[Gasification] I am new here

[winfried hundt]

Hi all,

I live in Namibia on the south western coast of Africa. In the central area, we have a bush encroachment problem. Too much biomass, that gets destroyed at present.

It costs N$400 at present to clear 1 hectar, it does not matter if it is done with a large dozer, chemically or manually, it still costs about N$400.

While many other countries worry about electricity generation, our rural problems are transport. Having 0nly 1.8 Million people of which most are concentrated in a small area on the northern border, the reminder of the country is thinly populated. This means that a farmer may have to travel 300km to 700km one way to get his kids to high school, buy farm implements, dips and food, not only for himself but also supplies for the farm store on which 50 or 100 people may depend. Or he must make an emergency round trip if the child of a farm labourer is sick.

As you might realize, electricity on our farms is a luxury that was introduced gradually over the last 30 years. Farmers can (and quite a number still do) live without electricity, but no farmer can live without fuel.

There are about 2000 bushes per each hectar (100x100m) that have to be removed. Farms are seldom less than 5000 hectar, often farming is no longer possible, cattle cannot be found unless the bush is cleared.

At present prices, a farmer will use about 90 liter of fuel to go to town at a cost of N$900, that is twice as what it costs to clear one hectar of bush.

The solution is obviously wood gas generators like the Imbert or more advanced for powering 2.5 to 4 liter engines. Namibia is mostly flat, maximum power is not an issue, nor are prohibitive regulation in place.

To make the story short, we need mobile wood gas generator to mount on pick-up trucks.

Who has a design and is prepared to part with it?

Which NGO would be interested to help?

Which company has ready made systems?

I have been digging on the net, but except for a few hobbyists, nobody seems to be interested in such systems.

Can anybody help please?

Thanks for reading this.


WAH Namibia


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