All over occupied Europe, vehicles were powered by these "kettles" which destructively distilled wood to make methanol (wood alcohol)and then gasified it to make gases that then fueled the engine. Unfortunately, destructive distillation is also incomplete combustion and you wind up with a sort of devil's brew of carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and methane.
A solution, but not a great one, as it also produces a lot of tars and other crapulous disjecta that can quickly foul an engine, unless you bubble it through a cleaner solution, which is undrinkable, even if listening to an Obama speech.
Pure methanol, which can be cheaply made from coal, btw, is a lot better motor fuel than ethanol, and does not starve Mexicans by driving up the cost of tortillas.
TDP does the whole distillation almost perfectly, especially if the fuel (often waste) stream is discrete.