Run Your Car on Wood? No Joke.
I’ve heard of making fuel from wood before, but rarely does using wood as fuel come up. However, just today I was pointed to this site, hosted by a local radio station, with a real-life example of someone burning wood as a fuel in his truck.
I can’t say for sure how the system works, whether it’s dual fuel or the wood-burning supplies all the fuel the engine needs, but it doesn’t appear to be a hoax and is certainly interesting. Evidently, during WWII, there was some experimenting with alternative fuels (due to shortages caused by the war), and one of the results was the wood burning automobile.
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I can’t comment on emissions, but something tells me this practice would be not the choice of people concerned about air quality or GHGs. Another problem I see is that wood is not very energy dense compared to liquid fuels, meaning you would need a lot of trees and a big “wood tank” to get any sort of range out of your wood-powered vehicle (WPV).
That said, this WPV is definitely on the neat side of things. For another real-life example, check out a truck that runs on coffee grounds.
See two more pictures below, and for more, visit this site.
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Image credit: Claire L. Evans at Flickr under a Creative Commons license
The gas generator was invented 1877.
These gas generators were “quite common” in Denmark back in 1939. Gas supplies were cut off, and a commercial market of gas generators was born. AFAIK this was a common solution in most of Scandinavia (and probably further south in Europe) due to the large forests.
Cars, trucks, busses and even motorcycles were driving on wood. And this wasn’t just some crazy project, it was a solution to a national problem.
Danish Nimbus motorcycle with gas generator http://www.motorcykelgalleri.dk/uploads_large_wm/169053.jpg?24-02-2008%2012:50:58
Car with gas generator
http://www.tekniskmuseum.dk/archive/hvemVarDe/teknikogos/billede_11_1942_1952.jpg
Truck with gas generator
http://www.truckerlinks.dk/magirus/05magirus_sl3000zl.jpg
Tractor with gas generator
http://www.historie.syd-fyn.dk/lok-foren/claus-skov/images/traktor4.jpg
Oh, and here’s a video of a Swedish “wood car”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG8iR5DRLpw&feature=related
I’m 73 years old and I remember that during WWII. In Melbourne, Australia, where I lived then, most of the (very few) cars on the road dragged a trailer behind, with equipment much like your pic. They burned charcoal to make the gas to drive the car. They also caused a lot of grass fires. The rest of us got around on bicycles.
Old stuff:
http://www.ekomobiili.fi/Tekstit/english_etusivu.htm
Another name of this technology is syngas and it was widely used in WWW II dye to fuel shortage.
Today it is used more in Coal centrals to help them use low calory coal and in some manufacturing processes.
Basically it produces CO2 and hydrogen.
this is definitely not a hoax. during WW2, oil was a rarity in sweden and a lot of cars and trucks ran on this gas (”gengas” or “generatorgas” in swedish) that comes from burning wood or coal. people still use it to run vehicles but mostly at a hobby level. there are some power generators sold to third world countries though that runs on this typ of gas.
Hello there!
Reading your post about the wood fueled car made me remember the work of the dutch artist Joost Conijn.
Joost Conijn made a trip through Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Slowakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldavia, Transnistrië,Ukraine, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Italy, France& The Netherlands driving his wood fueled car.
He eventually made a documentary about his adventure.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=HbwlQuPO9Ek
http://www.joostconijn.org/film/houtauto/index.php
Best,
Pieter Frank
this the end of our forest man, don’t u see how bulk is tht and where in the space to load our cargo? I have seen things like that b4, i saw a track running on a charcoal wood.
This mean more destruction to our only remaining forest and more global warming and disasters
That’s er awful? I don’t suppose it helps the environment or the driver a lot. I guess the driver has to be coughing half the time. Definitely against concepts of http://www.SaveGasSaveEarth.com
didn’t some cars run on charcoal somehow during WWII?