Efficient feedstock handling

I came very close to buying/building a gasifier a couple years ago. Had the money for the gasifier and everything I THOUGHT I needed to hook it up. I soon realized that most of the work was material management. Getting that much feedstock sized JUST RIGHT and dried down enough and moved to where it needed to be was most of the work and burned more fuel than I saved for my setup.

I still love the idea, but haven't figured out the whole fuel prep for a homestead scale. Any hints or ideas?

I usually invest a weekend doing a bunch of chunks and I am good for quite a long time. I don't like doing it daily because of the sawdust. I use a table saw because I like to use construction debris and cut around the nails. There are some guys that have fabbed up simple wood chunkers with pto's or using powerful electric motors. I made a V-8 powered chunker once but it scared me. I prefer to keep my arms attached to my body.

With a powered chunker setup expect to reinvest 10-12% of your energy production back into feed prep.

I find dead branches to be a fast source of feed prep. The greens have fallen off and nature already sized the diameter, now you just need to size the length.

This is an area that needs a definitive solution and I hope to put together a workshop on it in the future because it deserves a book on the subject. For now, search "wood chunker" on youtube to see what others are doing.