Wayne Keith, a partner in Renewable Energy Systems LLC (RES), has developed gasification technology that enables regular vehicles which are normally fueled with gasoline, to be powered with a wide range of solid biomass materials, like wood, switchgrass, crop residues and broiler litter.

The biomass powered pickup (the Bio-Truck) will be used to attract media attention, and will be powered on a wide range of solid fuels during the course of the tour. The tour will start in Charleston, SC, on the east coast and take a southern route to San Diego, then north to Los Angeles, and San Francisco, stopping at different renewable energy installations en route to get the media to highlight these projects, companies and technologies. Visit www.au-biotruck.com for more information on the tour.

Follow the Bio-Truck progress as it conducts its Coast To Coast Tour.

Wayne Keith, and his third generation Bio-Truck powered by wood or other biomass.

History: In 2003, when the price of gasoline reached $2.00 per gallon, Wayne decided it was too expensive to continue running his 1984 Ford truck on gasoline. He used the truck daily for transportation, and to haul hay, cattle and equipment. The engine in this pickup is 460 cubic inches, and mileage on gasoline is only 8-9 miles per gallon. By 2005 Wayne had designed and constructed his first generation pickup-mounted gasifier to power the Ford on wood instead of gasoline. However, this equipment was not very user-friendly, and heavy on wood. So in 2007, Wayne designed, constructed and installed an improved second generation gasifier on a smaller truck. Finally, in 2008 he developed a further improved third generation gasifier on a third pickup. This most recent version is much more user friendly, and will be the lead vehicle for the Coast-to-Coast and Back tour (September 28 to October 16) and the one that will participate in the Berkeley to Las Vegas race (October 11-13). Wayne has traveled about 20,000 miles on wood in each of his first two trucks, for a total of 40,000 miles, and has not traveled anywhere on petroleum fuels for over two years. This indicates that the wood powered biotrucks are truly work vehicles, and definitely not toys.

Tour models: The third generation gasifier is mounted on a 1991 Dodge Dakota V8 pickup, which will lead the tour and participate in the race. The second generation gasifier is on a 1987 Dodge Dakota pickup that has a V6 engine. This vehicle will be a backup for both the tour and the race. It was necessary to use older model trucks because the technology is difficult to install on more recent models which mostly have advanced fuel injection systems.

Technology/Equipment: The technology that enables solid material like wood to be used as a fuel for the Bio-Truck is known as gasification, which is essentially partial combustion. Complete combustion is what occurs in an open fire which has an abundant supply of air, and therefore, oxygen. When a fire like this burns, the carbon and hydrogen contained in the material being burned get oxidized (oxygen from the air is added to them), to form mostly carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor (H2O). These gases are released into the air, and the inert material, known as ash, remains on the ground in solid form. If combustible material like wood or grass is placed in an enclosed vessel (known as a gasifier) into which passage of air (and therefore, oxygen) can be restricted, it can be ignited but restricted to only partial combustion/oxidation. The result is that instead of water vapor, hydrogen is released, and instead of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide is released. This mixture of gases is known as synthesis gas, or syngas: mainly a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, but it also contains small amounts of carbon dioxide and methane. A down draft gasifier is located behind the cab of the Bio-Truck. The temperature in the gasifier is between 2,000 and 3,000 degrees F. The syngas flows out of the bottom of the gasifier into a gas radiator (the black “rails” mounted around the payload) to cool it down and condense it. From there the gas is run through a filter to clean it, and then directly through the carburetor to the engine. The energy content of the gas is about 200 btu/cubic foot, compared to 1,000 btu/cubic foot for natural gas.

Speed and Mileage: The race V8 Dodge Dakota travels about 1 mile per pound of wood, and can reach over 80 miles per hour on level road when traveling on wood only.  The V6 pickup gets about 1.5 miles per pound of wood, and can do about 65 miles per hour.

Emissions: Because all plants, including trees, obtain their carbon from CO2 in the air, when plant material is burned the carbon is simply returned to the atmosphere where it came from. Therefore, the BioTruck is carbon-neutral because it is just releasing carbon into the atmosphere where it came from. In contrast, use of gasoline or diesel made from oil involves taking carbon from below the ground (oil wells) where it is harmless, and adding it to the pool of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, thus increasing the risk of global climate change. For this reason it is imperative that we reduce the use of fossil fuels as soon as possible. When stationary, there may be a small amount of smoke emitted from the gasifier, but there are no visible emissions when the trucks are in motion. Tailpipe emissions have not yet been measured, but this will be done before the tour.

The “Dakota Twins” – the V8 Dodge Dakota BioTruck that will drive from coast to coast on solid biomass (like wood and switchgrass) as fuel instead of gasoline, together with the V6 backup twin.

Owner/Inventor/Designer/Fabricator: Mr. Wayne Keith, Springville, AL.

