[Stoves] re Charcoal in Gambia/ WorldStove char in Rwanda

[Fireside Hearth]

Dear Andrew and Crispin,

       Roger and Bridget here....Honestly I am not sold on the biochar industry or it's benefits or hazards. I do not like much the pictures of air quality issues shared online where biochar is being manufactured I admit. I have friends locally who swear by it, and I think are making this product without so much smoke. In our community this would NEVER be allowed. Reports we get from the "char friendly" proponents claim great things.......but as of yet I am not sure.
      Our focus is simple....to be able to share our secondary combustion process in a way affordable and acceptable to end users in impoverished area's where air quality is at it's worst. Our unit has proven to us to be able to burn EVERY fuel we have found with very clean and long fires. In fact much longer than I as inventor ever expected. My current goal is to find a way to adapt a "back yard mechanics" version of our combustor to stoves which are being manufactured now in these areas. This is what I think the stove list should be doing with it's time. I am happy to see all of the air quality improvements, but it just doesn't sound to me, nor do I see from internet updates regarding the depletion of the Amazon, coal mining in the Appalachian mountains, old growth forests world wide, that we are doing nearly enough to curb consumption or explore new fuel options. I have asked the list as a whole how I can get samples of fuels like the J. nut and or different coal types for testing in our stove. Not one response has addressed this request. I'll put it more directly this time. Would the group consider sending me these samples??? I am happy to video tape and share our findings. 
       I have also sent Xavier from the list an idea of how I would convert his unit to a secondary combustion process from scraps found "locally", I am anxious to see if he can implement my idea in an affordable fashion. I will dare say that if one sets a Rocket Stove next to a Kimberly, each with an equal amount of fuel, the kimberly will burn just as smoke free, but will take more than twice as long to burn the fuel load. This is my gift to the cause....to reduce consumption......it works.......it's necessary!

   

> From: crispinpigott at gmail.com
> To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
> Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 02:47:25 -0400
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] re Charcoal in Gambia/ WorldStove char in Rwanda
> 
> Dear Andrew
> 
> I omitted my thanks and make it up now, for this long post of yours. You
> should write more, if you have time. It is almost entirely correct.
> 
> Thanks!
> Crispin
> 
> 
> +++
> 
> Richard and Bridget
> 
> There are four lists set up by the owner of this [stoves] bioenergylist to
> discuss various aspects of biochar.
> 
> biochar at yahoogroups.com
> biochar-policy at yahoogroups.com
> Biochar-production at yahoogroups.com
> biochar-soils at yahoogroups.com
> 
> There will be others and web based forums too.
> 
> There is some inevitable crossover when those stoves which produce a char
> residue are discussed.
> 
> What I would like to avoid on [stoves] is discussion on the wider (global)
> pollution and strategic economic issues. Local air pollution and resource
> depletion will be relevant, as will any local economic or agronomic benefit
> of biochar produced from these stoves.
> 
> As we have seen there is disagreement at the strategic level but I think
> Crispin (who I also would like to count as a friend from our correspondence
> over the years even if our conclusions may differ) was wrong to take
> personally things that Ronal and Paal said. Inevitably as this is a stoves
> oriented group there is less expertise on biochar here, Crispin ventured
> comments about biochar which Paal and Ronal felt the need to respond to lest
> an unbalance view was left dominant. Had Crispin been subscribed to a
> biochar list more would have been said.
> 
> There are a number of posters to [stoves] who see no merit in biochar, A D
> Karve because he sees no increase in plant productivity being one and of
> course Crispin who cannot understand the loss of energy to the cooking
> process, especially as he is working with coal burning stoves where the coal
> is necessarily largely carbon dug from the ground.
> 
> My current [stoves] related take on this is:
> 
> TLUD (and possibly other char producing stoves) produce less sooty
> particulates, because they produce an energy rich, easily combusted flame,
> compared with currently available conventional biomass cook stoves. They are
> thus capable of reducing indoor air pollution which demonstrably shortens
> lives. They need some different understanding and instruction to use which
> may be difficult, they are more expensive than three stone fires and there
> is/may be cultural reasons why they are not adopted. Even in developed
> counties there was a 50 year period before the bulk of the population would
> accept cigarette smoking was an economic and health problem enough to
> restrict an individuals right to smoke where it affected the public, so it's
> a long road.
> 
> There may be economic AND/OR agronomic gains by adding char to soil,
> agronomic benefits have been demonstrated in some circumstances and there is
> long term evidence that soils with large amounts of recalcitrant carbon (
> probably derived from pyrolised biomass) have developed and maintained
> physical properties that enhance a plants access to vital chemicals. There
> is little doubt that soil contains a vast amount of sequestered carbon and
> recalcitrant carbon persists for millennia. I am firmly optimistic that
> there are long term benefits to using char from char making stoves locally
> to amend soils and see little possibility of harm from the practice. Many
> soils have had pyrolytic carbon in them from wildfires in the past.
> 
> There is currently little other economic benefit a subsistence farmer can
> gain from applying biochar to soil. Any non agronomic financial benefit will
> have to be financed by those people that see the value in biochar, have the
> money and probably have benefited from increasing atmospheric
> CO2 historically. I'm firmly with Crispin in being sceptical of governments
> ability to agree and equitably running carbon trading schemes and like
> Crispin believe interventions like this are likely to have unforeseen
> consequences. Personally, and not necessarily [stoves] related, I would like
> to be able to reward the distributed sequestration of char as an alternative
> to the export of a cash crop by a poor farmer.
> 
> I see intervention into the natural carbon cycle of photosynthesis, growth,
> death, decay to CO2 by pyrolysis of biomass as being a benign means of
> sequestering Carbon.
> 
> AJH
> 
> 
> 
> 
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