Re: Diesel storage (was:RE: 24x7 Support Strategies)
On 6/14/07, chuck goolsbee <chucklist@forest.net> wrote:
The issue with straight vegetable oil is that it must be pre-heated to >55°C to efficiently run in a Diesel engine without risk of injector or injector pump clogging. This is not exactly efficient for fail-over power generation as you would either need to build dual-tank and heating systems (still storing SOME petro-Diesel AND losing X% of your power generation facility to heating your fuel in the process... a LOT of electricity as most backup gensets have a LOT of fuel around to heat up... looking outside my office window I see two tanks, one 19000 liters, the other 30,000 liters in capacity.) Or you would need to mix that SVO with petroleum Diesel, to thin it enough to run risk free... negating your desire to rid yourself of petrochemical risk.
Not to go too far off-topic, but it's very true that the best thing to use is straight petrol diesel for your redundant power systems at a datacenter. No fun telling a client power went out for 12 hours because your fuel supply had gelled due to the low overnight temps (depending on location of course). As the price of petrol fuel supplies slowly moves upward due to demand from China and India, I foresee datacenters moving away from diesel generators as backup power sources towards fuel cells/generators that can burn natural gas and hydrogen. With that said, climates such as Brazil's would be perfect to use generators burning ethanol for backup power (also helped by the large ethanol distribution infrastructure in place there). -brandon
As the price of petrol fuel supplies slowly moves upward due to demand from China and India, I foresee datacenters moving away from diesel generators as backup power sources towards fuel cells/generators that can burn natural gas and hydrogen.
Technically fuel cells don't burn the fuel; they rely on a chemical process that is rather like a battery except that it relies on a continuous supply of fresh fuel to supply hydrogen atoms. The fuel cell has a catalyst which strips electrons off the fuel, and those flowing electrons are electricity. Unfortunately, most fuel cells run very hot (600 C with molten carbonate) or use noxious chemicals (sulphuric acid slurry). But a lot of work is being done into developing fuel cells that run at low temperatures and which are not so fussy about the fuel that you feed them. One company that has interesting commercial products right now is Acumentrics: http://www.acumentrics.com/products-power-generators.htm --Michael Dillon
It occurs to me that if you wanted to run backup generators on veggie, that you could tap some of the waste heat from all the lieberts with a desuperheater and keep the veggie as hot as you liked for no net energy cost... :) On 6/14/07, michael.dillon@bt.com <michael.dillon@bt.com> wrote:
As the price of petrol fuel supplies slowly moves upward due to demand from China and India, I foresee datacenters moving away from diesel generators as backup power sources towards fuel cells/generators that can burn natural gas and hydrogen. Technically fuel cells don't burn the fuel; they rely on a chemical process that is rather like a battery except that it relies on a continuous supply of fresh fuel to supply hydrogen atoms. The fuel cell has a catalyst which strips electrons off the fuel, and those flowing electrons are electricity.
Unfortunately, most fuel cells run very hot (600 C with molten carbonate) or use noxious chemicals (sulphuric acid slurry). But a lot of work is being done into developing fuel cells that run at low temperatures and which are not so fussy about the fuel that you feed them. One company that has interesting commercial products right now is Acumentrics: http://www.acumentrics.com/products-power-generators.htm
--Michael Dillon
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Brandon Galbraith -
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michael.dillon＠bt.com