, Algernon builds a
masonry stove to heat his homestead project. This technology is
based an old, European tradition, necessitated by an intensely cold
period known historically as "The Little Ice Age." In order to
survive, clever northerners learned how to build extremely efficient.
wood-burning masonry stoves. These devices combust wood at very
high temperatures, and because of their thermal mass, retain heat for
long periods of time.
Wood burners of this kind are constructed
from bricks and mortar. Algernon built his as a free-standing
device that's located in the center of his polyhedronal building.
It's capable of radiating heat in all directions this way.
This image and its associated info comes from:
The
Energy Bible
Go to the Food, Water and
Waste Page
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