2009 BACKYARD GENIUS AWARDS

STRONGEST HOME BREW DIY Fuel Mill

Ben Peterson wants to sell the world on turning its garbage
into fuel. e 31-year-old former welder recently tore down a
farmhouse on his 20-acre farm in Washington ate. “We were
le with piles of wood,” he says. “And I realized that with a
gasifier, I could turn that wood into fuel.” He found Federal
Emergency Management Agency plans for a ratified down-
dra gasifier, which uses a controlled combuion process to
turn biomass into fuel for fir responders. But the FEMA device
was enormous, so Peterson spent two months redesigning
filters and reamlining the airflow to get it down to a more
family-friendly size. “I was making these things out of garbage
cans and spare pipe, and I got addied to the design process,”
he says. e result is a DIY home gasifier that can power a
portable generator. Now Peterson hopes to sell his design to
MAN BEHIND the masses—and his work won’t be done until we’re all filling up
THE MACHINE our gas tanks with gasified garbage.
Name: Ben Peterson Age: 31 Location: Toledo, Wash. Expansion plan: Peterson has also
created an indurial-size gasifier with help from the University of Florida.

PHOTOGR APH BY SIAN KENNEDY

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