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[HungLikeJesus]

Originally Posted by Griff

What's the outlook for home-based bio mass conversion?

Griff - there are some things that you can do right now, for instance wood for heat, which is not new of course, but conversion methods are getting cleaner and more efficient. These methods include pellet stoves and stoker stoves (also called outdoor boilers, stick boilers, etc.). Some of the stoker stoves (generally these are boilers that are located outside the house and are fed whole logs once or twice per day) are very dirty, and they've been banned in several states. But the Colorado Governor's Energy Office is testing equipment from 3 manufacturers, including (I think) Tarm, because the Department of Public Health wants to ban them here also. Here is a link to one discussion of some outdoor boilers.

Residential pellet stoves have been around for a long time, but now there are a few pellet furnaces and pellet boilers available in the US. Some of the pellet manufacturers are investigating bulk pellet delivery, so that you don't have to deal with the 40-lb bags. Bulk delivery should reduce the cost of pellets, but I don't know if it's available anywhere yet. In addition to wood pellets, some of the pellet stoves can also burn corn and some can burn coal.

As for transportation fuels, you can make biodiesel in your kitchen. There are books and videos available if you want to learn how to do that, and you might be able to find websites with that information. Biodiesel isn't the same as diesel - it has a different pour point and cold flow properties, and is not as stable. This means that you have to have two fuel tanks - one for biodiesel and one for regular diesel - and the biodiesel tank might need a heater if it's to be operated in a cold climate.

Making corn ethanol isn't too hard - hill people have been doing it for a long time - but reducing the water content to almost zero (resulting in 200 proof alcohol) might be a challenge. If you do a search for "homemade ethanol" you'll find lots of links.

I'm not aware of any commercially available kits or equipment for making ethanol, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone else knows of something.