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Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank

lowtechmagazine.com

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Re: Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank

#41

Post by CptMauli »

jakobegger wrote: post #37
alkonaut wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in most Germanic/Scandinavian languages I believe. Carbon and Coal are synonymous. Coal as in coal power, coal barbecue, and the element carbon use the same word. That’s not a coincidence. Apart from some exotic forms like diamonds, trees or rabbits (less pure), coal is how we normally encounter carbon.

In German "Kohle" means coal, and "Kohlenstoff" is carbon. It's not the same word. (But carbon monoxide is "Kohlenmonoxid")

But "Kohlenstoffmonoxid" is the actual correct term. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlenstoffmonoxid

Re: Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank

#42

Post by marvin »

jakobegger wrote: post #37
alkonaut wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in most Germanic/Scandinavian languages I believe. Carbon and Coal are synonymous. Coal as in coal power, coal barbecue, and the element carbon use the same word. That’s not a coincidence. Apart from some exotic forms like diamonds, trees or rabbits (less pure), coal is how we normally encounter carbon.

In German "Kohle" means coal, and "Kohlenstoff" is carbon. It's not the same word. (But carbon monoxide is "Kohlenmonoxid")

"Kullos" = "coal fumes" is a term for carbon monoxide in Norwegian.

Re: Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank

#43

Post by camtarn »

ars wrote: post #22
mrfusion wrote: post #6

Would a steam engine make more sense? Then you could run it on anything.

I wonder if you could power a turbine with wood.

Yes, you can. A few people have built wood powered jet stoves, using car turbos:

https://youtu.be/E-8BX7dUk5c

No power takeoff from the turbine in this case, of course, but the principle is sound.

Re: Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank

#44

Post by zamfi »

comicjk wrote: post #9
clord wrote: post #2

Nice thing about wood power is that as long as you have a sustainable source of wood, you're 100% solar-powered and carbon neutral. That is to say, it's a source of energy that is (can be) non-fossil, nor derived from any fossil sources, and which recycles it's own CO2 emissions. There are very few other alternatives that can claim the same. Perhaps Hydro? Solar panels don't offset their construction CO2 costs, and i…

You're wrong about solar panels - they have an EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Invested) of between 4 and 15 times, depending on how you calculate it.

You’re definitely right about EROEI, but I interpreted the parent as saying that solar panels literally don’t recapture the CO2 required to make them, which is true (if not entirely meaningful).

Solar doesn’t reduce atmospheric CO2, it just offsets other production of CO2.

Re: Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank

#45

Post by jabl »

jjoonathan wrote: post #17
sitharus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dried wood suitable for burning is around 20% water at most, else it won't burn with much heat. It can go down to around 6% IIRC for kiln-dried wood suitable for construction.

Boiling water costs a helluva lot of energy. Do these engines recover that energy?

How would they work if they didn't?

Re: Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank

#46

Post by Qwertious »

alkonaut wrote: post #35
taejo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like the author's first language may be Dutch, where carbon monoxide is "koolmonoxid" and "kool" can mean both "coal" and "carbon" (although there are more specific words for coal such as "steenkool" = "stone carbon").

Same in most Germanic/Scandinavian languages I believe. Carbon and Coal are synonymous. Coal as in coal power, coal barbecue, and the element carbon use the same word. That’s not a coincidence. Apart from some exotic forms like diamonds, trees or rabbits (less pure), coal is how we normally encounter carbon.

>Apart from some exotic forms like diamonds, trees or rabbits (less pure), coal is how we normally encounter carbon.

Also graphite. But yeah, coal is basically the purest form of carbon in common bulk usage.

Re: Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank

#47

Post by mnw21cam »

camtarn wrote: post #43
ars wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if you could power a turbine with wood.

Yes, you can. A few people have built wood powered jet stoves, using car turbos: https://youtu.be/E-8BX7dUk5c No power takeoff from the turbine in this case, of course, but the principle is sound.

Oh wow. I had been thinking about such a device for a couple of years now, great to see one in action.

The main problem is refueling, because the combustion chamber has a higher pressure. With a liquid fuel, you just spray it in at pressure, but with wood that isn't possible.

Re: Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank

#49

Post by tzahola »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #23
averagewall wrote: post #16

Important downside explained half way through: "if we were to convert every vehicle, or even just a significant number, to wood gas, all the trees in the world would be gone and we would die of hunger because all agricultural land would be sacrificed for energy crops."

In the last years of WW2 I think Japan chopped down the last of its trees to make a bit of aviation fuel.

I'm pretty sure there are pre-WW2 trees in Japan.

Re: Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank

#50

Post by jonsen »

mnw21cam wrote: post #47
camtarn wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you can. A few people have built wood powered jet stoves, using car turbos: https://youtu.be/E-8BX7dUk5c No power takeoff from the turbine in this case, of course, but the principle is sound.

Oh wow. I had been thinking about such a device for a couple of years now, great to see one in action. The main problem is refueling, because the combustion chamber has a higher pressure. With a liquid fuel, you just spray it in at pressure, but with wood that isn't possible.

... refueling: I'm rather certain that there are wood pellet stoves and furnaces with automatic feeding.
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