Talk:Wood gas generator

How much wood for 100km
How much wood for 100km?

This is an important question to compare this old wood gas generators to modern systems.

I documented June 2005 the wood gas power plant in Güssing - Burgenland - Austria- normally pink

Wood power plaint Güssing

They produce from 1 kg wood in average 1,13 kWh electric power and 2,55 heat in a gas engine.

But they can also produce a liquid useable in Diesel engines.

Wood gas to Diesel like fuel experiment

They claimed June 2005 10kg wood for 1 litre Diesel like fuel. This was changed October 2005 to 5kg wood for 1 litre Diesel like fuel.

The wood consumption: The Toyota Prius+, the "+" stands for a 9kWh Lithium battery built in a normal Prius, consumes in electric only mode 15 kWh/100km. This translates to 13,3 kg wood on 100km

Citroen introduced the C4 HDI hybrid with an average consumption of 3,4 litre Diesel for 100km With 5 kg wood for 1 litre Diesel like fuel, this would be 17 kg wood for 100 km

Citroen C4 HDI Hybrid

More experiments
The Mother Earth News magazine had several articles in the 1970's on experimental vehicles they converted with onboard wood gas generators. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bizzybody (talk • contribs) 09:04, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

FEMA Link
The FEMA document link goes to www.build-a-gasifier.com and the FEMA Plans can be freely downloaded (NO email harvesting or gimmicks). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.171.166.223 (talk) 05:20, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Corrected invalid FEMA document link. Kacela (talk) 18:07, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

'Mounted on an internal combustion engine'?
The lead current reads A wood gas generator often known as a gasifier, is a wood-fueled gasification reactor mounted on an internal combustion engine, to provide a wood gas, a form of syngas.. As such it implies that 'all' wood gas generators are mounted on internal combustion engines and that any device that creates wood gas that is not attached to an internal combustion engine is not a wood gas generator. Is that accurate? Surely any device of this sort that creates wood gas is a wood gas generaotr regardless of where it is mounted? PeterEastern (talk) 08:07, 9 May 2011 (UTC)


 * In my understanding, a wood gas generator is a special type of gasifier, mounted on an internal combustion engine on a car. I would not call other gasifiers "wood gas generators". The Güssing plang for example is a gasifier, not a wood gas generator in my understanding. Claus Hindsgaul (talk) 10:37, 9 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I have reworked the lead and done a general cleanup job across the article. I hope I haven't changed the meaning of lost anything important and that people feel it is clearer now. I have made the history section into something a bit shorted and more structured and have moved details relevant to creating a unit now to a new 'design' section. PeterEastern (talk) 19:10, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Keith gasifier is valid
I just undid an edit claiming that the Keith gasifier is not a new design (implying that it has no encyclopedic value), instead claiming that it is simply a stratified downdraft gasifier design. This is a false accusation and unfounded. Further discussion may proceed in this section. KY Metro (talk) 02:55, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Links
Can we add a link to Husk Power Systems and GEK ? KVDP (talk) 11:39, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

How does it work?
Ok, so this is a really lengthy article but nowhere to be found is some chemistry or physics.


 * How is the general idea of turning wood into gas?
 * At what temperature does it happen?
 * Which pressure is required?
 * Which gas is the result?

--Giszmo (talk) 00:11, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Self contradiction
There are the following two statements in the Media coverage section

"On September 14, 2011, at the Bonneville Salt Flats a truck modified with a wood gas powered engine set a new world speed record for vehicles powered by wood gas with a speed of 73 mph."

"The 'El Kamina', model year 1987 Chevrolet El Camino, is the fastest wood-gas powered car, 140 km/h, 87 mph."

Both statements have citations but it is difficult to see how a speed record can be set in 2011 when a 1987 vehicle is considerably faster. So who is telling porkies?OrewaTel (talk) 03:25, 28 May 2020 (UTC)


 * The facts cited do not indicate a contradiction. The first record mentioned was "set" in 2011. The statement does not indicate that is still the current record. See https://www.motherearthnews.com/green-transportation/new-speed-record
 * The El Camino model was built at the factory in 1987, as a gas-fueled vehicle. Juha Sipilä converted his El Camino to run on wood-gas fuel at some point after 1987.
 * Here is a Jalopnik article on the conversion. I did not watch the embedded video, but it may describe when Sipilä did the conversion.
 * https://jalopnik.com/this-el-camino-runs-on-burning-wood-5792023
 * Even if he happened to do the conversion before 2011, it was a hobby project and very likely would not have been optimally tuned until he had fiddled with it for a while.
 * The record set at Bonneville was done according to the appropriate standards for land speed records. In my limited searching, I see no evidence that Sipilä's vehicle underwent a formal attempt at a land speed record. Media reports could have called it a record because it was faster than the existing record, when all that was said was "I've had it up to 140 kph/87 mph," or a journalist may have ridden or driven the vehicle at that speed. Along those lines, in 2011, The Mother Earth News published their article "I Went 84 MPH in a Wood Gas Truck" https://www.motherearthnews.com/green-transportation/84-mph-wood-gas-truck-zb0z11zroc — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gpavek (talk • contribs) 17:52, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Fix for a broken link in the Reference list
I don't know how to edit the references, or I'd do it myself. Could someone who knows what they're doing please update the link?

Reference #13 to the "FAO 72" report points to the miniwoodgas.com site, which is currently suspended by the hosting provider. The report itself is available directly from the FAO: http://www.fao.org/3/t0512e/t0512e.pdf

The full title of the report is: "FAO Forestry Paper 72: Wood Gas as Engine Fuel" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gpavek (talk • contribs) 17:17, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Gas bag vehicles
Is this article where information about gas bag vehicles be located? Iʼm having trouble finding a relevant article for these vehicles used during gasoline shortages of World War I and World War II. Balta katei  11:17, 15 March 2024 (UTC)