Will,
I have no woodlot. I am counting on scrap, pallets, slash, etc. This fellow here has some brilliant solutions. I couldn’t remember where I saw this and couldn’t find him with Google (what is up with that?) Anyway, used Garry’s suggested DuckDuckGo search engine and found it right away. Here is a link, I subscribed to his channel so I won’t lose it again. This guy is one-in-a million.
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Hi Mike,
That guy is always fun to watch. Missed this video though.
He doesn´t have a lot of wood but obviously a lot of time.
Thanks for sharing.
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Thanks Mike; I have watch this blok as he was developing this process. This is the first time I saw the system finished to the point where he could run off and have a brewski. That time would probably be better spent taking the pallets apart. TomC
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Hi Jeff, right now I have a workable plan for a bottom auger fed TLUD. I hope to make pellet charcoal with it, draw the heat off for home heat in the winter, and use the resulting char for engine fuel.
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Thanks for the link Mike, that’s quite the contraption! Looks like a fun project, but not too practical to feed big volumes. The ultimate plan for me is to move ahead with the assurance that straw will work, but at the same time scrounging all the free wood I can get that is processable (is that a word?
) via chipper and hammer mill.
My house is old, and my truck has a 496” V8 and weighs 7000 lbs, so I need to use just about everything I can get my hands on that is not full of nails!
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A bigger trailer sounds more practical, but that drive doesnt.
How about waste sawdust? You are aiming for pelletization anyways, cabinet making shops often collect sawdust into an exterior cyclone hopper, and probably pay for waste removal.
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Yes, there is a local picture frame manufacturer. I Google Earthed them and they a have a huge silo out back fed by blowers that is probably for sawdust. It is set up so a big truck can drive under for loading. They are on my call list along with a local skid manufacturer and a small sawmill down the road 
Who knows, I might be alright after all if these guys are giving away sawdust. The picture frame place bundles all their edging strips and puts them outside free for the taking. Kiln dried spruce/pine/fir, local folks use it for kindling.
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A small saw mill is all you need, if you could get there slabs scraps. Wayne has more wood scrap slabs than he knows what to do with, except burn them, in his trucks. More than one truck, and he does it full time, DOW. Give that saw mill a call.
Bob
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Will do. Believe it or not, the slab wood up here is sold in bundles for firewood. Firewood is not cheap up here, and anything that could be put into a wood stove costs real money. Sawmill slabs “unbucked” (another addition to the English language?) run about 150.00 for a bush cord equivalent and the bark percentage is sky high compared to regular cordwood. I avoid making wood supply plans around any waste that would feed a wood stove as 99% it’s already being marketed as some kind of fuel wood and far from cheap/free
I have been thinking about sawdust myself, pretty hard to beat if available, except for the additional processing / pelletizing. But if you can load from a hopper, bone dry fine sawdust, most all the work is done already.
Near free space heating and engine power should be attainable.
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That would be sweet if it happens for sure. Straw for me will always be available and dirt cheap so it is what I will be trying to use as a baseline. But if a near free supply of sawdust turns up, that’s what I’ll be using for as long as I can get it. I just don’t want to hang my hat on just one fuel unless it’s pretty much guaranteed to always be there, like straw.
I’m going to email the picture frame place and see if they reply tomorrow.
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Either way, if you can get the pelletizing down, sounds like a basis for a commercial venture, plus slash your energy bills.
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Hi Will, $200.00 A cord is what wood cost here. One cord of wood will get you down the road 5,200 miles in a gasifier truck. @ $40.00 a cord that figures less than 1 cent a mile to drive the truck. So 5 times that is $200.00 and less than 5 cents a mile for me to drive my truck. On gas it cost me $00.25 A mile @ $3.55 a gal. At the pump. The point is I can have wood delivered to my door ready to burn slit to my specifications. I run it through my ban saw and throw it in to my hopper. Believe me I have thought about doing it. A lot less work. But I need to stay in shape. Even having to buy it is a better deal than gas.
Bob
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Buying’s an option, I actually expect to pay one way or another. My truck will probably eat 2-3 lbs per mile, and at a maximum 3000 lbs dry weight per cord, I’d likely do no better than 1500 miles per cord, so about .20 per mile using my cost of 300.00/cord, best case scenario.
I can get 3000 lbs of straw for about 50.00 
My gasoline and heating costs per year are about 6500.00 combined, with the vast majority of that being feeding the 12 mpg GMC!
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What is your fuel cost per gal.?
Will,
It really sounds like you need to start a part time firewood business, and a pellet making business. Get in control of the supply chain. If nothing else, buy by the truckload and sell / package / deliver smaller quantities. Part of that one-in-a-million making lemonaide out of lemons thing!
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Right now it’s about $1.20/litre CAD. The same impact cost to an American would be 3.55/Gal (USG USD).
Haha - maybe a good one for retirement!
One of the other things I like about straw is that it can be easily and cheaply processed. “Straw Sweating” is a lot easier than wood sweating, and the pellets would pile up fast with decent equipment to process (that’s the key right there). I’ve already got everything I need to process and move big straw bales except the pellet mill (I am making one now), and a bale unwinder.
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One of the problems I have I hear about is swelling of the pellets in the hopper after shut downs, but that can be solved by just running the hopper down on fuel before shutting the gasifier down or not putting to much fuel in for the run time.
I hope you get it all worked out, I live next to the central Washinton dry land wheat country, lots of straw close by.
Bob
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Yep, I’ve read that one a few times as well. The bottom fed TLUD plan I have would run continuously for the most part all winter and it’s an updraft so I think the moisture contamination would be minimal anyway. I’d be using the resulting charcoal for engine fuel so I expect no issues with swelling.
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