Hmmm-----
No.
Now you are talking about something you might call “wood pellets”. I think there are a number of folks out there who do use wood pellets, but I will bet that they don’t want ANY bark or soil in the mix at all. Maybe someone else will tell you why.
IMNSHO, by the time you make the raw material into decent wood pellets, you will have lost most of the time and money that you might have saved through DOW/gasification in the first place. Besides, you will have breathed so hard and used enough electricity that you will add a bunch of CO2 to the atmosphere .
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Thanks Steve.
Cost is always the top concern of consumers. COVID has broken the world economy, everyone must save the last penny to avoid the debt trap and eventual backruptcy.
Whole chunks of stem wood requires a higher cost of either manual processing or a heavy duty wood shredder.
Twigs, shrubs and foliage already have low cost shredders/chippers on the market.
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I don’t think ANYBODY uses “shredded” anything successfully.
Others- please correct me if I am wrong, but “low cost” shredders/chippers make stuff that is 'way too small to be useful in gasification. Just throw a bunch of that stuff on a roaring fire and see what happens. Maybe okay material for making pellets, but then even more cost is added.
Pete Stanaitis
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This is what you want to process limbs that have fallen, fast n cheap to build; JO´s Rebak Chunker
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Pellet stoves can use shred/chips pretty OK. The burn rate is limited by how much fuel the auger pumps into burn basket, not by the surface area of fuel particles.
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my main source of charcoal comes from forest cuttings from conifers. charred branches and tree heads are beneficial in many ways.
carbonization reduces the risk of forest fires in the summer. carbonization facilitates circulation in the forest and future silvicultural work. carbonization fixes part of the carbon for hundreds of years (possibly)
if the energy released by carbonization in the forest could be valued it would be the most efficient way to make coal for me
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If the fuel don’t flow, you won’t go.
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Thanks Mr. Pete for the quote . I like it !!
Just like sand through the hour glass 
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CowDog I’ll refer you back to my own personal experinces as a once 17 acre tree-lot owner.
Back in my early 2007-08 wood-for-motor-fuel seeking I gathered up from the forest floors buckets of just Douglas Fir bark chunks; buckets of just DF cones; buckets of firewood making produced splinters and irregular sized chip/chunks; and even buckets of chainsawn dust-chips.
The bark chunks gasified very poorly with much tars produced and too high of flows clogging mineral ash.
The fir cones initially gasified; then too dense light would always not settle compact and make void hollows.
The varied lengths wood splinters would always crossways bridge hang up.
The chainsawn eject chips were the worst for gasses exchanging flow clogging.
ONLY the carefully hand sorted out large wood chunks worked.
So really man. Referring back to your dryland pine forest floor picture . . . . take the actual limbs and tops and de-twig then and run them through a Rebak style chunk maker.
Gasify that, and you’ll begood-to-go with any simple manual operated gasifer system.
Then no auger drives with drive motors and power supplies - - most all of this China sourced - - trapping you into one-world-connectiveness dependencies.
Leave all of the rest of the found duff right there on the forest floor as ground cover soil making stocks. You want more trees? Don’t human greedily rob the soils. Never take more than one third.
You ONLY succeed at personal use gasification for moter fuel by intense focusing on just THAT as your outcome goal.
Forest wild fire cleaning? Not your goal. A distraction. Let the Gov’Mints pay for that. Ma’ Nature WILL rebalance this with wildfires.
Save the world overall CO2 redudcing? Not an affordable goal to get your engines up running and useable. A distraction.
Keeping the Distrations pictures other will force onto you minimized. Failures driving. Heart breaking. Hands off automation is a distraction. Period.
By the way I have since learned needing in-house space heating 250 of 365 days of the year just how to use all of these poor forest and fire wood making fractions in a medium/large bulk burring in room wood stove. Discribed recently on two of my posts.
Sigh. O.K. for heating but not the best use for these considerd “waste” fractions.
These really should belong back to Mother Nature for forests soil making. Or at least used for chicken yards and pathways mud cover. Then once mudded and chicken shit enriched mixed moved out to the garden plot. for foods growing.
Regards
Steve Unruh
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Yes, this is true. The “cost” benefit of DOW comes only over time. Developing the system and lifestyle that makes DOW a central part of transportation. Hobby DOW will inevitably cost too much to be “cost effective”. While being able to consistently use the technology to “not buy gasoline” . It means having a system of fuel (wood) procurement, processing, cutting, drying, storage, that actually allows you to put tens of thousands of miles behind you on wood. Miles that you would have driven anyway on gasoline or other bought fuel. If that is not the equation, then “cost savings” is not really a part of it.
To be sure, there are many other reasons to get into DOW. Fun, exclusivity, “self/local” reliance for resources, it’s just cool, hobby, etc…but the only way it becomes cost effective is if you replace a significant expense with it, or use it to make lots more money (which means replacing a business expense with it) heat source, transport, hauling, brick kiln, food preservation heat, etc…)
If you’re talking about replacing gasoline for normal driving/transportation, the math is pretty simple. How many miles does one normally travel, how many gallons of gas does that take, how much does it cost per gallon, …do the math and figure out how many miles on gasoline you have to replace with wood (or other) to replace x number of dollars worth of fuel.
