[Stoves] Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <>

[andrew heggie]

On Friday 02 January 2009 10:36:04 paal wendelbo wrote:
>             We have also learned from the discussion that the Tlud/ND is
> giving clean smokeless energy, is efficient and flexible and will cover all
> the needs of energy for household and institutional cooking.  The Tlud can
> utilize different types of biofuel like sawdust, maize cobs,
>
> straw, briquettes, pellets etc with only small changes. That's why we have
> chosen the Tlud/nd for our project, but we start with the fuel, the fast
> growing trees and the local resources. Afterwards we want to introduce
> other types of biomass  for briquetting for household fuel.

A happy New Year to you too Paal and all stovers everywhere.

You've given yourself a task in weaning people off charcoal made by 
traditional methods. Which tlud stove are you planning on?

I suppose you have opted for natural draught to keep things simple?

With your one year coppicing cycle I think the crux will be in making sure the 
fuel is very dry, tlud stoves function mcuh better as charcoal producers the 
drier the fuel.

How are you planning to prepare the fuel? I've tied bundles of sticks and used 
them direct in a tlud stove but one problem I found was if a smaller stick 
burned through and was able to fall to the bottom, thus destroying the 
stratified descending pyrolysis front and turning the stove into a smoky 
updraught device.

What is the plan for the residual charcoal, are you going to let the market 
place decide it's value and use. One thing I did learn about business is that 
it's not sustainable for a business to cross subsidise an output from profits 
of another part of the business.

AJH