Wow!!! What an earful!!!
I will be careful to watch out for what all these implications could involve. One of my neighbors recently built the still from the plans supplied by Robert with no construction or operation problems and is operating it successfully. Fortunately, we have other applications and operate without a current involvement. Thank you for your message. We will consider your message information and discuss among ourselves many of the points you have brought to light. Best regards, Peggy -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Keith Addison Sent: Sunday, October 24, 2004 10:09 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Biofuel] Methanol update Hello Peggy <snip> >If you want to experiment with a backyard still, go to Robert >Warren's site http://www.alcohol4fuel.com/id36.html and buy his still >plans. I'd recommend not doing that - go anywhere else but! We know about Robert Warren and "his" still. In 1999 friends in Hong Kong introduced us to Mr Warren, who'd spent a few months there previously working on a PV project. When we wrote to him he was living in Florida, short of a job, running out of money, hadn't done any work on fuel ethanol for many years and was about to unearth his long-neglected still from the bottom of a closet to sell it at a garage sale. So we bought it from him, along with some books and docs on fuel ethanol, and paid for them to be airfreighted to us in Hong Kong. This was a future investment for us, we weren't then in a position to start brewing ethanol, but we were making biodiesel and not very long after that we started the Biofuel list, of which Mr Warren was an early member. Him and his still were featured at the Journey to Forever website and plans for building the still were available from him. He used the Biofuel list as a promotional platform. It did not go well, to say the least. You'll find most of the gory details at these links: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/BIOFUEL/1300/ 2000-11-20 Charles 803 fuel ethanol still http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/BIOFUEL/1317/ 2000-11-21 Re: Charles 803 http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/BIOFUEL/1350/ 2000-11-23 Improving the Charles 803 http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/12169/ 2002-03-08 Re: [biofuel] Re: Warren Still Design http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/BIOFUEL/12168/ 2002-03-08 Re: [biofuel] Re: Warren Still Design - Still help http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/12152/ 2002-03-08 Re: Warren Still Design In brief: The Charles 803 still will not work as claimed: instead of 5-7 gal/hour of 180-190 proof "first time every time", it will not give you more than 2-3 gal/hour of probably not much better than 160 proof. Serious questions were raised about its safety - and Mr Warren had cut all the original safety warnings from his instructions. Mr Warren kept increasing the price of his still plans, for no known reason, and especially the price of the auto temperature control valve, though he'd said he would be looking for cheaper suppliers of the valve. He also refused to divulge who these suppliers were or where the valve could be obtained. When we finally found this out it turned out he was charging double the retail price. Mr Warren had also altered the original instructions to conceal the fact that using the still didn't even require the valve - it was considered something of a luxury. The still plans themselves were not very clear - not sufficient for even a handy person to build the still from. Mr Warren's building and operating instructions that came with the plans were extremely confused. The List of materials included parts that weren't needed and didn't include parts that were needed, there were many errors and omissions - it was an over-long, rambling, chaotic hodge-podge. Of the 60 people we knew of who'd bought plans from Mr Warren, most of them list members, only ONE eventually emerged who'd managed to build the thing, and that because he was an experienced plumber and AC engineer. He found it severely wanting in performance. He later scrapped it and bastardised some of the parts to build a completely different design of still. We kept having problems with people who'd paid for the plans and hadn't received them, and our interceding with Mr Warren on their behalf didn't always have the desired effect. This continued happening for three years after Mr Warren left the list at the end of 2000 and we'd removed all mention of him and his still from our website. It emerged that the story Mr Warren had posted about how the still came to be designed, by him and some friends, including Pete Charles, during the oil price spike in 1980, was questionable. The so-called "Charles 803" still is a direct copy of an earlier still designed by the Tallgrass Research Institute. This could have serious implications, as, though the Tallgrass Research Institute closed in 1983 following the death of one of the co-founders, the other co-founder restarted it in 2001 and republished their manual, including the original designs. This is dealt with in this post: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/BIOFUEL/1350/ 2000-11-23 Improving the Charles 803 Some of the links in that post have since changed. Here are the new links: "Alcohol Fuel, Can You Make Your Own?", by Ray Hill, from Popular Science, January 1981: http://www.green-trust.org/alcohol_.pdf Mike Nixon http://www.amphora-society.com/ The Amphora Society Mike Nixon's comment on the Tallgrass still: http://www.green-trust.org/PopScienceArticleRebuttal.htm We have no contact with Mr Warren now, other than that every now and then someone writes to us to tell us that he was lifted part of our website and put it on his website without attribution and we have to tell him to cease and desist, which he eventually does, until the next time. We have, though, rather regretted that we didn't just let him flog his old still at a garage sale so his interest in fuel ethanol wouldn't have been rekindled. We don't exactly welcome discussion of Mr Warren and his still here. Best Keith Addison Journey to Forever KYOTO Pref., Japan http://journeytoforever.org/ Biofuel list owner >Robert is one of our founders (currently not in the United >States or participating in BEC and we look forward to his returning to >California). But the point of my participation in this forum is to let >people understand that they can do more for themselves and for their >communities without a huge personal investment in money. However, it <snip> _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
