Dear Mother: Producer Gas Vehicles

(Page 2 of 2)

May/June 1974
By Nernd Richelmann 
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The engine exhaust is non-polluting (well, comparatively so, anyway . . . see Travis Brock's article for details. — MOTHER) but the engine itself will get badly fouled unless you remove fly ash and tar from the gas by cooling and filtering (or perhaps by running it through a hookah, which we could build with technology already existing in the alternative culture).

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A German textbook I found on the subject states that a generator fueled with hardwood will produce a gas with a heating value of 1,250 kilocalories per cubic meter, consisting of 10.5% CO2, 0.4% CH, 1.6% CH2, 22% CO, 47.3% N2. The N2 and CO2 are non-combustible and contribute no power. Therefore, it helps if your vehicle has a big engine to start out with. (I remember that a wood-burning truck usually stopped at the bottom of a hill and the driver would get out, open the lid on the generator and stir around inside with a long poker to increase the gas output temporarily.)

Nevertheless, this system is quite workable if you don't mind the extra time required for start-up, for cleaning and maintenance and for preparing the fuels (chopping hardwood into small blocks, for instance, or converting powdery substances such as manure into non-compacting pellets).

Bernd Richelmann
San Diego, California

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