[Stoves] Biomass Cooking Stoves Site in Back Online

Sun Mar 11 23:16:58 CDT 2007

AD,

Thank you for the report from Pak Chong. It sounds like you may have found a
good use for torrefaction. As you may know there is a group in the
Netherlands that has been promoting torrefaction for making fuel pellets. 

I also enjoyed your comment about the wood vinegar. Was there any discussion
at Pak Chong about the use of the charcoal itself as a soil amendment for
growing crops? Ron Larson convinced me to create a discussion list and
website on Terra Preta http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org or the
intentional use of charcoal in soil. Terra preta is the portuguese term for
black soil and derives from the practice in the amazons where charcoal was
blended in soil. We have had discussions about terra preta here on the list
in the past. It is used in various forms with rice husk charcoal in Japan.
Ron has always wanted to make a gasifying stove that would produce charcoal
that could be used in a planting hole. Have you tried using charcoal to
improve crops? With the wood vinegar?

Kind regards,

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: stoves-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:stoves-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of adkarve
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 6:30 AM
To: Choppalli Venkata Krishna; Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Biomass Cooking Stoves Site in Back Online

I am just back from a workshop organised by Asia Regional Cookstove
Programme (ARECOP) in Pak Chong, Thailand. I take this opportunity to let
the stovers and members of ETHOS get acquainted with the valuable work being
conducted by ARECOP in the South East Asian countries.Theme of this
particular workshop was making high grade charcoal. A large variety of kilns
was demonstrated during the workshop by their respective users/inventors.
The coal made in these kilns was hard. It had a metallic sound when hit
against a hard object. It contained 95% carbon, had high electrical
conductivity and a high calorific value. This carbon is used as a supplement
in animal feed. It improves the quality of meat and it reduces the smell of
the dung. In Japan they add this coal even to human food, to skin ointments
and hair tonics. The hard coal, if burned in a properly designed stove, can
generate temperature above 1000 degrees. The yield of charcoal from most of
the kilns was less than 30 percent. This means, that almost 75% of the
energy in the wood is wasted when we convert wood into into charcoal.A
valuable byproduct of these kilns was wood vinegar. It sells at about US$6
per litre. Wood vinegar is used as an agricultural pesticide and also as a
plant growth promoting agent. The name wood vinegar is misleading. It is not
used as a salad dressing. In fact, it contains certain carcinogenic
chemicals. I was invited as a resource person and I demonstrated our
oven-and-retorts process for charring agricultural waste and our extruder
made from a meat mincer for extruding the char into briquettes. I hope that
I made an impact on the trainees. One Dr. Shreedhar from Indian Institute of
Science, Bangalore, India, also attended the workshop as a resource person.
He talked about torrefiying wood. After his lecture, I conducted an
experiment with the help of the trainees to torrefy leaves with the
oven-and-retorts  kiln that was constructed in Pak Chong as a demonstration
model. Leaf litter collected from underneath the local trees could be
torrefied very easily by using my kiln and the torrefied material could also
be easily extruded into briquettes. The briquettes burned like wood with a
tall flame and they also produced smoke, but this process opens up the
possibility of converting dry leaves of sugarcane and other agricultural
waste into fuel that can be used in a T-LUD type of stove. The residue can
still be used as charcoal.
Yours
A.D.Karve

----- Original Message -----
From: Choppalli Venkata Krishna <krishnacreat1 at rediffmail.com>
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <stoves at listserv.repp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 10:07 AM
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Biomass Cooking Stoves Site in Back Online

Dear Patrick
I am subject to correction in saying that 'If you process/burn 100 Kgs of
wood, you get 15 Kgs of charcoal". However, the Heat value difference of
char coal and a 10% dry wood will be 2000 Kcal.Now denudation of forest and
impact on tree cutting is well known to all of us. Why can't we approach
with a stove that uses least wood and a device to it making it smoke free
and ultimately make sure for the adoption of the stove by the women?
Jico stove of Kenya undoubtedly is popular and smoke free - but at what cost
of the Forest denudation? We the stovers should ,hence, my opinion, that
priortise the wood burning in an improved smoke free stove followed by
gasification of wood.
-C.V.Krishna

On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 cornelio torrijos wrote :
>Hi all,
>
>More than 9 million families in the Philippines use LPG more than 
>double
the
>number in 1995. Some 5.5 million households use charcoal. Another 9 
>million families mostly in rural areas also use firewood for cooking.
>
>Should more families be encouraged to use charcoal also? Many families 
>use both LPG and charcoal for cooking.
>
>Here a kilo of LPG costs about one US dollar. Sometimes when the LPG 
>tank
is
>empty, the family may not have the ten or eleven dollars to buy a new 
>tank (metal bottle) of LPG (propane). At what price should a kilo of 
>wood charcoal be to make it more economical than LPG?
>
>Metal clad cement charcoal stoves sell for three US dollars. Metal only 
>charcoal stoves also sell for the same amount.
>
>Cornel
>
>On 3/6/07, PQ972 at aol.com <PQ972 at aol.com> wrote:
> >
> > Tom thanks for all the good work you're doing
> >
> > Patrick T.  Quinn
> >
> > <BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> AOL now 
> > offers
free
> > email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at 
> > http://www.aol.com.
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> >
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