Jim:
Thanks again for the recent posting on my piece: Local Food and Energy from Top Lit Up Draft Micro-Gasification Stove [1]. That was much appreciated!
Are you tracking woodgas powered vehicles?
You may have heard of it from WWII stories and FEMA manual.
The old systems worked in emergencies, but were not really practical for long term use.
Wayne Keith has a new book just out on practical applications, Have Wood Will Travel. In it are detailed instructions for building, operating, and maintaining a modern woodgas powered vehicle.
Wayne has tinkered his way into the first system that is practical (in areas with abundant wood or stemmy biomass) for modern fuel injected engines. It works okay in carbureted engines as well. He has been driving all over the US on wood power for almost 8 years now. Longest single trip, 7,000 miles, also holds the LSR for wood power at just under 80 mph. I have ridden with him at higher speeds, but in his first trip to Bonneville he mostly just learned a lot about the protocols. He can go a lot faster.
Auburn University did a study on his design running on gasoline and wood. His 318 Dodge Dakota gets better BTU-to-energy conversion from wood than from gasoline.
I will have a copy sent to one of your reviewers, if you will give me a mailing address.
When I joined the Driveonwood.com forum [2] a little over a year ago, when there were 8 subscribers. Today there are over 1400. Their web site has the largest collection of woodgas info on the web. Woodgas has its addicts, I am one of them. I have an old farm truck, a 1984 F-250 with a 460 cubic inch motor that runs great on wood. I have a gooseneck hitch in it, because it has enough power to pull a trailer.
Seeing is believing, and I no longer believe the PhD-spouted myths about woodgas not having enough power to do useful work. The engine, originally built to run on high octane, sounds better running on woodgas than on any modern grade of pump petroleum.
For off grid electrical power generation, the wind doesn’t always blow, the sun doesn’t always shine, but smoke always rises.