Some Fun Pictures

All of you have been loyal viewers, reading a lot of long posts on complex topics. This post is for fun, I hope you enjoy the pictures! (I'd like to put out a special thanks to the guys at driveonwood.com for compiling these awesome wood gas pictures)

This is the Imbert factory in France. Believe it or not wood gas was so popular during  WWII that companies actually sold  mass produced wood gas units and even complete wood gas vehicles.

Here is the inside of a wood gas vehicle factory, note the tall gasifiers being attached to the bodies of the trucks

These are ford F-150 trucks being fitted with wood gas systems somewhere in Scandinavia

Here is a very nicely done compact wood gas unit. The rear window is not even blocked by it!

This is a Panhard wood gas trailer. Panhard was a French company that specialized in making wood gas units that can be  towed behind cars.

The advertisements sure do look nice, and the shell over the gasifier makes for a really sleek design.

Here is a Panhard car, rather unusual looking but still a fairly clean design.

Yes, at one time people even raced on wood power!

My Project

The project will be using a 1999 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor. This car was selected because it is a sturdy and reliable car with around 230 horsepower (your average import sedan has around 100 to 120 hp). This is a big car with a big 8 cylinder engine. It is a gas hog and gets about 15-22 mpg depending on how it's driven. When a wood gas module is added to this car it will have roughly a 45% decrease in horsepower, meaning it will make about 130hp on wood.  The efficiency of the engine will increase by 37% meaning that the miles per gallon (mpg) equivalent on wood power meaning it will get  21-30 mpg. It requires roughly 10 to 16 pounds of wood to equal one gallon of gasoline.

Here is the car in question, a 1999 police car, I think it was NJ highway patrol. I named him Wilfred.

Now that you've heard some of the numbers here is some information on what I've done so far. I have begun to rip the floor covering out of the car due to a need to run wires and also install a console where all the controls will be located. The cigarette lighter has been cut off and the wires are ready to be connected to various electronic devices and lights that will be on the control panel.

This is where the console will be put soon. The wire sticking out with the blue tape on it is where the cigarette lighter used to be connected

When you convert a car to wood power it is also essential to turn off all of the systems that supply gasoline to the engine. This is mainly the fuel pump, which moves fuel to the front of the car, and the fuel injectors, which squirt fuel mist into the engine. The fuel pump shutoff was easy to do because there was a fuel pump emergency shutoff switch already in place in the trunk. This was cut and removed from the car and a toggle switch was wired in temporarily. Soon there will be wires connected  so that the fuel pump can be shut off by the driver, and there will also be a dimmer switch installed, which basically acts like a water faucet, the fuel flow will slowly be turned lower and lower until it stops flowing with this switch. The reason this is important is because gasoline is used to start the car but once the wood gasifier is running strong, the engine is gently switched over from gasoline to wood gas.

Here is the fuel pump shutoff switch installed where the emergency shutoff switch used to be, this is in the trunk of the car. Longer wires will be installed so the driver can operate the switch soon.

The other system that was installed is the fuel injector shutoff system. This is important because the fuel injectors (the devices that put fuel into the engine) should not be running without gasoline. Because they are electronic they would continue to move even without gasoline if a shutoff switch was not installed. This system took about 5 hours to install. It was a scary moment when I cut all of the wires on my engine, I knew there was no turning back! In the end though everything went smoothly and the system works really well without a hitch.

Here is the toggle switch that can turn on and off all 8 fuel injectors.

here is a picture of the new connection that I added to the existing wiring so I could control the fuel injectors. (the yellow thing is a fuel injector)

This is one side of the fuel injector shutoff system. You can tell where it is because it is shinier than the dirty engine (which will be getting a good cleaning very soon). Note that the wire bundle has been protected with some fresh corrugated tubing

I just want to say thanks in advance to Mr. Wayne Keith who is an innovator and thinker and a pioneer in modern wood gas. I admire his techniques greatly. I don't want anyone to think that the gasifier I am building for this car is my idea. The gasifier design is a very old idea that Mr. Keith has improved significantly so that somewhat modern vehicles can travel at highway speeds on wood. What I will be doing is creating computerized systems to monitor and control everything within the wood powered car. The gasifier is Mr. Keith's design, the controls will be my own design. If you are considering building a wood powered truck or car please visit http://driveonwood.com/ and think about purchasing Wayne Keith's book Have Wood Will Travel. It is an excellent read and an essential part of my own build.

Okay, So You Made Wood Gas, Now What?

You may be sitting there wondering, how do you actually use wood gas? Well, I'm glad you asked. You see, wood gas is composed mainly from hydrogen and carbon monoxide gases, both of which are flammable. This is only about 50% of the gas produced in a gasification reaction, the rest is inert nitrogen, a little bit of carbon dioxide, a little bit of methane, and a tiny amount of oxygen. Since you have a mixture of gases with plenty of carbon and hydrogen in it there are many ways to use these gases for energy. From now on we will refer to this mixture as syngas (short for synthesis gas because it can be used to synthesize many different fuel products).

Syngas has traditionally been burnt as a way of harnessing its energy. As long as it is cooled it can be used to run the engines in cars, trucks, boats, or anything with a combustion engine. The gas can also be used in the same way as propane or natural gas and can be used to heat homes or produce hot water. Burning syngas is the most direct way to harness its energy.

There is another method of using syngas that is going to become important in the future as a solution to global fuel shortages. This method is known as the Fischer-Tropsch (fish-er trawp-sh) reaction, a method developed during WWII. This reaction involves passing the syngas through a catalyst in order to produce liquid fuel. In this case a catalyst is a mixture of metal particles combined with a liquid. The mixture varies depending on the fuel being produced. The syngas can be pumped through different catalysts and make everything from diesel fuel, to gasoline, to alcohol. That's right, you can make REAL diesel fuel and REAL gasoline using wood! A lot more research and development needs to go in to this technology to make it more reliable but there is huge potential involved with turning biomass into liquid fuel.