This year, T-CO Alternative Fuels, LLC. was invited to the 2008 Southeast Bioenergy Conference in Tifton, Georgia and issued press credentials for conducting interviews with speakers and exhibitors. We set-up our T-CO Mobile Uplink Studio right next to the conference center building and gave live, remote tours of our training program and facility using the Internet. A staff member was present in our training facility in Moultrie, Georgia ready to answer questions and participate in the conversation.

We also had the pleasure of presenting the following video, “Growing Oil”, which showcases the CEHMMC algae growing project. The greeting you see at the start of the video was prerecorded, remotely over the Internet, with Douglas Lynn, the CEO of CEHMMC.

“Energy dude” touting device to boost power, save on diesel

By DOROTHY COX
THE TRUCKER STAFF

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Trucker Gary Carmichael is fascinated with energy and engines and how they work. If there’s a more cost-effective, fuel-efficient, cleaner energy source — for his home or his truck — he’s interested.

On a recent sunny summer day, Carmichael was at a Central Arkansas truck stop touting the benefits of hydrogen generators made by HHN Samson BT8 out of Fort Charles, Fla., to boost heavy-duty truck engine power and to help them run cleaner and save fuel.

“I was looking for a cheaper way to run my big truck,” he explained. “Biodiesel [made from scratch] is all right but on the road it won’t work; you would have to carry your own lye and methanol.. So that brought me to hydrogen generators, which are workable on gas and diesel [engines].”

“Hydrogen generators use electrolysis to produce nascent [in its purest form] oxygen and nascent hydrogen and injected into the fuel-air mix will cause a chain reaction that ignites all the primary fuel molecules simultaneously.” That in turn gives a faster, more complete burn, which is key to fuel efficiency in an internal combustion engines, including the diesel engine on a Class 8 truck, he noted. “Hydrogen adds more BTUs per burn and adds more power. The engine runs cleaner and makes the oil cleaner which makes the oil last longer.”

“The big thing that I can see [with the hydrogen generator] is the fuel economy,” he said.

FUEL-SAVER: Trucker Gary Carmichael showing off his hydrogen generator. Photo by The Trucker/Dorothy Cox

Loaded and without using the hydrogen generator it costs him 63 cents a mile to run; loaded and using the hydrogen generator it costs him 54 cents a mile. He runs a C15 Caterpillar engine on his Peterbilt. Dead-heading he was getting 7.2 miles to the gallon without the generator compared to 8.8 mpg with it.
“Right now as you know, fuel is at a point where a lot of us are getting to where we will have to get out [of trucking],” the 59-year-old driver said, “and there aren’t going to be a lot of jobs out there.”

The main deterrent he sees is “how people have been programmed to stick that nozzle in their tank. That’s how our society has been programmed.”

He would like to see the nation’s ports mandate hydrogen generators for trucks hauling in the ports. “For the Los Angeles Port, they say they are going to raise $1.6 billion to solve a problem [cutting truck pollution] that would only cost $23 million. With hydrogen generators the pollution could be cleaned up sooner..”

“I’m really into energy,” Carmichael proclaimed, as if it wasn’t obvious.

But unlike many, he puts his money where his mouth is, with energy and money-saving projects not only for his 18-wheeler, but for his home.
A resident of Cluster Springs, Va., near Raleigh-Durham, N.C., he has 35 acres and he’s working on making his own small dam to create hydro-electric power which he will use, himself, with the rest going to his local electricity provider.

He also has figured out a way to take cool water from his hand-dug well to be pumped up into a radiator in his window, acting as a condenser to give him and his wife nearly free air conditioning (the electricity to run the pump is nominal).

Carmichael has had to make his own way since his father died when he was 10 and doesn’t know how to take it easy. He’s always studying, tinkering, building and working on energy related projects and has been for the past 20 years, he said.

To talk about “gasification” and understand how it works is as natural as breathing to Carmichael, who was a marine science major in college but found he “couldn’t make a living” at it.

He got into mechanical repair after that but said the “need dwindled” for his talents in the ’70s, and that “trucking was one of the fields that was still fun” at the time. He started driving in 1973.

In the early ’80s he built a solar furnace and three years later built a gasifier using coal and wood to run an engine. (A gasifier converts wood chips, sawdust, sawgrass and other biomass mixtures into energy.)

He’s also built his own hydrogen generators and wind generators.

“My whole life has been an endeavor of self-learning. I’m not an inventor but I gather information and I put stuff to work,” he said.

“At one stage people said biodiesel wouldn’t work; this [hydrogen generator] could do just as well.”

As far as the hydrogen generators he’s promoting, he said he didn’t have enough time to do the research necessary to make his own that was efficient enough. Why reinvent the wheel? “I decided to find someone who was already making them,” he said.
For more information about the hydrogen generators or other energy-saving projects, Carmichael has a new Web site, theenergydude.com.