Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi yall, all the reading on sustainable energy really aroused the curiosity in me to consider these things more open mindedly, not to mention there is financial incentives. Of course the three main things I put on the table was the fuel for my vehicle which has risen to over $4. A gallon, natural gas for heating/water heating and electricity which also has gone up with the cost of natural gas. Increased use of our basic fireplace this winter helped, along with some basic conservation of electricity and cutback on unnecessary driving.
Now to address these one at a time my family petrol is basically my driving to/from work and to/from New Orleans which will decrease drastically after my reconstruction is complete in January and my oldest daughter driving to/from school and work. I drive a little Mazda pup aprox 24mpg but my daughter drives a ford explorer with a V8 and it only gets about 16 mpg. I bought it as a vehicle for her to safely learn to drive in until she gains enough experience to safely drive an economy car. I plan on getting her a Toyota Corolla next March aprox. 40 mpg. I won’t be getting rid of the explorer until my youngest daughter has her turn wrecking it a couple of times. Then she will get and economy car for college. The other part of this solution requires alternative fuel. I am pretty good at making homemade wine so distilled alcohol is the logical next step.
To address the electrical area, conservation is the first order of business. Controlling the thermostat and turning off stuff when it’s not in use helps a lot. But as for sustainability I need to generate electricity. I looked at solar and wind systems. Both are very expensive. Then I found some people on the net who found ways of greatly reducing those initial costs. And there is also state and Federal tax incentives for residential use of renewable energy. It looks like the state incentives are up to 50% of the initial cost (but it is based on your individual tax burden/income) but they expire Dec. 08.
To address the heating/water heating I think both can be easily addressed. The water heater can be Solar with a much smaller electric water heater backup the tax incentive for this expired Dec. 07; energy savings is still a good incentive
A fire place upgrade is in order to make use of the large amount of wasted heat that is going up the flue.
I hope I can get some good input on these things. I plan on posting all my progress and or learning’s as I go. Wish me luck.

See if you can afford a diesel vehicle (VW TDI are good). Make biodiesel or convert to run on the unmodified veggie oil.
Get a box stove and put into fireplace, seal the chimney around the stove flue to keep heat in the room. This will improve the heating efficiency.

Plenty more ideas on sustainability forums, search and you will get enough ideas to keep you busy for years.

I wish you luck
Tony

Thanks Tony will do. My most tiresome searches is in the Wind and solar areas, So much sales pitch and the same sites are listed so many different ways almost like spammers! There are thousands of sites on the subject and it is very difficult to muddle thru. I tried a few forums only to find they are owned and moderated and controlled by a solar or wind company or distributorship. I will try sustainability forums as a search word next thanks. I work with a fellow that just dove head first into the bio diesel. He drives a 1 ton Ford dually, for moving horse trailers cattle etc. and he just put out 3 IBC’s at different restraunts. He built a metal building to run his little mfg in. I am thinking about a little diesel vehicle and pay him a fair price for his bio diesel. His raw materials is cheap/free with the exception of the methanol that is used which = 20% of the final product of bio diesel. But he still expects his final cost to be about $0.60 per gallon.
The real irony in this is we both work for the largest oil Co. in the World.
I have a couple of links on home distillation of alcohol. I really like the one for the Revenoor. Again all the prices are at least double what I could build it for. I am probably going to settle on the reflux design.
http://www.revenoor.com/GenWebPage.ihtml?formID=1
http://www.jrwhipple.com/sr/fuel_making.html
http://www.homedistiller.org/refluxdesign.htm
http://www.solaqua.com/solstilbas.html
I like the idea of no energy input of the solar still but I think it would only be good for human consumption. (May have to make one just to compare to the Canadian Crown Royal I love so much! ) I just happen to have a small whiskey barrel to store it in.

There is a great salt catalyst method to make bio diesel that does no require heating and harsh chemicals, but the price is diesel cars is so much higher that it takes 5 years of free fuel to break eve over the price of a economy gas car. There are injection modifiers that allow any car to run on E85 ethanol. So I think alcohol is the most practical in terms of money and time.

Oh! Yes you must use a reflux still. Further the still needs to be able to achieve 190 proof on the first pass! May still will not do it. At 190 proof any modern car can run E85 for its entire lifetime! Modern car have already been designed to run 10% ethanol. Cars have been tested that are not designed to run E85 and have run 100,000+ miles and show no sign of degrading! So no they sell devices that install between the fuel injector and the wire harness which lengthen injection time dynamically. They cost $200-$400.

