If you do a search, you should find reading for hours and hours.  My 6-1 was "active", until I bolted it down to a solid block, about 2x2x3.  Calculate the weight, if you are close to the weight of the engine, you should be close.  It is nice to have it mounted up off the ground level a couple feet.  As your knees age, they will thank you for it.
 
Ray

Hi Robert, Everyone,

Well, here is my $0.02.  I've owned a Jkson 6-1 for ~4 years, burns diesel only.  It is a reliable workhorse, but I haven't yet used it to its' potential.  It sits out by my sawmill, still waiting to be finished.  The set-up time was years, but now it provides power for building the sawmill.  It took a while to mount it and work out the bugs.  I wouldn't want to rely on it for immediate power though. 
 
I have a trunk 20,000 volt grid line running ~100' feet from my house - my electric bill is typically ~$40 US or so because I'm careful.  Every 3-4 years, the power goes down - sometimes for a week, more often for a day or three.  For backup for my home, I'm re-building and installing a 4000W Onan CCK.  Bought it fairly cheap, a RV take-out.  I'm converting it to propane from my 280 gal. tank.  Don't need it often, but it will be really handy when I do.  For as little as I will use it, it should outlast me.

So, for immediate power, I would seriously consider a shorter term project, a turn key gen that will let you set up a longer term solution.  As usual, it is all about the $.  Listeroids are an investment, certainly will pay their way, but sometimes short term needs trump longer term investments.  Time spent calculating your needs for electricity is time well spent.
Ray

I have a buzz saw, waiting to be assembled, with a Wisconsin AHH in the wings to run it.  Like others I helped with one in the 60's, didn't lose any limbs, but still remember the swish of air across my fingers when I got too close once.  Mine has a table on tracks - hope to use it to cut up slabs for firewood, but have to finish my sawmill first.  Plan to have a chute sloped down hill to carry away the cut pieces - to avoid the issue of anyone getting too close to that blade.  Dangerous, but probably not more so than the average Lister without guards around those spinning flywheels.
Ray

Interesting discussion, so, here’s my $0.02.  Several clarifying points - weather is not climate, weather is what you experience, climate is an abstract, a derived average of a number of years of weather.  You may be freezing or sweating, it is irrelevant to whether the climate is actually changing.   

What seems (IMHO) to be irrefutable is that human activity has changed the proportions of CO2 in the atmosphere.  The years of measurement up on the top of Mona Loa (the highest volcano in Hawaii) establishes the current proportions.  Global CO2 is apparently very hard to measure, though the methods are easy.  A team of horses passing by would alter the measurements, throwing off all measurements made prior to ~1960 or so.  Mona Loa sticks up into the trade winds, with thousands of miles of atmospheric mixing across the Pacific Ocean to occur before the measurements are made.  The upward trends cannot be argued with.  The lower limits (pre- Industrial Revolution) are derived from air entrained in ice from deep cores extracted from Greenland.  Again, one can argue with them but they seem based on pretty good science.  Yeah, I’ve repeatedly heard the story about a volcano spewing more than all humanity, haven’t seen a compelling argument supporting it though. 

Then there is the question about whether the change in CO2 is actually causing the change in climate.  Lots of argument on all sides, seems like the consensus is that it is changing - melting glaciers, plants and animals moving up in elevation.  Not conclusive, but lots of evidence.  In my opinion (worth a lot to me, maybe not so much to others), we likely should start doing something to reduce our use of hydrocarbons, especially those derived from plants more than a million years old. 

Like many in this thread have already said - population is the real problem.  (Is there anyone out there that denies that human population growth is out of hand?)  It is coal and oil that has allowed our population to go crazy - without it, even with all the miracle sanitation and medicine advances, our population wouldn’t exceed 3-4 billion - likely less.  Unless we are unlike every other animal population, if we don’t curb it, something will cause it to crash - with unfortunate consequences for those going through the crunch.  (Pick your consequence, war, famine or pestilence, none seem like much fun to me.)  So, can we rely on rational actions to curb our consumption?  If everyone thought like Mobile Bob, we might all be able to reason with them.  Unfortunately, most humans tend to do the cheapest and easiest thing, meaning we may need some kind of regulation.  Those living in a democracy can all demand that the regulation be transparent, and based on some kind of logic so that everyone can see where the $ goes, and how.  It would set a good example, but, as always, is subject to politics, meaning someone is going to get screwed.  So, should we not try? Don’t have the answer, just asking the question.
Ray   

". . . it is against the law in California for junkyards to sell used catalytic converters"  I may be wrong, but I think the rational is to prevent (or reduce) the theft of catalytic converters from off of cars parked on the street.  It is still occurring anyway, but by limiting the resale, it theoretically reduces the incentive to steal them.    
Also, the cats in Calif. are different than in other states - not sure how they are different (more platinum?, no idea), but if you buy one to replace the one for your car, it has to meet different standards to pass the smog tests.
Ray

I make no claim as an expert, however, I've been told that pellet stoves are very particular about the quality of the pellets.  Most of the commercial pellets are made only from pine - no hardwoods, no dirt.  A boiler is likely less particular, and a commercial unit even less so.  The ash content seems to be the issue - too much ash and everything clogs.  How straw would stack up (no pun intended) I don't know.  It would seem like extensive research would be important prior to sinking much $ into such a project however.   
Ray

I'm pretty ignorant about the chemistry of explosives, but I was under the impression that, in general terms, what was going on in a fuel oil/fertilizer bomb was the oxidation of hydrocarbons by the transfer of oxygen from the nitrates.  In black gun powder it is a mixture of potassium nitrate with charcoal and sulphur.  The rapid oxidation results in large amounts of gas very quickly.  All the gas confined in a small space is what causes the explosion.  If someone actually knows (not the proportions, just the chemistry) I'd like to know.   
If I'm wrong, I've been wrongly informing a number of students over the years   
Anyone really interested in this stuff, likely wouldn't be looking in a Lister engine forum under the propane tank muffler topic anyway.  But that is just my opinion.
Ray