Check out what we found on BBC.uk – Beaver Energy gets mentioned!

A car modified to be powered on coffee grounds has been involved in an attempt on a speed record for vehicles run on gas from organic waste.

Engineer Martin Bacon from County Durham equipped the car with a gasifier which burns organic material at high temperature. This produces combustible gases which, after cleaning and cooling, are used to fuel an adapted combustion engine.

Click here to check out the video!

Check out this video newly released of Beaver Energy’s, Wood Burning Beaver XR7, on AOL’s TRANSLOGIC episode 64!

The Mercury Beaver XR7 is going thru some changes, after limited time to get it ready for our world record setting run last year it is time to engineer it for speed. We are about half done and later this month we will have it out for some test runs. Check out the progress so far.

Click to Watch Video

I just received word from Chip that we’ve officially set the World Record for fastest wood powered car in the new Beaver XR7! The official speed is 47.74271 MPH and the record was set at 13:50:02 at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Look for some video and pictures soon.

Click to see Video

During the Green Grand Prix in Watkins Glen, NY, the Beaver Energy team had the privilege to be filmed for the Alan Nursall Experience. The Alan Nursall Experience is a segment in the Canadian Discovery channels show called the Daily Planet. The episode showcases our Wood Powered Car and short discussions with Chip Beam. Then, Alan Nursall gives the run down on how gasification works.

Unfortunately the Discovery channel website doesn’t allow us to embed their video, until we get the footage please click here to watch the segment.

Leave us some comments and let us know what you thought of the show!

Beaver Energy’s Robert “Chip” Beam, will appear on The History Channel’s “Apocalypse PA” Tuesday, November 16, 2010 at 10 p.m. EST. The November 16 premiere of the cable reality series features Pennsylvania residents who are preparing for “The Apocalypse” and follows a Bethlehem man (Frank Belcastro) who teaches his family self-reliance by making things by hand instead of using modern conveniences. Beaver Energy is called upon by Belcastro to understand the basics of the wood powered car.

We hope you all tune in and leave some comments here on the blog!

Here are a couple links to recent articles featuring Beaver Energy:

• http://www.larsondesigngroup.com/2010/11/12/larson-design-group-employee-to-appear-on-the-history-channel/
• http://www.ldgblog.com/2010/11/12/ldg-employee-sets-world-record-for-wood-powered-car/
• http://www.sungazette.com/page/content.detail/id/555087/Wood-pellet-car-burns-way-to-speed-record.html?nav=5011

 You never know who your going to met when your out on the road. Not sure why we pulled in to this gas station but I am glad we did. I thought at first it was a solar powered truck but after taking a better look I realized this was not your average fast back Ford Ranger. I have been thinking about trying this on my 1987 Toyota Celica convertible. If anyone else is having the same success with these modification from www.ecomodder.com send an email or post a comment we have lots of followers that I am sure would like to know. Did anyone guess what the picture in my previous post was? It is a steam cannon thought it was kinda cool and wanted to share it with you if you got one lets see it working. Anyway tomorrow I will be showing a really cool van I found in some remote new car lot that is road legal and only has three wheels!

So it is time to size a gasifier for that old Delorean sitting in the backyard. What you don’t want to do is make it to big! This will cause excessive motor damaging tar caused by insignificant tar destructing high temperature do to the low flow rate. To small lends to excessive pressure drop, weak gas, super heated parts and gasifier melt down. So getting this right lends to continuous motion of the old internal combustion motor. So with out getting in to the science behind the wheel (if you want to know you can post a question) lets look at whats necessary to know. First what is the horse power of your motor at cruising speed? Well to figure that use this table to calculate the CSHP cruising speed horse power.

CSHP Table

Fuel Economy (mpg)      Fuel Use Rate (gph)           Engine Output (hp)

5.5                                                10.0                                     100
11.0                                                5.0                                        50
22.0                                               2.5                                         25
55.0                                               1.0                                         10

Now with this it is possible to calculate wood consumption rates knowing that typically gasifiers require 22lb of wood to replace one gallon of fuel. So taking this and doing the math based on a maximum hearth load per square inch of gasifier size(other science behind the wheel) we come to the sizing table below.

Horse Power              Wood  (lb/h)         Fuel (Btu/h)            Gasifier Size (in)

        100                          200                   1400                       16.0
           50                          100                      700                       11.4
           25                             50                      350                        8.0
           10                              20                     140                         5.1
             5                               10                        70                        3.6

Now that we have the basic knowledge to size our gasifier next week we can start looking at the important factors in constructing a stratified down draft gasifier.

I happen to run across this car lot in Alfred New York where the cars where small and the gas mileage was BIG! These gas sipper 4 speed, 4 dour sedans caught my eye for the next generation wood powered car. They are made by a company called Wildfire and they are pretty wild they get 70 MPG, seat four and are road legal. You can buy them from a place called Something Different and they are at the super low price of $7,800. If you are interested I can get you in touch with Something Different and I am sure she will give you a better deal Later this week I will be posting some updates on the build your own wood powered car so check back. Be sure to check our Archives section for past blogs.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Thought I would share this picture of one of the biggest wrenches I have ever used, Randy’s son had to show us he could handle it. We had a lot of fun converting the Cougar to run on wood gas and am looking forward to our next project. We would like to see some competition at the Salt Flats next year so get your cars going. Keep the gasifacation questions coming.