Some thoughts & idea's :

" 40-50 amps "  doesn't say much; at which voltage, for how long?
If you want to pull 50 amps @ 12 volts for a 1 hour tour,
you'll need 600 Watt hour

Are you sure a 1 ton boat with a (very) wimpsy 0,6 kW electric motor,
will still go forwards with some wind ahead or going a bit upstream a river ?

Your talking about a 55000 btu/hr stove as heat source to power a 0,6kwh electric engine...
Thats 16 Kwh input for 0,6 kwh output...  Lots of waste


On that TEG site i don't see any TEGP15 model;
their "Model: UTEGEC" talks only about volts not amps or watts ( O.K., max 0,5 amps); and
their* 50 Watt Power Strip *(Thermoelectric Generator) *Model:* TEG50WPS
makes 50 watt max, so you need at least 12 of them;  +- 500 x 12 = 6000 $
without your heatsource.

Did you noticed thise devices are pretty in-efficient? 5-10% ( they say/claim, more realistic imho 1-3%)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_generator

Why do you talk / need gasification, if you only seems to need heat?
Why not make woodgas and run it into an old Lister or a Lister-(chinese)-look-a-like ?
Or other converted diesel engines.

You end up with manytimes more energy at your screw, to really move that boat, and, ... you still can capture some waste heat to charge a battery for your electric needs.

http://www.lister-petter.co.uk/products.php

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lister&aq=f

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lister+woodgas&aq=f

Grts
Bruno M.
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Hi all

I wish to move a 22ft 1 tonne boat using wood power.

I have already considered gasification + combustion, gasification + stirling engines, even steam power!

My latest thought experiment is gasification + thermo-electric generators.

looking at the products of tegpower.com it seems like this may be viable, if somewhat expensive (£4k)

To move the boat at around three knots will take an estimated 40 -50 amps http://www.floveroutboard.co.uk/outboards.html

Which will require approximately 50 of the TEGP15 thermo electric panels http://www.tegpower.com/products.html. I then need to keep one side of the panel at 20C (or lower) and the other at 260C. (but no higher than 325C)

Initially I considered doing this with an active water pump driven cooling system, which would be fine, however if the pump/wiring fails or gets blocked the considerable investment in TEG panels melts before your eyes.

So I figured given all the water around the boat it might be better to run a passive cooling system, and actively pump the air for the gasifier. That way if something breaks it just cools down and stops working.

Which leads me to the challenge of gasification underwater..

I have taken as a benchmark the mega fireplace gasifer http://www.woodgas-stove.com/how_to_use_woodgas_stoves.php which puts out 55,000 btu/hr which on paper is enough power.

So I am thinking about taking take a 14inch x 6ft diameter steel pipe with a sealed end and sticking a woodgas fireplace in it. Then feeding a air supply pipe down to the bottom, and using a fan to force the air in.

The TEG units will be attached to the inside of the pipe with some kind of heat conducting cement. The water temperature outside the pipe (typically 5C - 15C) will provide the passive cooling, and the heat rising up from the stove will heat the inner panel (maybe!)

I did a bad diagram here: http://i.imgur.com/SYpu2.jpg

I realise the engineering challenges of this are not trivial..

* Are forced updraft gasifiers harder to make/ less efficient on this scale?

* What would be a good guesstimate for the temperature at the bottom TEG? The top TEG? Above 325C?

The next step is to buy a the pipe and woodgas fireplace and do some real world tests. Is it worth me taking that next step? Do you see insurmountable problems?

Thanks

Sam
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