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.
- » Read more on Car hacks / Mods
- » See peer reviews of Fuel Efficient Cars and Accessories at Green Home
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.
Posts Related to Car Hacks and Alternative Fuels:
- A Truck That Runs on Coffee Grounds (and How Wood-Gas Powers Cars With Garbage)
- Car Hacker’s Hummer Gets 60 MPG
- How to Get 76 MPG
- Six New Technologies Will Help Manufacturers Reach the 35 MPG Goal (Without Hybrids)
- The Cleanest Cars on Earth: Honda Civic GX and Other Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs)
- MicroFueler Makes $1/gal Homebrew Ethanol From Sugar
- 376.59 MPG Car Found In Museum (It Was Built In 1959)
- Car and Driver Increase Pinto Fuel Economy with $11 of Ecomods
- Sick of Gas?: Convert Your Car To Run On Electricity
Image credit: Claire L. Evans at Flickr under a Creative Commons license
Wood , Charcole whats the difference when things get tight enough people will do something to drive if they can .
I say let the wheels of modern society grind to a hault and let the little guy make some smoke if he can . We all got fat and too lazy to drive very far in a vehical such as whats described here .
The world would be a far better place if we took the machines off the road and out of the air .
With factories pumping tons in the air daily or one crummy flight from New York to the west coast dumping more poison in the air than a person using charcoal to drive could create in a life time . However the one single guy using it would be blamed for all the bad air plus the green house effect while big industry pumps the air full without even being questioned .
I have been researching wood gas. Mother Earth New has had several articles and have modified a vehicle to run on wood. The process is considered carbon neutral because it just returns the CO2 that the trees absorbed when growing. One pickup I read about got about 1 mile per pound of wood although that varies with the kind of wood. They also run on charcoal, coal and even coconut husks. The gases produced for combustion in the engine are mainly hydrogen (as moisture is sucked through glowing charcoal)and carbon monoxide. Many deaths well caused by leaky construction of the converters during WW II.
The power produced is less than running on gasoline.
DEH
I was the person who took the pictures of the truck, and submitted them to Coast to Coast AM. I claim no copyright, but if you could work in a credit, that would be nice. This is the nice vehicle. I have a picture of his wood burning station wagon that is pretty fun. And he has a web site that should probably be listed somewhere. Let me know if you want that info.
Chef Dave Bulla
Mineral Point, WI
I’m the truck guy. Notice I had to flip the air cleaner lid over to let my air filter to dry out from the engine heat. It was foggy that morning and the super saturated air mixing with the woodgas was condensing in the throttle body etc. I have a small preheater on it but it wasn’t adequate that morning. Mike LaRosa
http://www.intergate.com/~mlarosa/images/woodgas/?M=D
Oh, one more comment. I’m just using it a little faster than the ants and fungus which would probably release more greenhouse gasses than my use. I pretty much just burn branches and wood that fall from the trees on my property (14 acres). Exhaust from the truck is cleaner than with gasoline generally. My 2 cents, Mike
A wood powered vehicle sounds like a great idea! There are millions of tons of blow down trees that are totally going to waste in the woods and forests of the USA, and aside from going to waste, they also present a forest fire hazard….therefore a wood powered vehicle sounds great, and actually increases safety of our forested areas.
I know this can be done cause they did it years ago and we know more about steam and it’s powerwe need the people that know how to put together.We need people who will work on it and not worry about making money on it.I think it has good chance but we got to get going on it right away. Later BG
BG, I’ve been posting pictures, drawings, etc etc etc for several years now. There are a few folks in Scandinavia also posting pics, plans, etc etc etc .. Even with all of this, only a handful of folks have actually done anything .. It’s a shame. I really doubt the first internal combustion engines were run on gasoline but I guess I don’t really care. There will be a pile of big trucks and SUVs that will be easy to convert to hydrogen. I have a 66 chevy Impala I also run on it and when I get a good percentage of hydrogen in my gas, I really like the sound of it. flapity flapity .. Mike
poker in tour…
As the free texas holdem poker play tournoi poker internet online roulette poker poker tour ruleta de casino…
the gases evolved might be very toxic when burning of fuel to creat woodgas.
how many km the car runs or its hospower it may creat.