Just get er done. I sucked up a pile of poplar in 25 miles the other day. I even had large chunks of elm mixed in with it. Car ran good. I thought something had broke on the way home as I expected to go another 15 miles or so on that load. I was wrong and it got to the nozzles. Good thing I had some gasoline in the car. It was pouring rain and my back went out so didn’t care to deal with it. The previous drive I was driving on oak chunks and it ran well but with less power. Woods are different everywhere in the world so there is no one answer on what to use. You just have to get used to it. I often run blends of light wood to make quick heat and blend in hardwoods to insure there will be good charcoal … ML
PS, I actually have to think of cutting up some more chunks as I can finally walk through the trailer and sheds … I like doing that (cutting chunks) … It’s a good way to blow off steam … I haven’t run my buzz saw in months and we finally got some rain and the proverbial mosquitos. Recent back ache is probably due to the 2 bites I got right on my spine … No Los Bastardos Carborundum !!!
chris> Let’s just say the practice of burning out the underbrush and dead wood was made illegal or too costly by laws, and liability, it is much easier and cheaper for the landowner to let it burn in one big huge forest fire, then to pay to manage it with roads, and setting a series of smaller fires. An Act of God, is covered under insurance, someone throwing a cigerette out the window on your private road when they are trespassing is not.
The wood is extremely hard to get to you will be lucky if you are within a mile of a 2 track in most places, and you are on 60 degree slopes and the brush can get thick. Plus you are in a pine needle tinderbox. (chainsaws exhausts can start fires. It isn’t OSHA conditions… For the most part is isn’t cost effective at this point either.
Since the topic is coal gasifiers and most coal is done with a fluidized bed gasifier system…These guys claim to have one that does fluidized bed that does wood also.
http://www.energyproducts.com/fluidized_bed_gasifiers.htm
I am sure it is on a much larger scale. But you could prototype it with the “log splitter” gasifier, by putting a plate on the bottom with tiny holes in it, to suspend both the substrate (either sand or char) and the fuel and injecting the exhaust/air combo in from the bottom. I would probably use wood chips or sawdust… then a slide type of ram injector like |—| shape inside a tube… or a screw type of injector… It might blow up though. 
I don’t mean to hijack this thread, but I want to be sure to understand. The numbers given for lbs per gallon are of dry hard wood, correct? I ask because you seem to be siting the green cord wood weight. The dry weight for oak is around 1300 lbs less then the green weight per cord. http://forestry.usu.edu/htm/forest-products/wood-heating
Kevin
Hello Kevin,
It seems that the mileage per pound of dry wood is about the same regardless of species.
However the miles per fill up will differ with the different density and species of the wood.
In the chart willow rated poor but I have used it and liked it.
Thanks Keith.
Kevin,
You’re right that the numbers assumed 5000 lbs per cord, which is a wet weight. That is a mistake. Actually the whole thing should be redone in terms of dry tons, which is a far better measurement of energy potential.
Quick rehash of the numbers:
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Around 199 million drivers on the road (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908125.html)
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The average driver goes about 13,500 miles in a year (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm)
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Average fuel economy is 20 mpg (.8 pounds per mile on wood) = about 10800 lbs per driver (5.4 tons)
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Total wood requirements = 199 million x 10,800 pounds = 2.1 trillion pounds or about 1 billion tons.
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One acre of woodland can produce about 2 tons of dry wood annually (very conservative) - need 500 million acres
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The national forest is currently estimated at 747 million acres. Contiguous US is 1.89 billion acres, 40% forested.
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Growing hybrid trees could produce around 36 dry tons per acre every 4 years, or 9 tons/year average (http://www.motherearthnews.com/renewable-energy/hybrid-poplars-zmaz80jazraw.aspx)
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The farmland devoted to corn for ethanol is estimated at 90 million acres. Planted in trees it would yield 810 million tons of wood, supplying wood for 150 million drivers (serves about 35 million drivers on ethanol, not counting energy inputs)
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Current “readily available” logging waste is about 49 million dry tons per year (http://www.afandpa.org/temp/Forisk_Forest_Resource_Study_July_2010.pdf). This can fuel about 9 million drivers.
Thanks for clarifying, I guess the end result is the same for me because Im looking at the lbs per mile and then converting to MPG and that was stated for dry wood. 16 lb per gallon is a bonus anything under 20 makes me happy.
Kevin
Hey Chris,
>>It’s the abundance of small fuel on the floor, deadwood and undergrowth - like kindling in a stove. Clear all that stuff out and you won’t have any more wildfires.
That would be good forest management. I agree we should do it that way. But living in wild fire country (Colorado) I have seen a lightning strike in an overgrown fence row start a fire. Looked like it was going to take out part of Boulder last summer. Things get so dry up here sometimes it doesn’t matter whether there is any any dead stuff. Standing live trees sort of explode. Even cotonwoods and stuff that you would think has a lot of sap in it don’t even slow a fire down. I’m just glad that NOAA is telling us we are going to get some water this year.
Btw I heard a lecturer at National Renewable Energy Laboratories say that about 20% of this nation’s energy could come out of our western mountains, using labor that is already dedicated to controlling fires. He’s a chemical engineer. His name is John Skahill. He helped Community Power Corp get up and running. See http://www.gocpc.com/ . Interesting to me, he said that spent hops from Coors Brewing make excellent gassifier feed stock.
Rindert,
Overgrown fencelines count as undergrowth and therefore kindling. If someone was in there with the express purpose of collecting fuel and preventing fires, they would be cleaning out that fenceline, and gasifying the brushy waste.
Amazing to hear about live trees exploding. That’s a hot fire.
Chris,
Yes, it’s a very hot fire. Think about a five mile wide wall of flame traveling at about fifteen miles per hour. It’ll make a steel bridge look like a plate of spagetti. And yes an overgrown fence row does costitute kindeling. You’d have to come up here and see how things are to really understand. But It would be pretty much impossible to clear all that kind of stuff out of Colorado. Just to make a stab at describing the situation. We’ve had pine beetle blight here for several years killing millions of acres of trees. So a bunch of commercial operators have been up there making wood pellets like crazy. But the market isn’t really big enough to absorb all those pellets, so the price is low and the commercial operators have slowed down some. And they really haven’t made much of a dent in the situation anyway.
The way I see it fire has been part of life for a long time around here, and we little humans just aren’t going to change it any time soon.
I found this excellent article about a fuel change technology. Only fits kind’ onto this topic.
Use this article to see the real use energy conversion and heat energy factors.
That, along with the fluid flow discoveries can be related to woodgasification I believe:
Nope. No one wants to go back to bed using coal.
As said: fuel oil was so much better.
Wood for fuel, and even charcoal for fuel most will say we are going backwards too.
Those who do not use a capital “F” and a capital “I” factors in their reasoning.
With an individual able to grow you own solar Freedom and Independence fuels.
Regards
Steve unruh