Keep in mind that you will still need some gasoline to meaningfully use DOW regularly for regular driving. (probably) I don’t know anyone who drives DOW as an everyday thing (Wayne told me he only knows of 10-15 in the USA doing it) who does not use some gasoline.
Once you know (guess) how much you will actually save per mile/year/etc. you can look at what established systems cost people who are actually doing it.
Add up the cost (if not already available) of gathering the wood (debris/fuel source), building or buying the machine to cut it into pieces you like, the electricity or fuel to operate it, the building (floor space, blowers, kilns, grinders, etc.) needed to dry it appropriately, the bags, buckets, boxes needed to store it, the shed, silo, tarps, old junk cars needed to stack it in. And obviously the mechanism you need to convert it into DOW-able gas. Don’t forget the rebuilding of the hopper or the tank or the replacement of the blowers etc. after a year or two or three of continuous use.
Some of that info only comes from people who have done it…
Then take your two numbers and compare them and you’ll find out how many years it would take to actually pay for DOW from a “cost-efficient” view.
You will find that it takes a very unique lifestyle and set of circumstances to actually make it cost effective. Our family has driven almost 60,000 miles in the past 14 months on wood in 4 different wood powered vehicles. That has saved us some money at the pumps, but when you consider the cost… We have basically broken even with the cost, not including time, and not including a totaled truck, or purchase price of vehicles.
Now, that was all just considering the systems and processes that have been developed already by other people over the course of decades of investment and invention. Well established tech and process like the WK etc., using established parameters on everything from gasifier design, to wood size and engine modification, etc.
You asked the question if a new (less studied) kind of fuel could be used. The short, unqualified answer is “yes”. The practical answer is, “Not for many years.” If you want to be the guy who sets his heart on developing a “new” fuel supply for the “industry” we are all going to be very grateful to you and appreciative of your efforts. But do not be deceived, inventing new technology and proving it always costs more than it produces…at least in the short term. I imagine Wayne has much more money invested in the WK over the decades than he will ever get out of it by driving past the gas pumps. He has gotten a lot of other benefit from the investment. And I would argue that he has made the world a better place for his efforts. But it was not “cost effective”.
I would also suggest that if a person wants to develop “new” tech, first he needs to learn the established stuff. Maybe not everyone has to do that, but I find it much more effective. I make the analogy of musicians. People who start new genres of music all start off learning the classics and then modifying and expanding them. Same is true for most things I think, including the invention of new gasification tech and process.
Please do not misunderstand me. I am in no way trying to discourage you from developing some new way to do stuff, or saying that you can not do it. I actually hope that people do develop things, like the people on this forum who spend their time, effort, money and generously share it with the world. Great stuff. Totally worth getting involved with. It’s a very worthy cause for people who are into it.
But like Steve U said, people that think there is something here (in gasification) for free don’t last long. It is my personal opinion and experience that many of the rewards of DOW are not in the form of $ saved by using alternative fuel. And also, for the cost savings that you will see, it requires a shift in lifestyle over a long period of time.
If you want to use alternative-alternative fuels. My advice is that you set aside any thoughts of cost savings, do a cost/benefit analysis, and decide if you want to invest yourself in learning the alternative first, then from that experience (which will be costly in time, money, commitment and effort) you can develop something new.
That said, what ever you chose to do, everyone here on DOW will hep you all we can.
Apart from cost effectiveness, there are a long list of reasons why one should DOW. In fact, there are entire threads on this forum dedicated to the subject.
The cost/benefit comparison equations I haphazardly threw out above can also change. For example, If we enter some new era (as you mention the destruction caused by COVID19), it is conceivable that the cost of gasoline for instance could go very high, or it could be unavailable at all. I imagine that in such a situation, those few of use who can DOW would be able to make a very good living just driving people and goods from place to place, etc.
My point…there are a lot of other reasons to DOW than cost effectiveness. What I wrote above is only aimed at giving you a realistic view of the money side of the idea, not meant to discourage you from the pursuit.
Sorry to be so long winded.
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Well written Billy, the existing technology of DOW use is not cost-effective, especially for general use, … if it could be made useful similar to CNG (compressed natural gas), it would be a victory, but there are still many unknowns, … clean high calorific gas, high pressure compressor, energy of compression and utilization of this energy, …
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It’s all about your mindset. Watching TV is not very cost-effective either. If you find pleasure in chunking wood, counting $$ when shoveling and passing gas stations with a smile, DOW can be cost-effective. Especially if you can find free of charge treasures to build your gasifier from.
Seconds off your life keep ticking no matter how you spend your time. Spend it wisely. Most of the time, cutting costs is less effort compared to making money - unless you step over the line into the stock market and make profit from other peoples work.
