Here’s a thought.
Say I wanted to go to Argos next year (2020).
I’m Canadian and as far as I know, I cant cross the border with large amounts of wood.
So I get to the American side of the border. I’m running on Gasoline. Would I be able to swing into a wood lot, buy a half cord of wood, chunk it up with my chainsaw and carry on?
How badly would green or wet wood impact performance?
Welcome Barry, I like your enthusiasm. First the gasifier runs on wood that is considered dry wood around 18% moisture content. I have found if it is less than that, it works even better. Seasoned wood is needed. So green wood is out of the picture for burning.
Lets just say when you get to the border driving on petrol and with no wood in your truck, the border patrol stop will check your vehicle and want to know what that thing is in the back of your truck. Now you are in the USA and stop at one of the fellow DOW member places that has wood ready to go and bagged up for you. You will need to be hauling a trailer with you. You can figure one pound of wood per mile when driving at highway speeds, and pulling a trailer you will be doing some hybrid driving pulling that trailer when loaded with wood. There are members that drive long distances on wood. Like @Wayne K. , @Chris S. and others. They all have put a lot of miles Driving On Wood.
I am like you thinking of making that long trip on wood. But for now I drive my truck from Washington State on petrol across the USA to Argos, Indiana and then I DOW when I get to the Argos Woodgas Meetup. Still Dreaming of that trip, some day.
Wayne drove across the USA on wood a few years back. It can be done, you need some dry wood station spots to load up the trailer.
There is plenty of dry oak wood once you get to Argos to burn in the gasifiers.
Hope to see you there.
Bob
Yes I suppose if there was a DOW member close to my route willing to do that. I do have a trailer.
I would expect to get xrayed at the border when they saw the bomb shaped device on the back of my pick up. Hahahaha
One route would be 1632 miles one way with 1246 being in the US.
The other route would be 1387 Miles with 254 miles in the US.
I guess the best idea would be to load up about 2200lbs of wood on the trailer drive to Detroit and drop the wood trailer on the Canadian side at a truck stop. That would cover all my driving in Canada.
Drive to Argos on Petrol and get some wood at the site to run my gasifier while there.