FEMA Gasifier Design
Zeb from Blairsville, Georgia in the United States built his unit based on the basic FEMA gasifier design.
Zeb says, “My ground rules were to use standard materials, keep the project low tech, and build with tools normally found in an advanced home workshop or farm workshop. The basic materials are used containers, garbage can, and EMT (electrical) conduit. The water separator/ inner cooler is a standard home workshop shop air supply design sized up for the low pressure gas flow of a gasifier.”
The vehicle was saved from the misguided cash for clunkers crusher project and will require some repairs and fixing but did have a carb and adjustable timing. A conventional distributor can easily be retrofitted should EMP events be a concern.
The unit produced an impressive flare at the last fire up and will now be coupled to the old Ranger for a try at running it on wood gas. I question how the FEMA gasifier design produced gas of sufficient quality to be of use. My original attempts with this FEMA gasifier design, i.e. without the cooler would not sustain a flare.
I live in the southern Appalachians and burn everything from wood blocks to pellets, charcoal and sticks. I see a future for wood gas in stationary applications. Any positive movements towards over the highway use will probably be quashed by the alphabet soup of OSHA, EPA, etc.
I want to add a note concerning the danger of the carbon monoxide created in this process. I am retired aerospace and find myself focusing on this issue in great detail. I visual all connections and joints at each shutdown for escaping gas and seal all leaks before the next fire up. Based on data, I find a typical gas producer emits 22 times the lethal dose of CO during its shut down period.
Note that my FEMA gasifier design does not have a shut off at the cooler exit. This is a must do addition before the vehicle goes on the road. The vehicle shut down sequence will be to unseal the flare tube, shut the exit valve and let the engine run to stall, thus purging the system downstream of the actual cooler and burner. I read that the main driver for folks to go back to gasoline after the war was because so many people were poisoned with carbon monoxide.
