[Stoves] Prioritizing your worry list

[Kevin Chisholm]

Dear Tom
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Thomas Reed" <tombreed at comcast.net>
To: "Kevin Chisholm" <kchisholm at ca.inter.net>
Cc: <tmiles at trmiles.com>; <stoves at listserv.repp.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 8:50 AM
Subject: Prioritizing your worry list


> Dear All:
>
> There may be dioxins in dung smoke, but there are lots of other things
> not to breathe too.

It would appear that there is a reasonable expectation that the possible 
hazard of dioxins from dung fuels can be readily corrected by treatment 
prior to burning. It may also be that removing the dioxin forming 
constituents from dung would change dung properties in a way such that 
improved combustion would result, even without making other system changes.
>
> Dung is a major fuel in India.  If you removed it the results would be
> immeasurably worse than the possible specific damage from dioxin.

It is not a question of removing it as a fuel, but rather, pre-processing 
it, to make it more "user friendly." Pre-processing dung may result in a 
"doubled benefit" to India:
1: Nutrients can be saved in their most available form, and they can be 
returned to the soil directly.
2: The dioxin hazard can be eliminated, or at least reduced in a major way.
>
> We are running out of fuel, and that should be our biggest worry.
> Finding replacements should be our highest priority.  If the
> replacements have secondary flaws we can fix them later.

Pre-treatment to eliminate (or significantly reduce) the dioxin hazard 
should result in a superior "dung sourced" fuel.
>
> Clean, efficient  combustion fixes most emission problems.

Quite true. However, untold millions of dollars have been spent on Municipal 
Solid Waste Incinerators in an attempt to control dioxin emissions with very 
little success for the Incinerator Industry. It would appear unlikely that 
dioxin emissions from dung fires could be reduced to acceptable levels in 
small scale combustion systems with combustion improvements alone.

 "The best way to cure a problem is to eliminate its occurence in the first 
place."

I would suggest that the easiest way to reduce dioxin emissions from dung 
fuels would be to pre-process the dung.

Best wishes,

Kevin