[Gasification] [Stoves] Gasifier vs Petrol

[AJH]

On Thu, 12 Oct 2006 07:24:04 +1200, Ian Vincent wrote:

>Bula from Fiji

Ian I've crossposted this to [gasification] where the discussion is
better suited, you can subscribe to this list at 

http://listserv.repp.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_listserv.repp.org

>Can someone give me some idea of what volume/weight of wood is needed to 
>replace a litre of petrol. 

It's not straightforward because wood is an unrefined fuel, it needs
to go through a number of stages before it will run an engine. It
needs to be gasified, cooled and cleaned. Even then it can still be a
dirty fuel and the engine oil will need frequent changing. The engine
will also be de rated running on producer gas compared with petrol.
Hence not only do the capital costs go up but so do the operation and
maintenance costs.

Having said that 1 litre of petrol has about 9kWhr(thermal) calorific
value. A kg of oven dry wood has about 5kWhr(t) and a good gasifier
could have a cold gas efficiency of 70% thermal input to fuel gas. So
the equivalent fuel gas value of 1kg of wood is going to be about
3.5kWhr(t)/kg. 20% of this is a ball park of the power output of the
engine, say 1hp for an hour per kg of dry wood.

Doug Williams will have some better figures for this.

AJH