[Stoves] re The Ccharcoal project

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Andrew

>Crispin, what bulk density are you allowing for charcoal? In bags? We have
a serious problem getting a full 28tonne load of woodchip into a walking
floor trailer unless it is quite fresh.

This has been investigated by Cecil Cook (who does such things) and it is
highly variable. I have somewhere a photo of charcoal trucks in Zambia but
it was before digital cameras and it will take ages to find. They are
creakingly, groaningly, massively overloaded. To give you a hint I am
attaching a photo of a truck in the Sahel moving people. It is like that,
but with charcoal on board instead.

When charcoaling acacias the density is something like coal. When broken
with a hammer it is shiny and hard. I think Shengalane (sp?) is one type. A
70 kg bag is probably not more than 90 litres. Others are less dense.

>> What would be helpful is if you would engage the topic of sustainable
>> charcoal production. People want to use it as a fuel because it is
>> nice, simple as that. Lots of people in Canada who can afford any fuel
>> they want choose to cook meat with charcoal. It is a market that is
>> going to last as long as there is cooking, as far as I can see.

>In UK there was a brief fillip in the consumption of char for BBQ but that 
>seems to have given way to LPG fired BBQs. I doubt it is used for 
>domestic cooking at all here.

It seems Europe has started to go for torrefied pellets. That is a good
decision from an energy transport point of view. They are importing them
from Africa. There is a sustainable yield project briquetting (then
charring) bulrushes on the banks of the Senegal river for export to Europe.
Europe has two rules regarding charred products: it has to be sustainable
and it has to have a kiln yield of >35%.

<snipped>

>> Char production can supply high quantities of 'process heat' for
>> powering all sorts of things on the farms. 

>I agree, drying and ceramic firing look like they could sensibly use 
>offgas from advanced kilns. We briefly burned the offgas a small 
>gasturbine which showed promise for a cheap system, making it overly 
>complicated to maximise electricity genration ruined any economic 
>benefit.

There are many large ceramic kilns in China running on all sorts of biomass
like straw and twigs. There are fantastic videos (on DVD) available from
Adriaan Turgel at Liebermann's Pottery <liebpott at iafrica.com> showing these
in operation. (Don't get too excited, they are mostly about making pottery
in Asia).

>> Farmers should be allowing 
>> nothing to leave their land unless it is as processed as possible in
>> that region. 

>This is debateable but I generally agree because I see export of cash 
>crops without properly valuing the mineral fertiliser take off with the 
>produce as being a danger in some situations.

Thank you for being holist!

Regards
Crispin

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