Ive studied my driving patterns a lot and I have two VERY distict situations .
I putter around a lot. ,The farm to town,town to Moms, Moms to the hayfield, Hayfield to parts store, parts store to field,field to Gas station for morning coffee…etc All of this is no rush 45 maybe 55 MPH if Im in a rush.
Then theres my commute to LA 2200 miles as fast as I can, 70 to 90Mph hills MOUNTAINS pretty heavy load.
Would it be Practical to build two gasifiers? Im thinking most of the system could be sized for the smaller one with the ability to cut in the second , perhaps even make it removable?
Welcome here LewisW.
I think you have answered your own question with your “Practical” word and your 2200 mile wIth Hill and Mountain commute cycle.
Woodgasifing starts with do you have enough fuel wood stocks available for your projected usage?
Do you personally have the physical energy, and TIME to prepare process it? Look at Mr Waynes three person wood processing system pictures he just put up.
2200 miles with the most developed system in an optimal engine/chassis combo would take a minimun, from Mr. Waynes posted useage, 2200 POUNDS of prepared fuel wood. Not optimal on All of these facters be more likely 3000-4600 POUNDS of wood. You cannot practically haul back and forth this much fuel wood per commute cycle. As a minumum have to pay for a reliable, secure, always waiting, preprepared wood fuel dump there at the LA end. Not impossible , but getting expensive and complicated just from the wood fueling standpoint for this type of commute cycle.
Whatever is taking you there in reality has to be paying you the DINO fuel costs to do it.
Others will chime in I am sure on the Twin Gasifier pros and cons. I can think of at least two done or proposed doing this.
Use the Search box upper LH side bar and you will find talk about this.
As much as I like and use wood gas (I shut the wood burner down just before midnight last night and have driven about 30 miles this AM.) I must admit there are times when it may not be practical.
Operating a wood burner in a two or three hundred mile radius of the filling station (wood pile) at moderate speeds seems to work very well. There will be certain distances where you will reach the point of diminished returns. This distance will be different for each driver.
The first example you gave seems to be the perfect use for a gasified vehicle, but the other with the long distance and high speeds may be out of practical reach.
If you had plenty of gasifier capability and plenty of gas there still may be issues with motor power. I have used a vehicle that I had plenty of gas but not enough motor and I have had vehicles that had plenty of motor but the limitations where the gasifiers.
One could supper charge the wood gas but he would then need to also pressurize the mixing air. With enough time and money one could increase the performance to do the speeds you are asking. Now we have the wood supply problem to think about. I don’t think this is practical unless we are dealing with performance competition.
My suggestion would be to use wood gas in your first example and save enough money to buy gasoline or diesel for the trip. Maybe even think about running hybrid with gasoline to maintain the power needs and drive on wood or hybrid until the wood runs out and continue on gasoline.
Just a thought, when I am going on a long trip I will drop off some wood to be used on the return trip. It seems to be a waste to haul the wood all the way to the destination just to burn it on the way back home. If you have a limited carrying capacity for wood, make sure you use the wood close to home no matter if your going or coming.
Im in a sorta unique position as far as wood supply goes for the long trips. I deliver vehicals , usually large trucks. On a LA turn with a typical semi I have plenty of space to carry my truck and a few tons of fuel. So wood supply wouldnt be the problem. I could Drop off wood in a couple of stratigic locations. I guess I should have said my commute is FROM LA to central IL.
BESIDES with our new refuling station thread we are gonna lick the range problem right?
If you design your wood cunker to feed a pellet mill, You could make rabit pellets…Design your gasifier to run on these…If you need fuel,
you can always go to a feed store and buy enough fuel to get you home
Pulling a load of vehicles 70 to 90 mph up and down mountains on wood gas is not going to happen. Better to convert to nat gas.
Wayne pulls 5 ton of fertilizer a very short distance from his supplier to his fields and runs very slow to keep the gasifier from overheating. My son pulls a larger trailer and runs 45 to 50 on the back roads here in Florida with no problem because there are no hills. I would just build one setup for local driving and give up on transporting vehicles if it becomes unprofitable due to fuel cost and spend the free time with a good saw cutting wood.
Stay away from pellets, they turn to mush on shut down.
Woody, I don’t believe he is planning to gasify the towing vehicle, just the return trip vehicle. As I read it, he is driving the semi (with personal truck and wood supply loaded up) on deisel from home to destination, unloading his personal truck once he has delivered the semi, and then driving back home across the country on woodgas.
I have a few minutes to pipe in but haven’t had time to read all but I have my truck set up just as Lewis was asking. I would run 2 identical gasifiers with 3 inch restrictions on it and have a valve to blend the second one in like a second barrel. It rained so much at Wayne’s last time I was there that we never really got to pull the plug on the front one so he could see how it does with the pair. It’s worth doing for the local few hundred mile stuff where you drive on back roads all regular days and then need to drive at 70 mph on a rare occasion to Milwaukee or something like that. 2200 miles is a lot of friggin wood not to mention the back side. More later ?? I need to eat lunch and get back to my paying work … I have a bunch of pictures of the multiple gasifier setups on my picture page http://www.intergate.com/~mlarosa/images/woodgas/?M=D
Regards, Mike LaRosa
http://www.intergate.com/~mlarosa/images/woodgas/winter-shutdown.jpg
is just one picture of the old setup. I can still plumb in a second gasifier on the current setup but I needed the rear end of the truck to actually haul stuff but the plumbing is still in place and I have a couple of gasifiers I can set in place in a few minutes. That picture was from December 18 of 2009. Crap, 4 years ago but that might help you find other pictures from that phase of things … I’m getting old fast … I’m currently playing with the 97 cavalier and trailer. It runs great but is rotten and it is snowing here again … Rats … Mike
Hey, who added those pictures in ??? They are ancient and not what I intended to show … I actually perfected it if I can call it that … The added by others pictures were for one or the other but not 2 in parallel. Please leave them as I can’t post pictures but only links here. I just wanted the new folks to know what was going on so I will hope they will click the links and the editor won’t delete this post or edit me further … Thanks, Mike
OK Chris, I called that one Darth Vader … It is sitting here in the trailer to show to folks. The 55 gallon barrel rotted out. The barrel would get up to 700 degrees after the pin holes got in it … It was a bit too tall to use around here … Thanks for adding the desired pic to the other post … Mike
