Phoenix Turbine Builders Club

Steve Redmond's Green Wood Chip Furnace

Associate Developer

January 2007

Hi Ken,

I've been working for a year on solid fuel furnace experimentation since I last wrote you (and you put me in the builder of the month column). If you remember I had experimented with a charcoal flash steam generator for my Tesla Turbine.

I've been working with considerably larger furnaces -- which burn green wood chips, and started a company, Vermont Heat Research to provide information and data for renewable research.

Though the latest VTHR furnace is a hot water producer, it wouldn't be difficult to modify for flash steam generation -- I estimate about 51 Kwh hot water at present in a 2 hour burn from 50 lbs of green wood chips. Generation and co-generation have always been an underlying interest.

I'm attaching a photo of the VTHR furnace open (momentarily). Notice the very high temperatures, the lack of smoke even with the furnace detached from the chimney. Also the blue pink flames.

In the photo it is burning 50 lbs of frozen 47% moisture green wood chips. There are no feed mechanisms. It's a straight batch burner that is loaded with 4 plastic buckets of chips. Heat from the two-hour burn is stored in an insulated 300 gallon water tank and distributed to baseboard units on demand by a thermostat.

I don't believe it would be difficult to modify this unit to feed monotube boiler for a steam powered generator. The fuel is a renewable, and in fact often a waste product. It can be made from brush or grown coppiced rapid cycle woody biomass.

If you want to read more about the furnace, you can visit my website at www.sredmond.com  and follow the link to VTHR. I think you'll be very interested in these developments.

--Steve Redmond

www.sredmond.com/vthr_index.htm 

Steve - Thanks for sending me your VTHF Journal. I visited your site and looked over your projects. Renewable is definitely worth pursuing in this century. - Ken