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petrol expensive...ah ha! lets see them tax wood...
Mr Whippy - 20/4/11 at 11:29 AM

yip you too can run your car on wood!!

wiki linky

another linky

[Edited on 20/4/11 by Mr Whippy]


mrwibble - 20/4/11 at 12:57 PM

not the prettiest of creations though is it. might be tricky front engined


Mr Whippy - 20/4/11 at 01:10 PM

well the vid shows an american sports car with a thing in in the boot, well I say in the boot it's more like a Hill Billy version the car from back to the future! but it does show you that it is possable.

I'd never heard of such a thing yet the guy in the vid says that during WWII most of German transport ran on these wood gas converters!

Considering all the worked getting done on Hydrogen fuel cell cars and the dangers they have, here's one that can run on renewable forests with less hazard than a petrol car

[Edited on 20/4/11 by Mr Whippy]


HowardB - 20/4/11 at 02:02 PM

didn't they do something like this on bang goes the theory tv thingy show. I seem to recall a london to manchester drive? maybe barking up the wrong tree.



sorry


02GF74 - 20/4/11 at 02:19 PM

sure the myth busters or similar pair converted a Toyota pck up to run on wood gas.

it was an ugly and ungainly system but I am sure if some serious money was thrown at it it wold improve.

why not brew your own alcohol from sugar and run your car on that, surely that is the future (not a great future as the fermentation process produces lots of CO2 but if it causes weather like we have at the moment, then surely that cannot be a bad thing??)


40inches - 20/4/11 at 02:31 PM

quote:
Originally posted by HowardB
didn't they do something like this on bang goes the theory tv thingy show. I seem to recall a london to manchester drive? maybe barking up the wrong tree.



sorry

Yes they did, wasn't exactly a trouble free run.


HowardB - 20/4/11 at 03:26 PM

quote:
Originally posted by 40inches
quote:
Originally posted by HowardB
didn't they do something like this on bang goes the theory tv thingy show. I seem to recall a london to manchester drive? maybe barking up the wrong tree.



sorry

Yes they did, wasn't exactly a trouble free run.


It was coffee beans, so I guess it's a similar process,....

worth a bit of development I'm sure

here's a linky-woo-woo


sunshine is great with no roof


David Jenkins - 20/4/11 at 03:34 PM

All these schemes for making fuel out of alternative sources worry me... people are already using food crops for making fuel, at a time when a fair number of people are starving. What will happen if people start using wood instead?

We should really be finding ways of not using burnable fuel at all... whatever they may turn out to be. Don't get me wrong - I love blasting up the road in my petrol-guzzling toy car as much as the next petrol-head, but it just can't go on forever.

I just wish they could get battery technology both better AND affordable, without hydrocarbons being used up somewhere in the electrickery production. Electric cars can have an ASTONISHING performance, if the batteries were there to support it.

Now I think I'll go and hug a tree...


BenB - 20/4/11 at 04:14 PM

They've already tried it

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12705531

Oh hang on.... I don't think you meant....

ps. Not sure why that's filed where it is BTW! someone ain't going to get an A for geography!


MikeFellows - 20/4/11 at 04:27 PM

can this gas be stored safely and how long will it 'keep' stored?


Confused but excited. - 20/4/11 at 05:31 PM

quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
All these schemes for making fuel out of alternative sources worry me... people are already using food crops for making fuel, at a time when a fair number of people are starving. What will happen if people start using wood instead?

We should really be finding ways of not using burnable fuel at all... whatever they may turn out to be. Don't get me wrong - I love blasting up the road in my petrol-guzzling toy car as much as the next petrol-head, but it just can't go on forever.

I just wish they could get battery technology both better AND affordable, without hydrocarbons being used up somewhere in the electrickery production. Electric cars can have an ASTONISHING performance, if the batteries were there to support it.

Now I think I'll go and hug a tree...


And how do you propose all that the electricity is to be generated for these 'clean' batteries, coal, oil, gas, nuclear?


David Jenkins - 20/4/11 at 05:50 PM

That's what I'm saying! I wish there was some other way to make electricity, apart from the usual suspects. I know that current electric cars just move the pollution and problems elsewhere.

But we can't go on burning hydrocarbons the way we are at the moment...


MikeRJ - 21/4/11 at 07:16 AM

Wood gas seems like a hugely inefficient way of using wood, you have to partially burn the wood to extract the gas, wasting a shed load of energy in the process (and creating all sorts of nasty pollutants) and then you are left with a fuel that has typically 1/10th the energy content of natural gas or petrol, and only 1/3rd the energy of the original wood.


Badger_McLetcher - 21/4/11 at 01:13 PM

Nuclear fusion is the answer. The problem is it's about 30-50 years away (conservatively and ignoring wild cards). We just need stuff to form a stop gap, so I'd actually say we should use a mix of everything we can get our hands on!


jossey - 21/4/11 at 01:24 PM

i use bio diesel in my 2005 bmw 525 diesel. veg oil worked well to in the summer but not in winter.

bio diesel costs 90p per litre and works fine.

i use it for 150 miles a day to work n back.

:O)


wood im unsure about but when they did it on bang goes the theory it was a mess.


dave


Mr Whippy - 21/4/11 at 02:36 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Badger_McLetcher
Nuclear fusion is the answer. The problem is it's about 30-50 years away (conservatively and ignoring wild cards). We just need stuff to form a stop gap, so I'd actually say we should use a mix of everything we can get our hands on!


Possibly but I can't see one ever being small enough to fit in a car!