Biofiber pellets are green coal: Stored solar energy, a useable form of recent sunlight. Coal is just ancient sunlight. This makes me think of steam as in engines. This leads to green coal powering steam engines for combined heat and power, perhaps even Micro-CHP.

A “2-cylinder, 3 horsepower steam engine will provide 1500 watts of electrical power and over 100,000 BTUs of exhaust heat.” One such engine, from Mike Brown, for example, is only: 17 inches long, 13 inches wide, 8 inches high and weighs approximately 65 pounds.

For what could be done with steam in 1876: Please visit this site:

Please go to this page, start the first video to load the menu, click on the menu button, and then watch the next to the last video on a solar powered steam engine. The water was boiled in a long neck beer bottle heated by the sun.  What an eye popping demo.  The other videos are interesting as well.

For more on solar power for heat, see this site.

Now imagine a dual fuel engine: steam from sunlight during the day and steam from biofieber “green coal” pellets at night.

Do we have a steam engine guru or two reading this site? Does anyone know one?  If so, I strongly recommend that steam powered electrical genreation and/or CHP be looked into.

Since we often compare biofiber pellets to coal, it is a natural to now think about biofiber pellets and steam.

Clearly this could be a good soultion for district heating plants.  For systems of 8 MM BTUs /320 kW, or bigger, there is an excellent solution from Spilling in Germany.

But what about micro-CHP via steam engine, sunlight and pellet fuel? 

Stirling Engines: We have to consider “a 3 kW Solar Stirling Product from Infinia that heralds the coming of a revolutionary solar power source for commercial and residential users.” This is expected in 2008.

Will Steam Engines and Stirling Cycle Engines, such as the ones from Infinia, form the foundation of a new and distributed electranet for our energy security and independence? The simple fact is that, for energy security and independence, we must replace our current centralized electrical system that loses over 80% of the energy we put into it. A well designed distributed electrical system, based on Combined Heat & Power solutions, should be close to 90% efficient.

Note: Until we develop updated systems and controls for steam engines, be sure to read this caveat.

What do you think?

I look forward to hearing from you.

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