A Natural gas or other gas Storage question

[Frank S]

OK I had this thought just now Some are  considering or using Nat. Gas to power their emergency backup
 Generators.
 Here is a scenario Say your grid is down  you have a tri gen set up  Solar , wind, Ant gas Generator. with your Battery storage.
 Your nat gas line is interrupted, due to whatever say earth quake, winter shortage, Union utility strike, Government just decides to shut it down  what ever.
  Your solar and wind has been damaged due to Storm maybe an Ice storm snow high winds , what ever.
 your battery storage can only sustain for a limited amount of time. Even with your best conservation you can get down to 20 watt per hour average usage. so in 3 days you are going to be powerless. and reports show it could be 3 weeks before normality can be expected
  DO you A have an on site large propane storage tank.
 do you B tie your vehicles into your system and run them until your fuel is exhausted
 Or C for  a period or time you invested in developing a mini micro LNG system where you have been using your excess solar / wind power to compress and liquefy the low pressure natural gas from your line as your dump load  for months or possibly a year or more and you now have a storage of LNG.
 Bring  the scenario to a new level you are a total OFF GRID self reliant person. No electrical supply to your property. no Natural gas line nearly impossible to get a Propane transport  to your property. But you have a composting  system and  methane production. You use your excess wind / solar to compress your methane for storage'
  Has anyone heard of a method of construction a micro mini system to convert gas such as methane or Natural gas or even gas from a gasifier  to liquid through compression and cryo.
I would think such a system would be most useful not only as a use for excess  energy production instead of just a dump load
 What do you guys think? Viable even with limited rate of return or no value at all?

[Basil]

Try this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfxhhTCtkSg&feature=related

[Frank S]

First off the guy who suggested putting oil in the spark plug hole was an IDIOT. or knew nothing about 2 cycle engines the oil must be cycled through the intake in order for the bearings to be lubricated since the first stage of a 2 cycle is to draw air fuel oil mix through the crankcase for pre compression and lubrication

 But that was not exactly what I am talking about unless you were using his thing  to create the gas then compressing it. I am  thinking more along the lines of using a compressor possibly a high pressure  one similar to those used to compress  air for  refilling diving tanks the compressor would be your dump load so to speak for when your system produced more electricity than you were using this way it would be put to good use by compressing the gas  maybe Natural gas to become CNG
 or in that case the apple gas.
 or take things to a higher level with a mini cryogenic generating system for store the gas
 these in turn could be used when you had peak usage periods and needed to run the generator or if you had a no wind situation or possibly your solar had become damaged or even ICED over.
 Some folks who have  natural gas to their site if they use it for their auxiliary generator are at the mercy of the utility company's ability to provide in times of need. That does not always happen.
 Or for a total off grid person it may not always be feasible to fire up a gasifier  in -30 weather when the solar is buried in 3 feet of snow and the wind gennie is Iced up These guys might be so remote that even LPG might not be available

[birdhouse]

frank-
i get what you're talking about, though it seems to be more of a prepping situation than a RE situation.  sure you could try to liquify NG, though wouldn't it be way easier just to have 100+ gallons of LPG on site? 

you speak of times where a person could be screwed for days or even a week or longer because their RE system isn't producing.  couldn't an individual just have 100+ gallons of stabalised gasoline on site also to run a genset to charge the bank?   

my offgrid place is at 4,000 ft of elevation and 50 miles due east of mt. Adams.  i'll get 3+ foot of snow there at times, though i've never had the situation where the wind and solar are a bust.  granted, sometimes i have to brush the snow from the panels.

worst case scenario, i'd fire up a gas genny to charge the bank.  to date, i've never had to do that out of survival, but have done it because i did a lot of construction from the bank during the day. 

i'm far from a prepper, though i've been considering it.  even so, i know i could go to my off grid place and survive fairly comfortably for 2 months easy, no matter what time of year.  i always have 15+ gallons of stabilised gas, and 15+ gallons of propane ready for use! 

ranch style beans have a long shelf life!

adam

[Frank S]

Adam; As I see it RE is part of prepping otherwise there is not a lot of reason to study the various ways for RE or AE
 The ageing grid of the USA has only a limited amount of sustainable guaranteed availability. And never has been fully dependable 100% of the time.
 More money is spent each year in feasibility, Environmental impact, legislation and litigation or permit applications to repair portions of the grid than the whole system cost to build in the first place.
 This is why  I feel that anyone who lives where they have been without power 2 times in the past year should pursue any possible alternative they can.
 OK maybe not going a full route to liquefaction  but surely deep compression. CNG is just one way. Storing Natural gas if you are line connected would be a hedge against winter curtailment.
 but highly compressed gas generated in a gasifier would be AE should this have been done by the excess power produced from the home wind & or solar systems instead of that energy being dumped VIA  dump load controlling  now you not only have RE but you have a co-gen AE system
 Yes having a LPG storage is nice  fully stabilized gasoline is as mythological as powdered Diesel unless your gasoline was brought out of the refinery back in 1970 when Ethyl was still available.

[midwoud1]

Frank.

 H2  is easy to make by DC volt ( DC weldong machine )  but more complicated to store . Engines run good on it.
A friend of mine made once a hydrogen generator  in his workshop .... BOOOOOOMM !!!!!!!!.
Fortunatly he was not wounded .The roof is still on the shop ,a window was broken.

Another AE fuel from pressed oil . Cole-seed , Sunflower , Corn .
Lister diesels like it.
An oil press is a very simple and cheap tool.
Chris has a lot of corn . Stoves are burning on it as well.

 - Frans -

[Frank S]

Frans; another that is easy to make however the amount of energy it takes to produce it makes it almost not even worth mentioning that is HHO or Brown's gas more stable than H2  equally hard to store in high pressures However this could be one possibility for the generation and storage of Hydrogen at reasonable stability and safety

 http://www.theengineer.co.uk/sectors/energy-and-environment/news/british-firm-boosts-hydrogen-compression-and-storage/1011435.article

 I would say more development as well as many field trials need to be preformed before it would be a marketable product.

[Bruce S]

Frank, I'm at work and have not yet read all the other posts.
Here's one that may inspire you:)
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_bate.html
Bruce S

[Mary B]

How about lower pressure bladder storage?