[HN Gopher] Wood Gas Vehicles: Firewood in the Fuel Tank (2010)
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Wood Gas Vehicles: Firewood in the Fuel Tank (2010)
Author : Rygian
Score : 75 points
Date : 2026-02-05 08:56 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (solar.lowtechmagazine.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (solar.lowtechmagazine.com)
| duxup wrote:
| I had no idea these were actually made in significant numbers.
|
| >even a modern woodmobile requires up to 10 minutes to get up to
| working temperature
|
| That was my first question, and I can't imagine it would be great
| to have a parking garage of these things warming up / outputting
| gasses for 10 min each.
| its_magic wrote:
| You don't run these inside enclosed spaces, because the carbon
| monoxide would kill you.
|
| It's nowhere near as convenient as gasoline--there's plenty of
| minding and care required--but during hard times it's much more
| efficient and convenient than hauling a truck load of stuff by
| horseback, or walking. A wood gas spark engine runs much more
| efficiently than an equivalent steam engine, for example.
|
| The difference back then is everything was carbureted and
| switching over to wood gas was relatively simple. With today's
| extremely complex fuel injected vehicles it will be a whole
| different story.
|
| Converting the wood to charcoal before use has been found to be
| the most reliable method of burning wood by most users, with
| lowest contamination/fouling risk, although the owner of the
| http://www.driveonwood.com forum (a guy from Springville,
| Alabama) runs his truck on straight hardwood and has put many
| miles on it like that.
|
| When in good tune, a full size pickup truck will go about a
| mile per pound of wood.
| duxup wrote:
| Well yes, I did read the article ...
| its_magic wrote:
| Well I didn't. I just spent years reading others' accounts,
| and am reporting from my own experience also. (Shocker, I
| know.) Now you have two people telling you the same thing,
| I guess.
| bob1029 wrote:
| A turbocharger/blower would dramatically improve everything,
| assuming you could get it to survive the operating conditions.
|
| https://youtube.com/shorts/4MQGP5MME2A
| adiabatichottub wrote:
| It works well if you use the turbo to feed air to the
| gasifier, creating a positive-pressure fuel system. Pulling
| from the gasifier runs the risk of fouling the turbo with tar
| and particulate, unless your operating conditions and
| filtration are perfect, which they rarely are. The danger in
| running positive pressure is that any leaks downstream of the
| gasifier could be emitting large amounts of carbon monoxide.
| If you can modulate exhaust pressure to the turbine then you
| can use the turbo to just overcome the pressure drop of the
| gasifier and filter without creating any extra pressure.
| pjfin123 wrote:
| I wonder if a wood powered tractor for farming would be more
| practical than a wood powered car for transportation
| its_magic wrote:
| Check out http://www.driveonwood.com to see plenty of examples
| of both. A wood car or truck can be amazingly practical for any
| use involving long steady state (i.e. highway driving), not so
| much for city use.
|
| A tractor can certainly work well on wood gas.
| AngryData wrote:
| I think it would, the only problem being smaller row crop
| farmers who would be mostly likely benefit to implement it or
| want to implement it have been pushed out of agriculture more
| and more over the decades and struggle to survive at all. Which
| makes spending time and money on experimental work like this
| far less likely.
| jabl wrote:
| In the sense of a farmer being more likely to have access to a
| local supply of firewood, and that tractors are probably more
| used for longer stretches at a time than running down to the
| grocery store, sure.
|
| Historically, they weren't that common, as large-scale use of
| wood gas was mostly a thing in Europe during WWII, and during
| that period continental European agriculture was still mostly
| horse-driven. After WWII when agricultural mechanization really
| picked up, fuel was again available so there was no big
| motivation to put up with the disadvantages of wood gasifiers.
| perilunar wrote:
| > If, one day, the availability of (cheap) oil comes to an end,
| the omnipresence of the automobile will be history.
|
| I think the years since this was written has shown this to be
| false. BEVs are steadily replacing ICE vehicles and we have more
| cars than ever.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Electrics won't replace ICE until the range issues in cold
| weather is figured out.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| It will be a non-issue with the inevitable additional
| (charging) infrastructure roll-outs along with mandates for
| on-board heat-pump battery management.
|
| Just look at what Norway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-
| in_electric_vehicles_in_N... has done in just 20 years and
| let's just say it's not known for its warm climate.
| happosai wrote:
| Vast majority of worlds population doesn't live in places
| where cold weather range is a problem. Even where it is, cold
| weather range is a 3 month inconvenience of having to charge
| more often.
|
| Yeas sure there are use cases where gasoline is more
| convenient than BEV. But just because the usecase is relevant
| for you doesn't mean it's globally relevant in the big
| picture.
|
| Also how much people are ready take inconvenience depends how
| much they have to pay for the luxury of using gas. Even
| ignoring the global warming aspect, the EROI of oil drilling
| is plummeting. We'll never run out oil, it will just get more
| and more expensive as the easy sources of oil are all used...
| Vasbarlog wrote:
| Tell that to the Norwegians.
| holoduke wrote:
| Not only in cold weather. Good luck trailing something big
| for a long distance even in the summer. In my model X the
| range is reduced to hardly 150 miles. Really inconvenient.
| gambiting wrote:
| What do you mean by trailing? Like, driving on a trail?