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JO; YOU are one of very few people who consistantly drive on wood. Besides, you would rather be in the woods working than being home and watching TV or wood working or working on vehicles. And then again, you have made the machinery to make trees into fuel more easily.
I have had my truck running on wood, I have built a machine to make wood into fuel, and I have my own wooded property. I just lack what ever gives you the drive to process wood and every day start your truck up on wood and use it for your main source of transportation.
If I was outside right now when I ware a hat, I would tip it to you for a job not just well done but done excellently.
( I know how fuel pumps make you smile as you drive past them) TomC
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When people question my use of DOW technology, my short answer is that is it only practical if you have a gasoline-powered vehicle and cannot get gasoline. I do it because it is a novel way to power a vehicle, a way to entertain visitors, and as a backup to power my electric generator in an emergency should my gasoline supply runs out.
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Hi Jo
I believe that your state of mind is typical of the peasant world (in the noble sense of the term). an authentic peasant does not seek profitability for each of his actions. the objective, of the peasant, is global. all of the actions taken by the farmer must, in the long run, make sens .
it is a difficult psychological state to reach in our world of performance. but it is certainly a guarantee of happiness 
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Some interesting thoughts here.
I generally agree that it is better to first learn what has already been done before trying to innovate. However it bears remembering, that some big advancements in the industrial revolution were made by someone outside of that field of expertise. Basically, they were too dumb to know that it couldnt be done, so they went ahead and did it!
Regarding the mindset idea. At one point I was getting really frustrated with never seeming to have the right tool or piece with me. Then i thought about all these preppers and such, and started imagining that i was in some post appocolyptic situation, what shall i do? I made it a game to see how i could get the job done with whatever i could find around me. Change in attitude made a huge difference, and reduced stress and frustration. Now it is a triumph each time I can get the job done without the “right” tools.
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Didn’t really know where to stick this but since I made it after watching Don Mannes video I put it here. This is a cone shaped charcoal retort made out of a 55 gallon barrel. It took four hours to build this. About an hour of that was grinding the center out of the wheel. I cut the bottom of a 55 gallon barrel including the bottom rim and sliced long ways. I wrapped two ratchet straps a ways up from the bottom and tightened them alternately until the bottom was about a foot in diameter. That was about as far as it would go without cutting material out of the fold. I had a piece of wheel rim that was about that size that I tacked around the barrel skin and having cut the center out of another 14 inch wheel, I welded the rim section on the cone to the full wheel. I cut a slot out of the bottom of the wheel so that a plate could be slid in and out of it and cut up the lid from the barrel with a slot in it and screwed it to the bottom of the wheel and then put the base of a 50 gallon water heater skin under that. The plate slides in to cover that slot in the bottom. The water heater base fits snuggly over a 30 gallon trash can. The thinking here is that the cone will burn sticks like in Don’s retort and then the plate can be pulled out and the char will fall into the trash can. When done the slot can be closed and another load can be burned and cycled though. Then the area above the slot can be sealed with a piece of fire blanket to stop the char from burning. Really wasn’t as complicated as I made it sound,
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Hi Tom , boy you do like hard work don’t you 
, i hope your a very tall man because i can tell that i would need a pair of steps to get up to the top of your cone to feed and look at it . cant wait to see some photo’s of your burn .Nice workmanship on your metalwork too by the way
Another quick way to use a 55 gallon drum as a fire pit with no holes in the bottom is to tilt it to say a 25% angle and then lite a fire in the bottom and keep filling up with sticks as they burn down when full just place the lid on lightly and allow to cool down , you don’t want to tighten the lid down on hot char as it will implode your drum as the oxygen inside is burned up
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I just enjoy building stuff Dave. I keep busy all the time. Just wish I still had better tools and materials to work with. Yes it’s too high. I just stuck it on that garbage can because it fit. There is an area behind where all the junk is that higher and about level with the top of the wheel. It will get moved there to use and I’ll cut some kind of clean out door into the can.
So far I’ve had no result from trying TLUD. The last batch of charcoal I made I just kept filling the barrel like you said while I was working near it. I ended up with over half a barrel of grind-able char out of it but it took about four hours of going back and reloading the barrel. I’ll go out and cut fire wood today and have a load of sticks and stuff I can try out the cone with. I have to say that I can’t see regular people making gas out of charcoal. First you have to gather the wood, then char it, then sort out the brands and grind it and then screen it an finally load it. That’s a lot of messy work. It’s been ten years since I quit building houses and for some years before that I had a hard time finding anyone that actually liked to work or made any real effort at it or thought that stopping every couple of minutes to text something on a phone wasn’t a god given right.
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Hi Tom , you are so right and and boy do you make it sound like hard work 
I guess having 2 wood burning fires in the house it just comes as second nature to fill a pan of charcoal every time i refill and luckily there is no sorting of brands for me as its all so well cooked my crusher is just a tip it in the top let it fall out the bottom done so i guess its as easy as it gets .
Dave
ps.
By the way did you look at the Hookway retort as a way of making charcoal ?
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