Wood gasification in catastrophes: Electricity production from light duty vehicles

Publication data
Type	Paper
Title	Wood gasification in catastrophes: Electricity production from light duty vehicles
Description
Authors
Year	2025
Language	English (en)
License	CC-BY-SA-4.0
Cite as	Williams, B.L.M., Croft, H., Hunt, J., Viloria, J., Sherman, N., Oliver, J., Green, B., Turchin, A., Martínez, J.B.G., Pearce, J.M., Denkenberger, D., 2025. Wood gasification in catastrophes: Electricity production from light duty vehicles. Energy Engineering 2025, 122(4), 1265-1285. https://doi.org/10.32604/ee.2025.063276 OA Academia, Earth Aexiv preprint

Project data
Type
Authors	Baxter L. M. Williams Henri Croft James Hunt Josh Viloria Nathan Sherman James Oliver Brody Green et al.
Location	Christchurch, New Zealand
Status	Designed Modelled Prototyped Verified
Verified by	FAST University of Canterbury
Years
Uses	Wood chipping
Links	Sourcecode: https://osf.io/k6v4f/
OKH Manifest	Download

Device data
Assembly instructions	https://doi.org/10.32604/ee.2025.063276
Design files	https://osf.io/k6v4f/
Hardware license	CERN-OHL-S
Certifications	Start OSHWA certification

Following global catastrophic infrastructure loss (GCIL), traditional electricity networks would be damaged and unavailable for energy supply, necessitating alternative solutions to sustain critical services. These alternative solutions would need to run without damaged infrastructure and would likely need to be located at the point of use, such as decentralized electricity generation from wood gas. This study explores the feasibility of using modified light duty vehicles to self-sustain electricity generation by producing wood chips for wood gasification. A 2004 Ford Falcon Fairmont was modified to power a woodchipper and an electrical generator. The vehicle successfully produced wood chips suitable for gasification with an energy return on investment (EROI) of 3.7 and sustained a stable output of 20 kW electrical power. Scalability analyses suggest such solutions could provide electricity to the critical water sanitation sector, equivalent to 4% of global electricity demand, if production of woodchippers was increased post-catastrophe. Future research could investigate the long-term durability of modified vehicles and alternative electricity generation, and quantify the scalability of wood gasification in GCIL scenarios. This work provides a foundation for developing resilient, decentralized energy systems to ensure the continuity of critical services during catastrophic events, leveraging existing vehicle infrastructure to enhance disaster preparedness.

Page data
Keywords	global catastrophic risk, existential risk, wood chipping, wood gasification, catastrophic loss of infrastructure, biomass processing open hardware, open source hardware, Global catastrophic infrastructure loss, decentralized energy systems, wood gasification, energy resilience
SDG	SDG09 Industry innovation and infrastructure
Authors	Joshua M. Pearce
License	CC-BY-SA-4.0
Organizations	FAST, Western, ALLFED, University of Canterbury
Language	English (en)
Related	0 subpages, 4 pages link here
Views	4 page views (analytics)
Created	March 24, 2025 by Joshua M. Pearce
Last edit	April 1, 2025 by StandardWikitext bot
Cite as	Joshua M. Pearce (2025). "Wood gasification in catastrophes: Electricity production from light duty vehicles". Appropedia. Retrieved June 4, 2026.
API queries	basic, semantic, html, files, more

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