This months issue of Mechanical Engineering features Victory Gasworks with last years Hotwatt along with the work of others in the field. Check it out at ASME.org

Did you know that our customer’s average home electrical needs run about 35kw hrs/day @ $.15/kw. That adds up to $1,916.25 in electrical bills. Home heating costs over the year average $90.31/mo. or $1083.75. Combined energy bills are about $3,000 annually. Figures assume 2% inflation and available feedstock.

Compound savings you’ll enjoy from your own utility

Wisdom from the richest man in Babylon




We have grown so much over these years that I look back at the old blog posts and videos and laugh. It was all cutting edge at the time (for the price point.)

It’s time to do a little spring cleaning and organizing. Everything is being reduced down to it’s most essential elements, including this website.

We have stored away many of the old posts from our various sites in our archives. Some of the high points were left up for nostalgia sake. Let’s make some new memories in 2012 & beyond.

It’s a pretty cool series that is coming out soon.

Our products have progressed quite a bit since 2009. To see our latest, visit our products page.

Pictured above is the Hotwatt coupled to a genset for power and a water heat storage tank to store waste heat. Behind the Hotwatt is a mobile battery pack for this demonstration.

So back to our lazy man approach.

1. One day a month you gather your branches, pallets, or other feedstock and get it prepared for the gasifier by sizing and drying it to spec. Bag it up and set it to the side. If you aren’t prepared to invest one day a month prepping your feedstock, then this technology might not be for you.
2. When you wake up in the morning you simply fill the Hotwatt with a load of wood, then press start. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and come back to start up the genset and go back to your day.
3. The Hotwatt powered genset will recharge your battery pack while the forced hot air heats your home. Perform your most load intensive tasks while the engine is running so that you don’t drain your batteries. The residual stored heat and power will be used throughout the day to maintain your comfort. After a few hours the system will shut off based on the timer settings.
4. In the evening you walk over to the unit and repeat step 2.(coffee optional) The house is then brought up to temperature again for the night and the batteries are again recharged.

By harvesting every scrap of energy stored in the wood you can use much less than you think. By running the engine around 4 hours per day you can greatly extend its life and lower your service costs and any noise.

With very little effort you are now in charge of your own grid. It’s operating at just above the cost of your time and it’s in balance with nature. Simple.

Please note that we sell only the Hotwatt and genset at this time. Batteries are easily purchased locally from an off-grid supplier and hot water storage tanks are available on the internet. Set-up costs should include a plumber and an electrician.

Thanks for reading!

Unlike the 972, the 1.6 liter with no name is fully electronically controlled. For the demo they added a supertrap muffler and flywheel weights to simulate load. The result was one hell of a smooth demonstration. “You sold me.”

The Push Towards Gaseous Fuels

The results of EPA tier 4 emissions standards on engine manufacturers like Kubota is increased cost for compliance. Bill, the Kubota Rep told me that it costs several thousand dollars to make a diesel comply, whereas a natural gas engine only costs a few hundred. With developing nations making all sorts of biogasses, there is an expanded market for Kubota gaseous fuel engines.

Being a 3 cylinder engine we can get a really clean vacuum signal for manual automation of our controls. The customers that buy our units want them robust and we deliver.

Stay tuned for the photos of the completed 5kw DC genset. When the 1.6 liter hits the market we plan to make it our AC power offering.

We look forward to seeing this project finished out later in the summer.

Thank you to everyone that came out to the Summit. The networking was the best we have experienced. The Northwest will be a leader in biofuels, despite the political favor the Midwest enjoys. Forest waste, algae, seaweed. We have the tools to succeed.

We look forward to working with many of you and keep up the great research.

I entered our parent company Innovatus Energy by putting together a business plan for a utility scale tri-generation plant producing heat, fuels and electricity using some of the best technology my research has uncovered. It’s progressing well on a small scale and we want to explore taking the next leap. This competition is the perfect place for that.

I am proud to say that Innovatus was named a Semi-Finalist and we will be going to California in July for some really cool training that they offer and mentorship with some of the leading cleantech investors around. Thanks to everyone that tolerated my small children in the room. I know its not the most professional thing to bring your kids to a business event, but they want to share in the success too. Its all for them in the end. This is their real school.

There are lot’s of people out there right now that want to help us young entrepreneurs succeed. If you have an innovative clean technology idea, then learn more about the Clean Tech Open and the many different competitions.

Here is the link to the mention in Xconomy http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2010/06/16/cleantech-open-names-semifinalists/

Ben Peterson wants to sell the world on turning its garbage into fuel. The 31-year-old former welder recently tore down a farmhouse on his 20-acre farm in Washington state. “We were left with piles of wood,” he says. “And I realized that with a gasifier, I could turn that wood into fuel.” He found Federal Emergency Management Agency plans for a stratified downdraft gasifier, which uses a controlled combustion process to turn biomass into fuel for first responders. But the FEMA device was enormous, so Peterson spent two months redesigning filters and streamlining the airflow to get it down to a more family-friendly size. “I was making these things out of garbage cans and spare pipe, and I got addicted to the design process,” he says. The result is a DIY home gasifier that can power a portable generator. Now Peterson hopes to sell his design to the masses–and his work won’t be done until we’re all filling up our gas tanks with gasified garbage.