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Hey Tom, met you during a cold February in Illinois at stove camp with Dr. TLUD. Sure enjoyed you, appreciate your knowledge sharing and enthusiasm there. You and the crew Infected me with the bioenergy "bug" and have not been able to shake the fever since ;~) As the owner of Wayne Keith's original test bed 1984 460cid Ford that he converted about 2004, I can tell you it still runs great. If I could only keep my mechanic buddy Ed from tinkering with it, it would be my daily driver. Last update was an improved automatic tranny, E4OD. For now, that requires a co-pilot to run the diagnostic computer because the 84 Ford did not have a computer onboard. There is an aftermarket computer strictly to run the tranny, but have had neither time nor money to implement. Factory pellets turn to mush in Wayne's stratifed downdraft design, due to the moisture content of the pellets. Small (fist sized) wood chunks work great. Walnuts the squirrels leave behind over the winter (floaters) also work great. The high propane prices this winter, started us converting hardwood pellets to heat and char in larger TLUD devices. We ended up with char in excess of what we needed for gardening along with greatly reduced heat energy price V $4.65 per gallon propane. Hardwood pellets make wonderfully uniform pelletized charcoal with low tar content. Char sizing and tar content were the final known limiations of the Kalle charcoal gasifier. The Kalle was reported to run a 3-4 liter engine 60 miles per charge in a bin sized to fit neatly below hood level on the front bumper of cars-o-the-day (early 1940's). We tried the pelletized charcoal in a modified S-80 sawdust gasifier and they fired up an old Case tractor first lick. After mounting the unit, and with the aid of a shop vac, it was 2 minutes from lighting char to letting out the clutch and driving the tractor on nature's finest. Long way of saying taking the easy heat from pellets before using them for driving may be an appoach worthy of consideration. Offset high propane costs with pellets. Offset the high cost of travel with the char left over. We suspect the Wayne Keith design (a 200 liter barrel turned into a wood "hopper") filled with charred pellets instead of wood, will run the 460 cid engine at least a few hundred miles between fill-ups with the improved tranny. Char packs a lot more miles per weight than hardwood. With a good use for the heat during conversion from pellets to char, we don't waste any of the energy. If you are going to get the universiites involved, how about a Prius that runs coast to coast on just the char it can carry onboard with room for two passengers? PS: if you are looking fora co-pilot, please put me near the top of the list ;~) On Sun, 16 Mar 2014 17:11:04 -0500, andrew schofield <[email protected]> wrote:
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