Comments on: Wood-Powered Cars: History Repeats Itself

By: John De Reggi

John De Reggi — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:16:10 +0000

Hey everyone,
I actually built several of these recently. A little one for my lawnmower and one for an old truck I cut up to power a generator and heat the house. We had some success in moderation. We burned wood chip mulch provided to us for free by the tree work guys. Need to have a pretty low moisture content before it worked very well. Many lessons to learn you wont’ get it right the first time. The old truck and a PTO generator was not the best way. If I had done this with a gas powered generator I may have had something. On a budget of very little things are not easily accomplished. I’m willing to entertain the idea of a funded venture in this direction if anyone wants to contribute monetarily. I have somewhere a auto cad design that is easily customized to fit any size especially for the purpose of microscale project size distribution. I see no reason not to do this on a micro scale. Especially if the exhaust is fed into a green house growing great big tomatoes while propertly using the CO2 and emitting oxygen. My little project would power and heat several houses for free basically. The government actually mandates reverse metering at prefered rates for suplus electricity.

By: Don Kosnik

Don Kosnik — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:04:14 +0000

Obviously it doesn’t make any sense to drag a furnace along with every car. What is needed is the ability to capture and bottle the gas at a central facility and then refill an on board container similar to those used for propane powered vehicles.

By: ganeshbrhills

ganeshbrhills — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 04:17:26 +0000

It seems to me, we cannot use any wood – like we use for camp-fires – for this to work. For maximum efficiency, it needs to be hard wood, cut to size of say, 1 to 2 inches dia x 2 to 3 inches long. These special requirements could be a pain.

I remember having traveled long distance in a Bus run on coal; I even helped turn the hand operated blower which kept the fuel burning… that was way back in 1945 or 46?

By: Roy Leggett

Roy Leggett — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 03:02:52 +0000

Any fibrous material, whether it be wood, grass, wheat straw or corn stalks and cobs should work in these cars. The science and knowledge is available but big oil companies would fight any use of these cars. A friend built a carburetor that got him over 100 miles per gallon of gas but the government told him he had to run tests on it and the tests run over 2 million dollars. He gave an interview to the local tv station and while doing the interview, wore a mask, breathing the fumes out of the tail pipe( 100% oxygen) He died a couple of years later from natural causes and that was the end of it. The blue prints for the carburetor disappeared

By: EnviroWhacko

EnviroWhacko — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 22:48:50 +0000

They should put this on the Starship Enterprise. Of course, compressed air will have to be brought along so the entire contraption could fly through space.

Warp speed? Warped lumber is all they would get…

By: Erik V

Erik V — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:26:34 +0000

Sorry, I forgot this one,

http://www.precer.se/Files/Precer_Data_Sheet_D.pdf . A small electric serial hybrid powered by a Stirling engine fired with wood-pellets.

Speaking wood-powered cars, I mean.

By: Erik V

Erik V — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:17:45 +0000

Hello all,

Here is a Swedish site about wood gasification, http://www.gengas.nu/bilder/index.shtml , showing several projects. Maybe you can use Google translate to read it. It is interesting as an emergency solution, but the fuel consumption is quite high, about 15-20 litres of wood (cut in small cubes) per 10km.

Personally I hope someone can combine this hot air engine http://www.proepowersystems.com/ with a wood-pellet burner and some solenoid operated valves (http://home.cogeco.ca/~davebowesevic/) and turn it into a “biomass fueled ir-hybrid”… Any takers?

By: chris

chris — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:51:53 +0000

i think its a definite no. although like jaycub says that we could use other dry matter, but the problem is in the burning process.

alternative energy should offer a way to produce energy without oxidation process.

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:01:01 +0000

Sounds great near some 3rd world jungles. Where in north america or europe is getting gasoline harder than getting wood?

Not that this has any chance of seriously taking off, but I’d also bet it would cause massive smog if it did. That leaves it to being a good idea for some rare individuals, but unmarketable to the public.

By: Jaycub

Jaycub — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:53:57 +0000

Wood gassifiers could be a great source of fuel. I disagree with Popo because grass, algae, weeds, any dry plant matter should work.

By: Kai

Kai — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:26:00 +0000

I think it’s true what Bob and Carl say. The car has to look cool but be efficient. There aren’t a lot of trees in big cities either so we’d have to be importing them from other states. Then I also worry about using up the trees for our cars. We can’t have trees grow fast enough if, let’s say, the world switches to these cars. If these cars take off, then I doubt I’ll see them in every corner of the world.

By: Popo

Popo — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:19:31 +0000

You know that in countries like Africa they have problems to find wood for fire (cooking). And I doubt that this will be the answer, we do not have enough wood, so this will only work if only a few people use it. But it’s a good idea for using the left-over wood from the industry.

By: Mike Maybury

Mike Maybury — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:45:49 +0000

Good, but rather strange!

By: Gary Bohannon

Gary Bohannon — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:02:25 +0000

I want one. We own acreage and have years of surplus wood begging to be cleaned up. Great idea!
Gary

By: Carl

Carl — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:42:56 +0000

I can see this taking off in rural areas, especially on vehicles used for farming, but otherwise I doubt it’ll make a big impact elsewhere.

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:30:13 +0000

I still think it’s a bad idea. It is novel, but the majority of people are not going to want to have their car look like a science project.

Alt energy projects must be practical and work, which is why our goal here is to make the hydrogen generators smaller, more compact, able to fit into the existing cars without major modifications, and still be able to extend mileage.

You also don’t have to cut down a tree- simply add some water (less than a gallon of water a month to increase your mileage 30%-40%).

And you can drop emissions tremendously – one of our customers’ mechanics thought the machine was broken because emissions had dropped so low…

HHO Generators are the the most practical alt energy source available today.