[Stoves] Charcoal & Stoves

[Richard Stanley]

AJ, et al,

Actually, the average briquetter out here and globally, tends to love  
charcoal makers.

Here in quiescent mountain district of Lushoto, Tanzania,  where we  
are preparing to embark upon a 3 week long training exercise,  
charcoal sellers abound. About 25% of the product winds up as dust  
and it is that 'mvumbi ya mkaa' which can be added (up to 40% by  
weight to the otherwise non char agro-residue briquette mass, to give  
it an added kick. This translates to a 25 to 50% higher market price  
(edging on a market price of 3.5 to 5 cents per briquette or 7 US  
cents per person per day given the cooking customs,  as averaged  
across this region. On  a pure weight basis, the charcoal fines  
blended into briquettes (which are as hot  or hotter than the raw  
charcoal–thanks to the whole hole(?)–   will expand the use of the  
total available charcoal at any one seller's site, by nearly 100%. It  
was the same at the Mbale Uganda training exercise, over the last  
three weeks.

If you guys can make it cleaner at the outset while reducing your 4/5  
to 1 (wood-in to charcoal-out rate) fine, but please let it fall  
apart as much as it does right now, for our sake,

Badaye/tulabagane friends,
RStanley
www.Legacyfound.org


On Apr 11, 2007, at 11:26, AJH wrote:

> On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:44:21 -0400, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote:
>
>> Maybe we should have a crack at making charcoal dust from it,  
>> creating a
>> value chain in the process.  It really i a pretty nasty fuel.  It  
>> is like
>> trying to burn a pile of string.
>
> First step is to establish the moisture content of the coconut husk,
> is it the same as what's called coire?
>
> It strikes me there's never going to be one best route for every
> waste, in a hot, dry climate Richard's retting and compaction makes a
> useful fuel from non woody agri waste. Charring does have a lot of
> advantages though, the normal criticisms of charcoal is its overall
> poor conversion and pollution during making plus risks from CO in use.
>
> As we have seen there are a number of ways of making charcoal cleanly
> and using the waste heat.
>
> AJH
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Stoves mailing list
> Stoves at listserv.repp.org
> http://listserv.repp.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_listserv.repp.org
> http://www.bioenergylists.org
>