# Alabama inventor breaks record with his wood-burning pickup



## cornbread (Jul 4, 2005)

Springville, Alabama inventor breaks record with his wood-burning pickup

http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/09/springville_alabama_inventor_b.html

SPRINGVILLE, Alabama -- If Alabama State Troopers had asked Wayne Keith why he was running his 1993 Dodge Dakota pickup at 90 mph on I-59 in St. Clair County last week, his reply probably would have resulted in a Breathalyzer test. 

His story of making a practice run for a land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats would have likely raised suspicion of a little too much barley and hops. 

The 61-year-old Springville inventor is indeed at the Bonneville Salt Flats this week. On Wednesday he set a class world-record in his firewood-powered truck. He went 71.18 mph to break the previous record by more than 24 mph.


Here is a pdf file plans to convert a tractor. 

http://www.soilandhealth.org/03sov/0302hsted/fema.woodgas.pdf


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## greg273 (Aug 5, 2003)

In the PDF attachment, there is an interesting fact mentioned, that 20lbs of wood contains the equivalent energy of 1 gallon of gasoline... Something to ponder for all us backwoods homesteaders.
A wood-fired generator would be a great backup for an off-grid solar or wind setup...


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2011)

Man, that tractor thing is really cool. And potentially extremely useful. I'm going to do some hard looking at that, just glanced over it initially.


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## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

zong said:


> And potentially extremely useful. I'm going to do some hard looking at that, just glanced over it initially.


One thing you might consider doing is to start keeping an hour meter record and the amount of fuel used during X number of hours to determine a gallons per hour rate, also perhaps a diary of the tractor use at the time, i.e. light idle type work such as when pulling a light trailer, heavy work such as plowing, etc. 

Seems to me it would fit better with stationary work instead of mobile. 

I wonder how readily one could air dry tree chips provided by tree trimmers. Lots of foliage, etc. to mess with too however.


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## Helena (May 10, 2002)

Was recently looking through some of my older..70's Mother Earth Magazines and they were showing people that used this same idea. Now ..if I could only do this myself.


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## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

I've been interested in this for some time.

Not real impressed with the fema plans.

Back when Syn Gas was used for the Town supply (Town Gas) The gasifier was masonry.
Something for those wanting a generator setup to think about. Only thing is it wont be mobile. the higher you can keep the temp in the Pyrolysis Zone the more efficient the gasifier. Using masonry adds thermal mass. You also do not need to be a welder or metal fabricator to build it.

Greg I think you right on the 20lbs equals a gallon of gas, but it may be more gas is 125,000 BTU per US gallon and wood on average is 8000 btu per lb. so 20lbs is 160,000 BTU. that's a good bit more energy. it may be lost in the process.

Then if you figure a cord equals 3000 lbs its equivalent to 150 gallons. So based on cord price here you would be Paying (if you bought it) $1 a unit vs $4. Even if you bought pellets,which a lot of folks are using. they also are suppose to be a little more energy dense. you would be paying around 2.46 a unit with pellets. of course if you have access to free that's where the savings is. of coarse the wood gas scene is getting to the point that the waste veggie oil did. there are several company's offering units now.

someone with a nice wood lot practicing Coppicing and collecting the wind fall. would have a never ending fuel supply.

this is a tried and true technology with many applications for those of us where wood is plentiful I think its a good alternative.

not really gassifer related but would be handy to break your fuel down,

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbTCeai9ces&feature=related[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLVPRhnphrA[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZCiCL6cffM[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhmKBDIAXd0&feature=related[/ame]

if you combined the matrix splitter on the last one with the double action of the first one, it would be perfect. I think they did the first one that way to use a less powerful hydraulic cylinder.


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