Greetings,
Do you wonder what these auxiliary power engines were used for? I did, and
here's the story.
First, Mazda will sell brand new engines to anyone who orders at least 120.
That's really more engines than the average person can use, so these "new"
engine deals are pretty rare.
These engines were destined to be used by the natural gas business in
Canada. It seems that some natural gas is contaminated, and is called "sour
gas". The best I understand, you can't avoid getting some bad with the
good. The problem is that the contaminants in sour gas are toxic, and
poisonous in high enough quantities. The gas company must not be able to
filter out the contaminant, or it's just not feasible to do it, because they
end up with a certain quantity of sour gas that they have to get rid of. If
it were up to the gas company, they would just burn it off, but the
environmentalists won't let them do that. They're only allowed to burn off
(flare) a certain amount, and they would have to pay to have the rest
disposed of. The loophole in the rule is that it can be burned if it's
being put to some productive use. Enter the rotary. The gas company
realized that they can burn this sour gas in rotary engines, and run
generators. They use the electricity for their needs, and all the extra is
sold back to the power grid. Amazingly, they turned something they had to
pay to dispose of, into something they can make money from. To give you
some idea of the scope of this, each engine is running a 75 kva generator
24/7, and the company that's buying these engines wants a contract to be
supplied with 900 (!!!) more engines.
Specifically, the engines are running at 3600 rpm, under a fairly heavy
load, and I'm not sure if they're turbo charged. The company used to use
454 V8 engines, but the sour gas eats the valves up and they don't last
long. These rotaries are modified for durability with ceramic apex seals,
ceramic coated rotors, and additional hardening of the rotor and side
housings. With these modifications, the engines show zero wear on the apex
seals, and less than one ten thousandth wear on the side seals, after 3000
hours of operation. One engine ran 16,000 hours, which is about 2 years of
continuous operation. Others are as high as 8000 hours, but they don't know
the average hours of operation before failure. Lest you think these engines
are cared for in any special way, realize that they run 24/7, and only stop
for oil changes. Also, they don't run oil coolers! They just run a bypass
hose were the cooler should be, and they're just sitting out in the open
running...all over the countryside.
Russell Duffy
Navarre, FL
RV-8, 80587, N174KT (Flying 96 hours) FOR SALE
RV-3B, 10751, Turbo 13B Rotary engine- Be Afraid :-)
I think this company is called Power Cold.
http://www.powercold.com/PR/20010627.htm
PowerCold Corporation
PO Box 1239 - 115 Canfield Road - La Vernia, TX 78121 USA
830.779.5223 (Phone) - 830-253-8181 (Fax)
Email: pwcl@powercold.com
They appear to be making money. Also they appear to have bought
Alturdyne in San Diego CA a maker of small Mazda one rotor gen sets some
with aluminum end housings with detonation coatings. Alturdyne tried
to sell aluminum one rotors for years for the BD5. Paul Ross of Alturdyne gives talks
every now and then at air shows on the subject of rotary engines.
They also appear to be a large stock holder in RPI which is not hard to do
since the stock price is in the basement :-) Looks like they are trying to
corner the market on industrial rotary engines.
Paul Lamar
The AirCraft Rotary Engine NewsLetter. Powered by Linux.
ACRE NL web site.
http://home.earthlink.net/~rotaryeng/ http://www.linux.org
