Running a car on wood smoke as fuel

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With all of this talk about the pretolum grid going down, and I do depend on road trasportation for get supplies and travel, I am interested in being about to run my truck and car on wood smoke as the fuel. I have ordered the book, "Producer Gas" from Lindsay publications, but I understand that there is a government book on the subject and also does anyone know of any other source for information? If you have any information on obtaining this information, please email me.

PS Lindsay Publications http://www.lindsaybks.com/

-- chicken farmer (bwana@inna.net), November 18, 1999

Answers

Good book with a long title from fema Construction of a simplified wood gas generator for fueling internal combustion engines in a petroleum emergency. Good detailed plans that you can build from stuff on hand. I have a ford pickup that runs on regular gas or smoke. The smoke if not clean is really hard on the engine but if there is no gas then there should be lots of engines cheap or free. Wood is alot of work I would only use it for farm work like for a tractor. I think I would make a still and make alcohol it's easier on the engine and we have lots of grain around for now not sure about later on.

-- Steve (csymag@midway.tds.net), November 18, 1999.

In my hazy recollection of the "energy crisis" days, someone invented, or at least proposed, a car that ran on chicken shit

-- (energycrisis@the.70s), November 18, 1999.

Cars that run on Chickenshit? Well there you go, Y2K pro will be a wealthy man after rollover. Just my luck.

-- Nikoli Krushev (doomsday@y2000.com), November 18, 1999.

Hey, I bet we can all see you coming down the road a mile away & just my luck, I'll be the one behind you. I can see the EPA phones ringing off the hook, about all that smoke blowing in the wind. When was the last time you were behind a diesel Mercedes? (sic) with the a/c or heat on? I recommend a bike, ok you men go for the motors, motorcycle, gee we're back to burning wood again. Please don't take the above seriously, I'm in no mood to have to change my email address.

-- Judy (Dodgeball@diesel.com), November 18, 1999.

The chickenshit car ran on methane.

-- anonymous (anonymous@anonymous.com), November 18, 1999.


Back in the 60's, there was a great article in Mother Earth News about an Englishman named Bates who built a methane digester that used chicken manure (the best kind, he said) for running all of his vehicles. Of course, they were vintage vehicles now......maybe easier to retrofit?? I've been lurking here for ages it seems. Thanks to all of you for the great info.

-- midwest mama (midwest mama@home.body), November 18, 1999.

I actually have that FEMA Publication. I sent for it. It is book #RR-28. It is apparently a documentation of "Wood Gas Generation" used in the '40's. It is essentially two metal drums stacked on top of each other, filled with wood chips. The chips burn in a grate made of a stainless steel mixing bowl, and the "gas" is forced into the automobile engine cylinders, which create the vacuum necessary to pull the gas along. (at least this is what I got at first reading) The book details how to make this contraption of readily available materials. It has all kinds of drawbacks, CO-2 gas being one of them, flamability of nearby dry grass another; but is is doable, and they were using the model to run a tractor.

Can't you just see all the BMW's and Lexi in the neighborhood tooling through town with steel drums or garbage cans on their front bumpers! Shades of mad max!

-- Mary (CAgdma@home.com), November 18, 1999.


TMEN had an article on doing that back in the mid-'70s.

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), November 19, 1999.

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