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Now you can have a stand-by electric generator for those power loss times and recoup the heat normally wasted.
Two versions available, forced air or hydronic.

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It amazes me that no where does it tell you how much fuel it actually uses to produce the power. It uses every phrase in the book to tell you how efficient they claim it is and how green they claim it is, but no where does it say "It uses X cubic feet of natural gas or X gallons of propane per hour to deliver X watts per hour".

Looked at this some years ago with my Lister 6/1 generators using biodiesel and using the exhaust to heat hot water coils. The bottom line was about 10-15,000 BTU per 5Kw produced tops. Of course mine would not have been so efficient but was a hell of a lot cheaper and less to maintain. It's just an overpriced boondoogle for the energy uneducated. What we are waiting for is an efficient Stirling-type engine to couple to our coal stoves to but that does not seem to be possible either. I concluded after much sweat that you can't start with an internal combustion engine and use the XS exhaust heat you have to start the other way around and produce heat (easy) and then make electrical power from the pure heat (very hard) - heat pumps don't work well either. I thought the only credible way was steam to turbines but steamup squashed that idea also with his very informative posts. I did read something about a transistor that oscillated at 60cps when heated and produced power but have heard nothing recently - guess that one did not scale up either.

All these ideas are worth examining. After all it's only the future of the country and life as we know it at stake.

Freddy wrote:It amazes me that no where does it tell you how much fuel it actually uses to produce the power. It uses every phrase in the book to tell you how efficient they claim it is and how green they claim it is, but no where does it say "It uses X cubic feet of natural gas or X gallons of propane per hour to deliver X watts per hour".

Your correct there Freddy, however, it was stated to be a 160cc engine size, if I heard right. And produces 1.2 KW of power. That gives you something to gauge fuel consumption and power on.

Coalnewbie, could you not redirect engine coolant for heat extraction? Or even combine coolant and exhaust waste heat? That's how mCHP does it.

coalnewbie wrote:Looked at this some years ago with my Lister 6/1 generators using biodiesel and using the exhaust to heat hot water coils. The bottom line was about 10-15,000 BTU per 5Kw produced tops. Of course mine would not have been so efficient but was a hell of a lot cheaper and less to maintain. It's just an overpriced boondoogle for the energy uneducated. What we are waiting for is an efficient Stirling-type engine to couple to our coal stoves to but that does not seem to be possible either. I concluded after much sweat that you can't start with an internal combustion engine and use the XS exhaust heat you have to start the other way around and produce heat (easy) and then make electrical power from the pure heat (very hard) - heat pumps don't work well either. I thought the only credible way was steam to turbines but steamup squashed that idea also with his very informative posts. I did read something about a transistor that oscillated at 60cps when heated and produced power but have heard nothing recently - guess that one did not scale up either.

All these ideas are worth examining. After all it's only the future of the country and life as we know it at stake.

The lister engines made in India I here have some problems with quality and sand left from the casting. It may be best to disassemble, check the tolerances and clean them before running. I don't know if the EPA allows them to be imported anymore. I was looking at the same thing on ebay, a company from Maine was selling the gen set.

Freddy wrote:It amazes me that no where does it tell you how much fuel it actually uses to produce the power. It uses every phrase in the book to tell you how efficient they claim it is and how green they claim it is, but no where does it say "It uses X cubic feet of natural gas or X gallons of propane per hour to deliver X watts per hour".

If the Honda is a gas engine, I seem to recall that gas engines are only somewhere around 17-21% efficient. A terrible way to make electricity for the long haul, but great in a pinch.

Fireman you are correct about those Indian Listers there were quality issues in a few engines that gave them a bad name. The first thing you did when you got the engine was to take it apart and reassemble. Sounds nuts but the engine was very simple and it was easy to do. This was a 1200# stationary engine and the EPA therefore as a federal agency had no legal basis for regulating it but they banned the imports and now customs won't let them through. Now you have to import the parts and build it yourself. The good part is they last for forever and burn anything. I did recapture heat from the coolant and exhaust and it's still not worth it. If you do the math on that tiny Honda engine you soon realize that for us in the NE the heat generated would be pathetically small and the efficiencies just rotten. Sorry, no solution there. Sam Gott from Gott Marine somewhere in Maine imported tons of them for the fishing boats as a super reliable electric power generator. As usual the govt screwed up.

I hear we are going to shut down the govt. I have an idea - don't reopen it EVER.

Generator sets are only 28% efficient in electrical efficiency, balance goes to waste heat. Adverage house uses ~ 1kW for constant load and ~5-6 peak load. Not worth running as best combined heat and power would maybe make it to %80. Still wasting %20 of the fuel.