Wood chips help fuel 'Green Grand Prix'

updated 12:08 p.m. ET May 16, 2008

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. - When the green flag waved to start the Green Grand Prix of Watkins Glen, Robert Beam was out to smoke the field.

Literally.

His 1988 Isuzu Trooper was powered by wood chips in the only road rally for alternate-fuel vehicles and hybrids in the United States, sponsored by the Sports Car Club of America.

"We were going to have a wood-powered, supercharged Mercury Cougar XR-7 in it this year, but it's not ready," said Beam, whose nickname is, yes, "Chip."

As the price of gas continues to climb toward $4 a gallon, the event on May 3 attracted a record field of 46 cars — hybrid and flexible-fuel vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell cars, as well as some powered by biodiesel, electricity, liquid propane, compressed natural gas, even vegetable oil.

The goal: to preach energy independence, reduce greenhouse gases and educate the public about alternative fuels. It doesn't hurt to have a good time doing it at the place road racing came of age in America 60 years ago.

The rally is the brainchild of Bob Gillespie, a retired art teacher and lifelong car aficionado.

"There are more people buying hybrid cars and they're excited about them, but they didn't have a way to celebrate the technology," said Gillespie, who drives a 2005 Toyota Prius with 82,000 miles on it. "I was thinking these people deserve a sporting event of their own. So many people think these cars are efficient, but they're not fun to drive."

A mile on a pound of wood
Beam's contraption smells like a backed-up wood stove when he fires it up, and then is pretty much emission-free. Even though it has a top speed of only about 45 mph, Beam figures it goes about a mile on a pound of wood, which is pretty economical when you crunch the numbers. At $225 a cord around here — which can be about 4,000 pounds of wood — Beam could go around 4,000 miles. With gas at $3.75 a gallon, a car getting 25 miles to the gallon would use 160 gallons of gas worth $600.

The car holds 500 pounds of wood and he can tow a trailer with 2,000 pounds more, stopping once an hour (at 25 mph) to refuel.

At today's prices, that's as efficient as any hybrid on the road.

"People just go nuts when they see it," Beam said. "They just can't believe you can run a car on anything but what they're used to seeing. When we tell them we're running wood chips, they kind of get a feeling that there's some hope, that there's other people looking at alternative answers to high fuel costs."

David Duprey / AP Robert "Chip" Beam drives his wood-powered vehicle during the Green Grand Prix road rally in Watkins Glen, N.Y., on May 3.

Beam and partners Larry Shilling and Aron Lantz have formed a startup company, Beaver Energy, based in Williamsport, Pa., and hope to produce liquid fuel from wood waste and other organic materials for under a dollar a gallon. The Trooper just helps spread the word.

"It's definitely an obscure thing," Beam said.

Similar systems were used during World War II when gasoline was a precious commodity.

"The Germans didn't let any of their people have fuel because they needed it for the war machine, so they had to figure out another way to run their vehicles," said Beam, a specialist in computer-aided design and drawing. "They actually ran them on charcoal, which is kind of an expensive process. The system I've got actually turns wood into charcoal, and then turns it into hydrogen and carbon, which then runs in the car."

Recycling carbon dioxide
The core of the Isuzu's power plant is protected in a steel jacket because the temperature inside approaches 2,400 degrees, hot enough to turn any organic material into hydrogen and carbon.

"It all happens in the car," Beam said. "When the car's running, it's making fuel. We're not adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. We're just recycling it."

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