[Stoves] Revisitng the pine needle issue

Wed Aug 8 13:13:03 CDT 2012

Phil;
Without a market orientation to the effort, it sounds to me like the peko pe and direct insert of pine needles is the way to go Phil !
Richard 

On Aug 8, 2012, at 1:43 AM, Phil Hughes wrote:

Or illegal to gather. (Clearly another detail I left out in the post.) In 1991, Nicaragua created national Reserves. I happen to live in one of them. The way this was done was large areas of privately owned land were included into the reserve. Restrictions were placed on land use but landowners were compensated by replacing a property tax with a "management fee" that the government pays the landowners. (The tax and the fee are both very small but it does seem to make sense.)

One of the restrictions is that you cannot cut a tree over 100cm in diameter without a permit. As you might expect, most people ignore that law. My thinking is that rather than stepped up enforcement (which is virtually impossible and just creates hostilities), it seems like the right time to introduce some "solutions". In some parts of the reserve, including where I am, pine needles present a real fire danger. For example, about a year ago, 9 hectares burned on the property just north of us. Had there not been a road separating the properties or had the wind been stronger the fire would have continued on to our property.

Thus, it seems like a good chance to address fire danger, illegal logging and inefficient cook stoves all together in a fashion that is a win for all. I am not anything more than a "creative Gringo" here (composting toilets are my other "project") but if I can come up with something which is accepted than there are NGOs that would probably be willing to run with the idea.

The right solution has the local acceptance issue as well as how practical something is. My advantage is that I live here, I know the people and I see their transportation options. For many, transportation means walking 2-10km to get to the closest road. While someone external (and that could include the government) could come in, study the situation and come up with an approach, I am here.

To take but one possibility, I can get a TLUD, feed it pine needles and if it works, show my neighbor. A week later, 100 people will know about it. If it gets accepted it is something easy to carry/deliver by horse. Building an enclosure with adobe uses existing skills and so on.

On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 8:45 PM, Richard Stanley <rstanley at legacyfound.org> wrote:
Phil, 
Guess the choice will be ultimately  driven by  what they and their own markets prefer  eh ? 

If one has ready access to wood, and a decent stove, why would anyone want to screw around with briquettes !  

Briquettes are of course only one of several options: They can work only where wood fuels are either in short supply or are unsafe to gather.

Richard Stanley
www.legacyfound.org

On Aug 7, 2012, at 3:07 PM, Phil Hughes wrote:

I have received some interesting suggestions from a few people and intend to try two of them. But, I wanted to bring the topic back to the list in a different way. The "cultural side" of finding the right solution.

I have lived in Central America for over 10 years, the last few in rural Nicaragua. People here tend to be poor subsistence farmers. While the electric grid is expanding, many are off grid. (I am off-grid myself but that is by choice. It wasn't initially but once I was set up off-grid I saw no reason for a change.)

My observation is that the hardest part of "a better way" is how to get it accepted. I was originally thinking that making briquettes that could be burned in current cook stoves instead of tree branches was the best approach. That is, easiest to get adopted. Some discussions and thinking have, however, made me re-consider.

One obvious consideration is that current stoves suck. They go from an open fire to a box you shove wood into but have no draft control and the "burners" are just holes in the box where you put pots. Inefficiency and indoor pollution are the two big problems.

One suggestion which makes a lot of sense is rather than briquettes, make TLUD stoves. It has a lot of appeal as the "work" becomes pretty much one-time rather than ongoing briquette manufacturing. But, it requires people to change how they cook. To me, getting 100 or 1000 people to cook with a TLUD stove is a bigger win than having a few people making briquettes to sell for people to use in their existing but primitive stove. Assuming the TLUD works as described, I think it may also be an easier sell. Why? Because once you get a few converts, their neighbors will see the results: less fuel and less smoke.

Those are my observations. I may be wrong so I am looking for input from anyone else who has real "field experience". Thanks.

-- 
Phil Hughes 
nicafyl at gmail.com

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-- 
Phil Hughes 
nicafyl at gmail.com

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