[Stoves] Improved cook stoves and carbon footprint

[George Riegg Gambia]

crispin, andrew and all

why burn corn - maize - at all??? lets keep eating it and burn the stalks.
surely what we try to achieve on a small scale for our domestic stoves can
be applied on an industrial scale? isn't it done in india already? farmers
earnign extra money by selling their agricultural waste to local commercial
power and heat generators.

while we're at it, lets collect all the plant rubbish which is usually
neglected - any kind of wood waste, even from municipal tree trimming,
stalks of any kind, rice. corn, any wheat... come to think of it, anything
that grows and we don't need for food or shelter.

correct me if i'm wrong, being the sort of non-technical field guy i am -
fossil fuel - oil and gas - started out as plants? a few million years of
fermentation and compression put in and presto. how about looking into
speeding up that process and while we're at it try to keep all the harmful
stuff out of it. what a great way to deal with our natural rubbish.

cheers
george
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Crispin Pemberton-Pigott" <crispinpigott at gmail.com>
To: "'Discussion of biomass cooking stoves'" <stoves at listserv.repp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 10:50 AM
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Improved cook stoves and carbon footprint


> Dear Andrews
>
> You are opening an interesting discussion on what to use for fuel. If I
burn
> corn (maize) in a stove, is it more energy efficient than burning ethanol
> made from corn?  Darn right it is!
>
> It would make more sense to substitute corn (esp old, bad, mouldy,
rejected
> corn) as a biomass fuel in homes, and switch the diesel (home heating
fuel)
> to the vehicle market.  The first place to use a biofuel is not in cars
but
> in fixed installations where fuel energy density does not matter nearly as
> much.
>
> Ethanol is cars is robbery: they are selling 1/2 the energy at the same
> price as gasoline.
>
> Food shortage? We are in the peak of an El Nina event, so I hear. The
> failure of crops because of unusually cold weather is in many cases
> (including China) is draining the global stocks.
>
> Regards
> Crispin
>
>
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