Saving energy with junk

Saving energy with junk

Cliff Friedrich is out to prove a point

By Ann Ingerson
September 1983

“Every farmer has junk in his yard”, says Cliff Friedrich. “I build my equipment out of junk. I built a wood gasifier for $50. It would have cost $1500 to $2000 to make it new with stainless steel.”

Building cheaply with readily available scrap materials is part of Cliff Friedrich’s philosophy. He uses everything from old bulk tanks to aluminum printing plates and worn out tractor tires to generate energy in unusual ways. Friedrich worked for twenty-one years as chief engineer at Miner Institute in New York. Five or six years ago, he became interested in alternative energy. The equipment he invented and built makes maximum use of recycled materials to demonstrate to farmers how cheaply such equipment can be made.

Friedrich’s raw materials are readily available. One thing becomes obvious, however, after a brief survey of his projects over the years. His ingenuity and knowledge is a rare commodity indeed.

Gasification

One of Friedrich’s major efforts has been the development of a series of small gasification plants. His current project is a Mobile Downdraft Gasifier which converts wood chips, sawdust, shavings and other biomass into gas for fuel. The unit is mounted on a flatbed truck for travel to conferences and demonstrations. It can generate up to 800,000 BTU’s per hour, burning 212 pounds of wood in the process. The unit can run a 130 hp engine which can drive a generator to produce 100 KW. Friedrich hopes to have the unit operating by mid-August for demonstrations.

Friedrich has also developed gasification plants for mobile use in dump trucks, and a car. The car unit includes a 45 pound gas generator mounted on the rear bumper, a 25 pound cooler mounted on the front bumper, a 10 pound dust remover, and a special carburetor. No other modification is needed. The car bums 1 ½ pounds of wood per horsepower per hour and will reach a maximum speed of 58 mph.

Gasification ensures complete combustion of wood products. The gas produced is a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen plus some minor impurities. The material burns at 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit. The end product of combustion is carbon dioxide. Pollution is reduced to a minimum.

Gasification is most efficient when the wood is first converted to charcoal. This reduces the weight of the fuel for mobile uses and produces a cleaner gas. Friedrich has also built his own charcoal kilns from sheet metal. He uses hardwood for charcoal production. Beech produces the most clean gas, but maple also works well.

Alcohol

Alcohol as a fuel receives less attention today then it did several years ago. Friedrich built a pilot alcohol plant which remains at Miner Institute. He travels to New York four times a year from his present home in Jeffersonville, Vermont to operate the alcohol plant for demonstrations.

The process begins with a hammer mill to grind the corn feedstock. Sugar beets and cull apples are alternative feedstocks. Once ground or chopped, the feedstock is mixed with water and cooked in a bulk tank to convert all the starch to sugar. A woodfired boiler supplies the steam which passes through the old cooling lines in the bulk tank to cook the feedstock mixture.

The cooked feedstock solution is screened through a rotating drum as it flows out of the bulk tank. After filtering, the solution goes into one of the three 600 gallon fermentation tanks. Yeast added to these tanks ferments the sugar to produce a solution of 15 percent alcohol. Yeast is drained from the bottom of each tank where it settles, and is pressed into cakes to start the next fermentation batch.

The next step is to distill the mixture in one of three stills which Friedrich built. One still has a column packed with stainless steel perforated plates and brook stone. Another contains stainless steel knurlings from a lathe. The third uses all perforated stainless steel plates. Steam for the distillation process is provided by the woodfired boiler. The hot water byproduct is stored in an insulated tank to be used in cooking the next feedstock batch.

The entire plant can be run on a nearly continuous basis by using each fermentation tank and each still in tum. This plant can produce 10 to 12 gallons of 190 proof alcohol per hour.

Greenhouses

Another interest of Friedrich’s is the use of solar greenhouses. He helped build two solar greenhouses at Miner Institute, and maintained a third conventional greenhouse for comparison.

The largest of the greenhouses measures 105 x 30 feet. It is floored with stone and covered with two layers of ultraviolet-resistant nine mil plastic. The insulating air space between the layers is maintained by pressure from a fan. The rafters are ordinary painted 2 x 4’s while the vertical posts are pressure-treated 4 X 4’s.

In the large greenhouse, three different reflective surfaces have been used on the slope of the back wall. Cleaned and polished aluminum printing plates have outperformed both aluminum foil and glossy silver painted plywood in their ability to reflect sunlight back to the greenhouse plants.

The smaller solar greenhouse is constructed to compare sand and stone as materials for a heat sink. Eighty tons each of sand and stone cover the greenhouse floor to a depth of over six feet. A series of pipes flows through each material. A fan is set to blow warm air down through the pipes when the greenhouse temperature reaches some critical point. Heat is absorbed by the sand or stone to be released during cooler periods. The stone seems superior as a heat sink material since sand filters heat too slowly to be effective over a 24 hour period. As Friedrich says, “You could fry an egg on those stones some days”.

Another innovation for greenhouses is the use of mu1ch hay bales as planting beds. The bales are wrapped in black plastic and cone shaped holes are cut in the tops. When the bale is dampened, some rotting takes place which releases heat to warm the plants.

Methane

Methane production has become a practical reality for a few farmers who have the volume of manure and the capital to build a large digester. Friedrich was interested in developing a small scale plant which made sense for a smaller farm. He built one out of an old water tank with the bottom cut off, two 55 gallon drums, some pipe, an old agitator and a bucket. A slurry of 2 1/2 gallons manure and 2 1/2 gallons water is poured through the bucket which serves as a funnel into the first 55 gallon drum. This drum is insulated to help maintain the required 90 degree temperature and is equipped with an agitator. As gas is produced it passes through a pipe into the collector tank which is an old bottomless water heater tank floating in a 55 gallon drum part filled with water. The weight of the tank serves to maintain an even gas pressure as it floats higher or lower with changes in the volume of gas. This system allows direct use of the gas since the pressure is automatically regulated. The gas may also be compressed for storage and later use.

This small digester is filled once every other day. It can produce 19 cubic feet of methane gas daily, enough for the cooking needs of a family of six.

The temperature for efficient digestion must be maintained at 90 degrees Fahrenheit. During the Summer, the well insu1ated drum maintains a favorable temperature. In the Winter about three to 3½ cubic feet of the gas produced will be required to maintain the digester temperature.

Wind and water

Wind and water are traditional sources of power which can be harnessed with fairly simple equipment. Friedrich has built several Savonius type wind rotors which are made from steel-drums and can operate at low wind. speeds. His largest wind rotor has two units and six stages (a total of 12 drums). It can pump 8000 gallons of water per hour in a 10 to 12 mph wind. Other rotors are connected to generators to produce electricity.

Friedrich built a water wheel which is still used at Miner Institute to pump sap for a distance of over one mile. The water wheel and pump cost about $210 to build. Discarded sections of well casing serve as pump housings and pieces of tractor tire are used as diaphragms.

Cliff Friedrich is now retired from Miner Institute. But he is far from idle. He still puts in long days working on the equipment which he brought with him from New York. He hopes to set up the equipment for display in Belvidere, Vermont for tours by visiting school groups or the general public.

Friedrich’s energy projects are models of ingenuity. His low technology approach makes his innovations accessible to anyone who has the inclination and the interest to experiment. Even in today’s technologically complex world, there is still room for the individual inventor.