Just another one of the Walker's Family projects!  We've been getting things prepped and ready to go for our first bio-fueled low speed diesel generator.  After looking into just about every machine on the market today we decided to go with a design that's over 100 years old!  The Lister upright single cylinder diesel has been produced for ages.  It's heavy, solid, durable and just about indestructable as well as one of the most efficient machines out there.  Really shows you how much progress we've made in 100 years.  A 100 year old generators is more efficient than what is out there today!

Anyway, these machines run at low speed ( about 650 RPM ) and the 6/1 machine that we're going to be putting in is rated at 3 kW.  3 kW & roughly 1/3 of a gallon of grape seed bio fuel per hour at full load gives us about 18 kW of electricity ( which equates to about $2.75 of commercially generated power ) for free.  Since we'll be using the grape seed oil we've pressed from our local vineyards with our own equipment there is really no cost for this supplemental power other than the cost of some general maintenance.

Why did we pick such an old machine other than for it's efficiency?  Well, since it's such a low speed machine it has what has escaped most of today's generator manufacturers...Longevity.  There are Lister diesels out there that have been powering small villages and farm houses non-stop for over 40 years!  Try getting that out of ANY machine today.... Not only is it possible to run this diesel generator on veggie oil but you can run ANY diesel generator on veggie oil.  The only thing you need is for the veggie oil to be over 160 degrees before entering the injectors to atomize and combust properly.  We are working on designing a few different systems for other compact diesel generators and will keep you posted on that.  There's no reason why we can't all run our emergency machines on plant oils.