Car that burns on wood not gas
Did you ever wonder and consider trying to run your vehicle on wood and not gas? Well if you did, good for you to be so environmentally friendly but the majority of us just go to the gas station and fill up our tanks and call it a day. Well, a man in Connecticut, Dave Nichols, is currently running his 1989 Ford F-150 pickup truck on wood, leaves, cardboard, and other ”biomass” material that gives off virually no pollution. This process is actually called gasification. Gasification could also heat and power homes. There are a lot of possibilities for this, but according to Nichols and others is very “easy to achieve.” Nichols’ truck seems to work like any other truck that can reach 40 mph and above on local roads and go 80 mph on the highway. The big and very noticeable difference is that right behind the rear window there is something that looks like a wood stove. It’s actually a metal barrel. Gas is captured from the barrel and then a vacuum system sucks it through piping that runs under the truck to the engine. Nichols says that he has driven 10,000 miles without gas including a 600 mile trip with 400 lbs of wood in the back. A pound of wood will fuel his truck for 1 to 2 miles, which equals out to costing about 8 cents per mile to fuel compared to 19 cents per mile if you used regular gas. Nichols is trying to perfect the fuel system and according to him he is close. He says that an electronic system that would allow drivers to push a button instead of having to use a propane torch to start it is the final part needed. Nichols started a company called 21st Century Motor Works to work on his gasification system.
Of course there is always a downside. Larry Baxter, a chemical engineering professor at Brigham Young University says that there are two problems. One is that the gasification process can produce materials that can damage engines and the other problem is that it’s impractical to load up your car or truck with pounds of wood and other materials to drive. Nichols disagrees with the first problem saying that he’s found a way to produce a clean-burning fuel that would save people thousands of dollars to fuel their cars and heat their homes. I guess time will tell if this company or others can get the gasification process perfected and who knows maybe soon all of us will be using wood to run our vehicles and not gas! Alright, that’s far-fetched, but fun to think about!