Articles · Topic
Articles about Biomass
10 articles across 1 section
Section
Self-Reliance
Biogas Digesters
Anaerobic digestion at property scale, and why hydrogen sulfide disables the sense of smell at the concentration where it becomes immediately dangerous. The feedstock threshold, gas conditioning as permanent infrastructure, digestate, and the confined space pattern that kills rescuers.
Biomass, Wood Gas and Heat Conversion
Turning what a property already grows or discards into power and useful heat. Eight guides covering feedstock assessment, thermoelectric modules, Stirling engines, combined heat and power, and the three higher-risk pathways covered under the understand-not-build standard.
Combined Heat and Power
Accounting for the reject heat that is most of the energy in any biomass generator. Reading the two efficiency figures correctly, sizing to year-round thermal baseload rather than electrical load, the seasonal mismatch, and the water hygiene obligations a preheat tank carries.
Generating Your Own Power
Track 3 of the Energy domain. Continuous power generation at property scale across six areas: solar, micro-hydro, wind, biomass and heat conversion, continuous-duty engines, and site-specific sources. Written for a property that intends to produce its own electricity as normal operation rather than for a household sizing backup.
Is Your Biomass Worth It: Measuring What a Property Produces
The three feedstock streams a property can carry, measured separately and converted into kilowatt-hours. Sustainable woodlot yield against the household's own heating claim, the EPA screening threshold that rules manure out for most smallholdings, and the stove hours already being burned.
Small-Scale Steam
Biomass-fired steam power and the stored energy that needs no ignition source to release. Low water condition as the dominant failure mode, the ASME and jurisdictional framework that makes a homemade boiler a nonstandard vessel, and the attention the system demands.
Stirling Engines
External combustion at property scale: the closed cycle and its regenerator, kinematic against free-piston architectures, the heat-to-power ratio that makes these heating appliances rather than generators, and the commercial record behind a thin market.
Thermoelectric Generators
Solid-state conversion of stove heat into direct current. Why a Peltier cooling module degrades from 80 degrees Celsius rather than failing at its solder melting point, why cold-side heat rejection decides output, honest wattage, and the power conditioning a variable source needs.
Why Most Homestead Biomass Disappoints
The four patterns behind abandoned biomass projects: feedstock counted optimistically, labour that recurs daily, reject heat with nowhere to go, and a thinner equipment market than it appears. Set against residential solar costs that fell 65 percent while biomass physics did not move.
Wood Gasification
What a gasifier does and why the risk is structural: producer gas runs around 170 times the concentration at which carbon monoxide is immediately dangerous, with no odour to warn of a leak. Tar as the dominant failure mode, engine derating, and what qualified execution looks like.