I live in Namibia, have an engineering background and have become aware of a number of issues I would like to put my mind to and help solving.
Briefly, we have a small population living in a large country of which most of is quite arid. A farm in the north is typical about 5000ha and in the south at least 10000ha to make a living.
In the central and northern area there is a bush encroachment problem. So much so that some farmers have difficulties farming with cattle because they cannot find them. It cost R400/ha to buy a farm and another R400/ha to remove the bush. It makes no difference whether the bush is removed with a large caterpillar, chemically or manually, the cost are about the same. Since the farms are so large, distances to town are also large, the average distance to go to the nearest town is probably 150km, the lucky farmers are 40km from a city but others have to drive 500km to take the children to a high school hostel and buy supplies and fuel (of which much is used again on the return trip)
At present a few teams going from farm to farm and make charcoal from the abundance of biomass consisting of thorn bushes and thorn trees. By the end of the year petrol will cost R10/liter, this means in most cases, one trip to town will cost as much petrol as clearing 1ha of bush. The day petrol cost R20/l, farmers can no longer get supplies for the farms (including basic goods for the poor farm labourers and their families)
Therefore, I sincerely believe that the only way for us here is to start using woodgas trucks. I have dug around on the net, found this and many other sites, but nobody has really solved all problems. Yet, I remember as a kid, the breweries delivered beer with a woodgas truck, after off-loading, poured a bag of wood in top, moved a handle and switched on a blower for a while until a little flap (one way valve) started clicking and pinging and off they went. I never saw a breakdown of these trucks.
If they did it 60 years ago, why can it not be done today? Emissions and other regulations are not applicable here. We can very much do as we like.
Is there anybody out there somewhere who can supply complete wood gas system systems for say one ton pick-up trucks, or can supply a design (we have manufacturing capabilities) or would like to enter into a joint venture or partnership to develop and test new developments?
Hope to hear from somebody/anybody
Thank you very much
WAH
1990 Ford F-250 fuel injected 5.0L
