Syngas is made using ONLY O2, NOT ambient air, therefore Jim is making
producer gas, NOT Syngas as he states.
More disinformation, at it's finest, I might add..
Greg
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]]on Behalf Of jim mason
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 3:38 AM
To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
Subject: Re: [Gasification] Syngas on Wiki_
On Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 3:46 PM, Toby Seiler <[email protected]>
wrote:
>
> Jim insists that his GEK is making "syngas" in all of his web
communications that I see, taking advantage of and fostering a
misconception
and misrepresentation that a producer gas making machine (GEK) he is
selling, will make "syngas". I've asked that he market with the correct
term, but he refuses. I feel that this marketing use of "syngas" term is
misleading in his machines capability as a gasifier. Synthesis gas
making
should be so easy.
>
> The Wiki process to make a change is not one that I have navigated.
> The
issue with the "syngas" term is, to date, the biggest disappointment I
have
had using Wiki.
>
while the pleasures of lexical fundamentalism are undeniable, i'm not
sure they usually lead to more useful and accurate descriptions of the
world. i was trying to stay out of this latest round, but as toby has
called me out for willful misleading, i guess i now need to respond.
the problem here is that none of our terms are good for the modern
hearers of them. only a small cult of people know the possible terms,
and newbies to the terms seem to get quickly confused by the
conflicting/unknown associations in old terms. in this ambiguity,
i've found and argued the best option among many admitedly NOT good
options seems to be "syngas" as an overarching term for gas made via
thermal conversion of carbonaeous feed stock.
the "syngas" term works for me as a contrast to "natural gas". it has
all the "its flammable" and "it can do work" associations that we
associate with "natural gas" (and we don't associate with methane).
the "syn" part suggests something that is intentionally made, not
naturally occuring. a gas we make that relates to natural gas. the
percentage of nitrogen dilution in it to me seems one of many
potential clarifiers. for a modern hearing first learning of this
gas, its immediate relationship to "natural gas" in naming gets the
process of understanding going. all sorts fo clarifiers will build as
the process of learning continues.
i've also argued that what to name this "thing" is already in play.
this is clearly evidenced by the ambiguous usage in the wiki article,
and elsewhere on the web. this is not simply a conspiracy by me, but
rather the response of many contemporary users trying to find a name
that works and has the right connotations for current times. it is
happening already and will continue irrespective of our agreement.
more fundamentally, we need to temper our lexical certainties with the
knowledge that woods mean different things in different eras. meaning
drifts and is reassigned as needs require and times change. language
is not providing names for discrete and natural entities in the world.
rather, names bracket off and claim boundaries to an ambiguous
continuum of stuff and processes. these boundaries change over time
as their users decide to do different work with them. this process is
called semantic shift. here's the wiki article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change .
if you do not believe wikipedia, google to the 1000s of other pages
that point out examples of why calling someone "gay" in 1910 is
different than calling someone "gay" in 2010.
i suggest we are seeing this type of semantic ambiguity and
contestation of meanings happening around the term "syngas". and as
i'm interested in getting this tech understandable to other than the
current small cult, i'm promoting the term i think hears best to
modern ears. the term that repeatedly works best for me while
teaching this tech to newbies is "syngas". that nitrogen is or is not
involved in the matter, or that if over x % we are going to change the
term, but not if related to y process, is the last issue on their
minds.
let's review the other potential terms.
"synthesis gas".
this term has mostly functional evocations as the feedstock to a GTL
process. this historically was always without nitrogen. but many GTL
processes these days work with nitrogen diluted gas in a single pass.
some in fact argue the nitrogen helps their process. should we have a
similar linguistic protest against these uses of "synthesis gas" by
these researchers? seems the "synthesis" gas term should be more
about the feedstock aspect of the gas than its particular composition.
"wood gas"-
tom reed's choice and a biggie currently in the english world (but
pretty much only the english speaking world). i find this one trouble
for modern ears that think burning wood is bad. you immediately need
to have the "why its ok to use wood" discussion. also, wood is only
one of many sources to make the unnamed gas. it is unnecessarily
limiting. the gas should cover gas made via coal, peat, ag waste,
msw, etc.
"producer gas"-
the producer part of this does not do much work in helping people
understand the gas. that this machine has in the past called a
producer isn't widely known. it sounds victorian to me. i've never
had this term work well while teaching this tech.
"generator gas"-
most who hear this think petrol for a genset. that gas making
machines were called gas generators, and this was shortened to
generator, so "generator gas" makes sense, is lost on contemporary
ears.
"suction gas"-
well, that's one way to make it. not one of the more relevant
clarifiers i find. should i call gek gas "heat exhanged gas" ?
"water gas"-
again, a method of making it. a name for a gas from a specific
process. not really a general term.
"bio gas"-
this has come to mean anaerobic digestor gas. could also be gasifier
gas when using contemporary organic sources. but convention now
points elsewhere and there seems to be agreement on this one.
ffinally any participant here knows i've used all and every term for
this (which for now will go unnamed) gas. on our site all terms are
used in various places, and i find it difficult to believe that anyone
is confused about what type of gas i'm making (particularly the hot
air type).
probably only 5% of the people who visit the site even know all these
various terms, and could even hold forth about the implied amount of
nitrogen suggested by the term chosen. thus i find this a very
academic debate, mostly following from toby's specific interest in
this topic, as he plans to make a product with a less nitrogen diluted
gas. others find other features of this gas more or less interesting,
and choose their terms accordingly. maybe we should throw out the
"syngas" term altogether for pure co and h2. if we want to be
literal, "synthetic natural gas" or its abbreviation "syngas" should
mean a majority ch4 gas made by artificial means. co and h2 should
have little part in it.
like all terms, there are many competing evocations at work. both
content and function of the named. meaning in the end is a
"conspiracy of convention". there is no wrong answer, only picking
the ambiguity that one thinks does the most work.
nonetheless and in actuality, i try to not use any of these terms so
as to avoid the whole issue. i try to organize sentences so i can say
"gasifier" or "gasification", and not name the gas or the machine
otherwise. these are much more translatable and accurate and without
debate i find. if one wants to go do a lexical calculation on our
site, i think you'll find minimal use of any of them.
jim
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Jim Mason
Website: http://www.whatiamupto.com
Current Projects:
- Gasifier Experimenters Kit (the GEK): http://www.gekgasifier.com
- Escape from Berkeley alt fuels vehicle race:
www.escapefromberkeley.com
- ALL Power Labs on Twitter: http://twitter.com/allpowerlabs
- Shipyard Announce list:
http://lists.spaceship.com/listinfo.cgi/icp-spaceship.com
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