The last way that syngas can be used is by running it through a fuel cell to produce electric current.  A fuel cell works by directly producing electrical current from a chemical reaction. In this case the chemical reaction is taking place between the hydrogen and carbon monoxide in syngas and the oxygen in air. This reaction produces electricity which can either be used directly or stored in batteries for later. I hope this has helped you to understand a little bit about how the syngas produced in a wood gasifier can be used in real life. Please Leave Any Comments Or Questions, and don't forget to sign up for Email Updates on the bottom of the page!

We see here a simple animation of a fuel cell. Note the green hydrogen  entering on the left. When this hits the  catalyst it is broken into protons (+) and electrons (-). The protons move to the other side of the fuel cell to meet up with oxygen, and the electrons are used to make electricity. The electrons combine with the oxygen and protons and produce heat and water. When syngas is used in a fuel cell, water and carbon dioxide are produced.Add caption

Are Healthy Trees Going To Be Cut Down To Fuel Wood Gasifiers?

The healthy, forested areas where wood gas will be used the most will not be harmed at all. This technology does NOT need to cut down fresh trees or have any significant impact on forests. The idea is that there is so much extra biomass available that nature will not need to be harmed in the process of using a wood gas system. If you live in an area where there are lots of trees you'll know that when one falls across the road, a team of workers goes to cut up and mulch that tree. They normally leave the wood chips right on the side of the road. If that fuel from fallen trees was collected and put into the right sized chunks, it could be used for wood gas.

This technology can go far beyond using trees as a source of fuel. There are many industries that generate huge amounts of organic waste that can be used to run a  gasifier. The furniture industry produces more sawdust than they know what to do with, corn farmers produce an enormous amount of corn stover (the dried stalks of corn plants), sugar producers in South America are left with large amounts of sugar cane waste, rice farmers in Asia have abundant rice husks, and nut farmers have more nut shells than they can handle. ALL of these fuel sources can be used in gasifiers. 

There is one issue that must be addressed though, the fuel has to be the right size for the gasifier to work. If the fuel particles are too small, the gasifier could clog, too big and not enough gas will be produced to keep the high temperature reaction going. To combat this problem a machine must be used to press small bricks or chunks out of finely ground biomass. This means that corn stalks need to be made into a fine powder and turned into bricks with special machines before they can be used to run a gasifier. 

There is one more way to power a wood gasifier that is sustainable and efficient. Willow trees can be planted in groves and allowed to grow around 20 feet tall. A special machine can then be used to mow down the willow trees and grind them into chunks. The trees will sprout again from the bases of the freshly cut trees and the cycle will start over. This is an effective way of farming fuel for wood gas generators. Please Leave Comments or Questions!

This picture shows the different kinds of materials that can be turned into  biomass bricks to power a gasifier.

Here is a willow grove being harvested for the purpose of biofuel production.

Why Should You Care?

We are currently facing an energy crisis. In less than 16 years time we will be at the tipping point of global climate change. If we continue to use oil at  the rate we do today, we will reach a point where the damage done to the environment cannot be fixed, this will be around 2030. It is essential for us to find other ways to fuel the world that can eventually stop or even reverse climate change. How is this possible? Earth is an amazing planet filled with life, we refer to the living matter on the planet as biomass. Biomass is made from the same stuff that oil is made from, carbon and hydrogen.

The difference between oil and biomass is that biomass is going to decompose and release trapped carbon back into the atmosphere. Oil is a bad fuel because it is made from ancient biomass and the carbon is trapped in it forever until it's burnt. This may sound a bit confusing but what we need to do is burn fresh biomass as a source of fuel so we can trap carbon. When we burn biomass what happens is a certain amount of the fuel becomes charcoal, called biochar. Biochar is pure carbon and it is stable like oil. Unless we burn the biochar the carbon will be trapped forever.

 It is important to remember that the biomass we just burnt came from a living organism like a tree or grass. When a tree grows, it takes in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, carbon dioxide released from burning oil. Once we burn that tree, the carbon it absorbed is released but thanks to biochar there is LESS carbon released than the amount absorbed by the tree when it was alive. This means that when we use a system like a wood gasifier we are reversing the effects of global warming in a small way. I hope you enjoyed this little lesson in environmental science. Stay tuned for more information on the project and wood gas in general (YouTube video coming soon!) Please Leave Comments

this diagram is very easy to understand, the only thing it doesn't show is that some carbon is trapped in biochar when the wood is burnt.

What the heck IS wood gas anyway?

So you may be wondering, what is wood gas? Wood gas uses wood burned in a low oxygen environment to produce a fuel that can power your car. The technology has been around for a long time, in fact 95% of all vehicles in occupied Denmark were run on wood during World War II. The technology is simple enough, when you burn wood without much air, you crack apart the molecules that it's made of and generate flammable gases that your car can run on. Operating a wood gas vehicle is currently very complicated because there is a long procedure for starting the gas production unit, and there is a lot of tweaking that must be done by hand in order to get a vehicle running smoothly on the gas. My goal with this project is to teach you a bit about the history of how wood gas used to be made, and bring this technology into the 21st century with computer controlled systems that will allow the average person to drive a wood powered car. Follow me as I build my own wood powered car and learn how this technology could be the fuel of the future! PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS, I want to hear from you!

This is a basic wood gasifier. Wood fuel is burnt in the gasifier unit with little oxygen and is filtered to remove tar and ash. The gas is then mixed with air and is ready to be burn in an engine

Here is an example of a wood gas car from World War II