| Like an off road one? Why would you do that in a Model X?
| speedgoose wrote:
| Probably pulling a trailer for a long distance.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| This is like the argument that LED traffic lights are bad
| because they don't get hot enough to melt snow on them.
|
| It's something that doesn't matter most of the time and
| when it does matter you use something else. LED traffic
| lights started getting built with heaters in them.
| adrianN wrote:
| Then it looks like it is figured out because BEV is replacing
| combustion at an ever increasing rate.
| speedgoose wrote:
| It is figured out though. Pre-heat the battery, or drive a
| little while before charging. A fast charging stop will
| significantly heat up the battery, heat that can then be
| transferred to the cabin.
|
| I live in Norway and for most people, EVs are an improvement
| during cold weather in my opinion. They get warm inside much
| faster, drive better, and while the range is obviously a lot
| lower, it isn't a deal breaker if you buy a good EV.
|
| EV wouldn't represent 97% of new car sales in Norway if they
| were worse in the cold IMHO. The country put incentives but
| they are phased out and many people don't mind paying a lot.
| prmoustache wrote:
| EVs are better than ICE in term of local emissions, however
| they do not solve all environmental issues.
|
| The answer is fewer cars and more shared transportation. People
| always mention lack of public transport possibilities,
| affordability and rentability but the offer would develop
| immediately and would be much more efficient than what we have
| now if private passenger motorized vehicles weren't allowed as
| it would reduce the overall traffic significantly if only
| emergency, public and good transports were allowed.
| rippeltippel wrote:
| I didn't know about this, and initially suspected the article was
| an LLM-generated prank (photos and all). Now I entered the rabbit
| hole of water gas, wood gasification, Gustav Bischof, Lowe's
| gas... HN is such a great place of the Internet!
| bilegeek wrote:
| Some more terms for your enjoyment:
|
| * Blau Gas
|
| * Fischer-Tropsch process
|
| * Bergius process
| pomian wrote:
| Here are some more terms used 'in the day': Coal gas, city
| gas, wood gas
| kev009 wrote:
| I remember John Cohn, an IBM Computer Engineer, was on some TV
| show called The Colony and built one
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkH6mFlfH3o and I seem to
| remember it getting much further than this clip.
| mft_ wrote:
| Related, Colin Furze experimented with using wood gas to run an
| IC engine, somewhat successfully: https://youtu.be/FK2qK-NCQH8
| stickynotememo wrote:
| > During the Second World War, almost every motorised vehicle in
| continental Europe was converted to use firewood.
|
| How is this the first time me (or anyone else in this comment
| section) is hearing about this? It seems like a pretty major
| deal.
| wongarsu wrote:
| From what I gather the conversion wasn't a big deal. The
| engines of the time weren't picky about fuel, so you just have
| to find space to mount the wood gas generator (a very simple if
| bulky device) and pipe the wood gas into the fuel system. And
| once gasoline was available again those vehicles were easily
| converted back
| adiabatichottub wrote:
| If everything is operating correctly then yes it's wonderful.
| If conditions are poor then you are in for a bad time. There
| are a lot of things that can cause poor gas quality, often
| having to do with things like biomass moisture content,
| mineral content, and material feed. You can get into regimes
| where pyrolysis and reduction are incomplete and the tar
| content of the gas is high enough to stick valves and acidify
| the oil. Gasification is a fickle lover.
| pomian wrote:
| Some of us had the honor of learning about it from WWII vets...
| But, to your point, everyone in Europe was busy fighting the
| war, and there was very little 'driving around'. So not much
| talk about it.
| mzi wrote:
| Called "generatorgas" or "gengas" for short in Sweden. Almost
| all cars in pictures from the early forties had a little cart
| behind them. That was the generator.
| flopsamjetsam wrote:
| I had heard stories of these from my Dad. He lived in country
| Australia (SA) during WWII, and the long-distance buses had
| been converted over to this.
| genewitch wrote:
| wood gas is still explosive gas. be careful; but it does work,
| for things you'd use propane for, at greatly reduced efficiency
| and probably longevity of any moving parts. with wide variance.
| including your lungs.
| jabl wrote:
| Amusingly(?), the Juha Sipila character mentioned in the article
| later became prime minister in Finland from 2015-2019.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| The title made me wonder if you could actually put wood in the
| fuel tank and heat the tank to generate wood gas. Turns out no,
| you need more than that.
| buildsjets wrote:
| Given the times, these vehicles need a bumper sticker that says
| "This is not an IED."
|
| Jeff Lane has a few of these in the Lane motor museum in
| Nashville. Just about everything in the museum is in operating
| condition and he likes to show his collection off on weekend demo
| days, but I haven't had a chance to see these run. Great car
| museum, all oddball cars, nothing normal. They recently finished
| building an accurate reproduction of the Fuller Dymaxion.
| https://www.lanemotormuseum.org/collection/cars/item/dymaxio...
| adiabatichottub wrote:
| Alright, for those who want a big dump of practical knowledge on
| building and operating small-scale gasifiers here's the old GEK
| wiki:
|
| http://wiki.gekgasifier.com/w/page/6123718/FrontPage
|
| Be warned, there are a myriad of reasons this technology never
| became commercially successful for modern applications.
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(page generated 2026-02-08 23:01 UTC)