With a tank full of twigs, Otisco man's pickup heads for the highway

Rick Bates converted his 1969 truck to run on smoke from heated wood. He's driving it to Massena on Monday.

Otisco, NY - Rick Bates’ old pickup truck may not be much to look at, but it gets decent fuel economy — about 20 miles per armload of wood.

If you see a rusty silver pickup rumbling up Interstate 81 Monday with what looks like a homemade still on the back, that’s Bates headed for Massena on the first major road trip for his wood-powered vehicle.

He’s publicizing the trip in hopes of generating funding for his research into wood gasification. Bates is a graduate student at the State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Bates figures he’ll use 400 pounds of wood, about one-eighth of a cord, on the 320-mile round trip. He cuts up 1- to 3-inch diameter branches that he finds lying around his house in Otisco, which he dries before using.

He’ll also use about a gallon of gasoline, he estimated. His 1969 GMC truck can run on either fuel, but starts up best on gasoline.

The technology that allows the truck to run on wood — gasification — has been around for more than 100 years, but faded from view after petroleum became dominant. During World War II, when oil was scarce, Germany produced some Volkswagen Beetles that ran on wood gas, Bates said.

With the future of oil uncertain today, tinkerers like Bates are back at it.

Will wood run the cars of the future? Not many of them, said Assistant Professor Klaus Doelle, who is Bates’ doctoral adviser. Wood gas has about 30 percent less energy than gasoline. There aren’t enough trees to replace all the gasoline we use, he said.

But under specific circumstances, gasifiers might make sense on vehicles. Farmers, for example, could run their trucks on readily available wood, Doelle said. Another possibility: garbage trucks that run on gasified trash.

There are important stationary uses for gasifiers, too, such as producing electricity, Doelle said. But more research is necessary to standardize the technology and make it easier to use, he said.

Bates, 58, has degrees in biology and engineering. He worked most recently as a mechanical engineer at Cooper Tools in Cortland before getting laid off. Now he plans to spend three years earning a doctorate.

Despite his scientific pedigree, his wood-powered jalopy looks like something that might have emerged from Jed Clampett’s garage, pre-Beverly Hills.

He cobbled it together from about $100 worth of parts, and it’s pretty low-tech. One of his fuel filters, for example, is a trash can filled with hay.

Here’s how it works: Bates loads about 40 pounds of wood chunks into the top of his gasifier, a stove-like contraption built from welded-together pieces of a hot water heater with a garbage-can lid. The wood is heated to more than 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit on a hearth made from old brake rotors, which can withstand the heat.

The are minimal flames. Air flow into the chamber is restricted, causing incomplete combustion. Chemicals that would otherwise burn in a full fire — a mix of carbon monoxide, hydrogen and small amounts of methane — instead flow into the car’s engine, where they are ignited by spark plugs the same as gasoline vapors.

Before the wood gas reaches the engine, it travels through a series of contraptions on the back of Bates’ truck. First it passes through a barbecue-size propane tank, where the gas swirls and leaves some particles behind. Then it cools by traveling through a radiator made from six steel pipes that run the length of the truck bed. Then it flows through the hay-filled garbage can, which traps some of the tar.

Bates starts the fire in his gasifier with a propane torch about 10 minutes before he’s ready to take off. The truck works best if he starts out on gasoline and switches over to wood gas after reaching 40 or 50 mph.

It’s a lot of work, and Bates is frequently undone by engine components gunked with tar or leaks in his fuel line or wood that’s not sufficiently dry. Why does he do it?

“The idea of being able to take branches, or anything else along the side of the road, and convert it (to fuel) and be self-sufficient, that’s the driving motivation,” he said.

Contact Tim Knauss at tknauss@syracuse.com or 470-3023.