This documentary tells the story of the emergence and development of wood gas generators, specifically cars that ran on wood. The film begins with an introduction about the golden age of wood gas-powered cars and how oil prices have increased 100-fold in the last 50 years. It then talks about antiquity and how people used a blast furnace to smelt iron, which eventually became the first gas generator.
The film then takes viewers back to the 19th century when metallurgists began using gas to heat the air in furnaces. At that time, there was a boom in technical thinking across all industries, and the first industrial gas generators were built.
The film also tells the story of an important historical event that occurred in 1840 when engineer Ebelman in Austria discovered an entirely different way of turning peat into gas - the principle of reverse burning. Thanks to this discovery, it became possible to use gas generators for cars, where there was little room for gas-cleaning filters, and the gas had to be as low-smoke as possible.
Timestamps:
00:00 - Start
00:19 - Introduction
01:15 - Ancestor of transport generator
03:24 - 19th century - search for cheap fuel
05:05 - First engine on illuminating gas
08:30 - Otto and his engine
13:15 - World War I: the beginning of the golden age of gas-generator cars
14:53 - Georg Imbert - father of transport gas generators
24:16 - 1925 - gas generator car competition
30:11 - development of gas generators in the USSR
33:40 - World War II
37:36 - Tanks and gas generators
39:06 - War pushed mass production of gas-generator transport
42:44 - End of the war
44:38 - Second wave of wood-powered cars
46:51 - Conclusion
Tags:
Wood-powered cars, gas generators, history of gas generators, technical revolution, 19th-century industry, Ebelman gas generator.