[Stoves] Energy from whole coconuts

[Peter Singfield]

At 08:25 PM 9/18/2006 +0100, AJH wrote:
>On Mon, 18 Sep 2006 18:56:49 +1200, Ian Vincent wrote:
>
>>I live in a large coconut plantation area on Taveuni Island, Fiji and we 
>>have a 'huge' surplus of unharvested waste coconuts. I can get them for 
>>free if I collect them myself, or can buy them @ US$5 per  100.
>>
>>Strikes me that these whole nuts contain a large amount of energy, both as 
>>oil and as wood material. They also contain water of course.
>
>Hi Ian 
>I'm amazed that such a resource could be seen as waste. I quite like
>to drink "coconut milk" but I'm sure that it can be ferment to yield
>alcohol. The copra was a prized resource, the ODA from UK prototyped a
>copra dryer that ran off the pyrolysis offgas from a charcoal retort
>loaded with coconut shells. With the mention of oil as well there
>simply seem too many possibilities to want to just burn them.
>
>AJH
>

AJH;

Spoiled coconuts are rotted out in the core -- the liquid they contain is
equivalent to fermented vomit -- except is smells much worse.

If I put a drop on the back of your hand you would probably feel very
compelled to rush to the nearest emergency ward and get totally sterilized
-- as you would if you opened up a letter with anthrax dust in it.

The fire box for my coconut gratings drier is not big enough to burn whole
coconuts -- but the one I use for boiling cane juice down is -- and they
burn very well with bagasse-- whole -- lethal liquids and all.

The other solution might be to get a good stone crusher and feed it truck
loads -- dumped -- of whole coconuts -- to be broken up to release
obnoxious liquids -- then spread to be dried.

But would be hardly worth the effort -- as you would still have a major
mess after -- though drier.

One could line them all up at 100 yards and using a target rifle perforate
them so they drain.

Just think on one thing -- which ever way you work on these spoiled nuts --
you do not want to be splashed -- not in the least.

Even picking them up the wrong way is risky!! 

So -- the best solution is just use them as is in  fire box large enough to
burn whole coconuts -- or a gasifier large enough to do 6 to 8 in diameter
"wet" pellets.

Also -- I doubt you will be getting any copra out of them -- basically --
what happened in those coconuts is the same process that goes on in AD
Karve's bio-methane fast digesters.

In fact -- if you built a large enough tank and put all the spoiled
coconuts in that -- you probably could harvest a lot of methane.

But the residue will still be very -- very messy.

Ergo -- what to do with whole spoiled coconuts is to burn them whole.

Peter / Belize

(Been splashed by spoiled coconuts numerous times and not dead yet!!)