My "still spirits" distiller AHHHcan do that,,,of cause I only use it fo rwater:)

http://stillspirits.com/wawcs016257/usa_stockists.html

Thanks Chappo, I love links because the information superhighway is becoming the misinformation windy country dump back road. Well I think I’m pretty fair at fermentation. Just the distillation I’m concerned with. DanDman is correct with the190 proof to run as fuel. I plan on making the distiller out of a stainless steel gumbo pot someone gave me. It is about 25-30 gallon pot. I plan on building the reflux tower out of stainless with stainless steel scrubbers. I also plan on putting a couple of stainless steel threaded weld-o-lets in the bottom side for a 110 volt electric element and a dial thermometer and attach a thermostat on the side to control liquid temperature. I’m thinking about an external site glass also. I would like to have the cone shape leading up to the reflux tower but that would take someone with a brake and the skill for that, so the lid will probably be flat. I was thinking for fuel alcohol production a lot of wasted flat soft drinks, juices etc. can be fermented as fuel, I would just need to supplement the sugar content to the correct specific gravity and away we go! For fuel I plan on fermenting sugar beets grown out of my dirt garden, and whatever free stuff I can hustle. I live in a sugar cane state and may be able to get plenty of stubble, as well as peaches and pears. I have always been selective before for making drinking wine. Corn will probably be the main thing I ferment because I can get it from a farm co-op for $5 per 100 lb sack. I know people who claimed to get it from the grain elevators by the river a couple years ago for $25 for a level full size pup load. It may have gotten damp and been moldy. If I went that route I would have to get some open top olive drums. Here is a photo of the stainless pot I plan on converting as well as some wine I’m fermenting. Need to rack a couple of times before bottling.[img][img][/img][/img]

This is what I am considering using for wind turbines. Again I say considering because I am pretty weak in the electrical knowledge of power generation. I have an old sears Alternator which my dad used to power his house. He had a manual power disconnect that he would throw to disconnect from the grid, then switch into the Alternator. It was powered by a 12 hp Briggs Stratton engine. It is designed to run 3600 rpm for 3000 watts. I know people use inverters to convert low voltage DC current to the higher household currents on solar and the equipment seems to be very reasonable. The equipment used to synchronize ac current to the grid used to be extremely expensive.
I also have a 2000 watt generator again it is AC household current. The equipment needed to synchronize these to the grid will be what decides weather I can use these or not. If I can’t tie in I don’t want it.
My third and most viable option is converting a car alternator and using an inverter. This is the most viable for several reasons. First it is very inexpensive and low tech. simple. Second it can be used in very low wind speeds with the proper design fan blade. The wind in my area is only consistent enough for a wind turbine for the 3 winter months out of the year. And the wind speeds only avg. 8-12 mph during that time. The rest of the year is less than 5 mph. solar energy has more potential than wind for me. But I just got to have one! Or two! Anyway this guy looks like he did a pretty good job with the car alternator method.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHB4zxWd ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0YxYDnm ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s75-lCKK ... re=related
Here is a few photos of what I have to work with (so far)

Just wanted to link to DanDman's alcohol still thread. There is some real good info and thought inducing conversation in there if you are considering this as I am. viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3886

Well as far as the solar aspect me generating my own electricity and being the cheap guy I am. I found this. http://www.mdpub.com/SolarPanel/index.html
What it amounts to is just for the panels 36 cells make 60 watts. And if you purchased all the materials it would be just over $2.50 per watt. I believe that with the same thriftiness it can still be achieved for under $2.00 per watt. So at that price my goal of 2K watts would cost me $4K to $5K panels and inverter. Again being thrifty and using the tie in wire leftover from my reconstruction projects. I don’t like the idea of using wood and will try to find an alternative. But as from the link to Ebay shows the cells can still be purchased at discount prices. I know Nanosolar expects to be selling completed solar panels for around $1.00 per watt I am not sure how long it will take them to supply the world demand to where I can purchase them. I heard that they were sold out far into the future. http://www.nanosolar.com/blog3/#post-21
But If I can get 2k watts that should keep me until supplies levels get to where I can purchase them Cheaply

The wait for nano solar products to be available is just a killer! I cant wait.

I pay $306 per 55 gal. drum of methanol and about $.50 a pound for pottasium hydrauxide here in Arizona. My cost discounting labor hauling and heating is about $1.15 per gal for biodiesel. Yes, it was reportedly $0.60 a gal before the increases in methanol but when I started 3.5 years ago my cost was $0.75. However the true cost was in the purchase and repair of used vehiclcles to burn the stuff. I now have over $5000 in an old beat up 1984 Isuszu pup with 246 K miles on it. Yes, I get 30-35 mpg on 100% BD so fuel costs are low, but parts are used if available. However I live 50 miles from a drug store or supermarket and local gas is at 30% premium in price. so to me is worth it to have 200 gal BD on hand. I also heat the house with the stuff.

Have you tried the salt catalyst method of making bio-diesel? It requires no heat, no chemicals, and the catalyst can be regenerated over and over again.

Just read this about "artificial leaves" splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen using electric from photovoltaics, exciting times ahead:

http://www.forbes.com/energy/2008/07/30 ... solar.html

Now THAT is big news,,,,watch greed fark-it-up,,,or at least delay it 15years.,,,sorry to be pessamistic,,,comes with experience