[Stoves] Alternative to charcoal

[Jonathan P Gill]

Crispin,

The numbers I have for wood pellets suggest around 8,000 BTUs per pound.  Charcoal is about 12,000 BTUs per pound.  From this, I get that charcoal has only about 50% more energy per pound than wood pellets.  Would not this also apply to stick wood as well?

An advantage of using local, non stick wood, biomass is that the transportation problem/cost can be substantially mitigated.  What, for example, becomes of Jatropha seed cake that is the residue after pressing out the oil?  If run through the press a second time does it become plastic like?  I have seen this with other oil seed cakes.  They can burn very well in TLUD.

Regards,

Jock

On Apr 8, 2013, at 9:30 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Dale and Friends
>  
> The analysis of alternatives to charcoal should include the reasons why people prefer it, strongly, over wood when given a choice of either, with charcoal costing much more than wood per kg. Working out theoretically how to burn all the wood (which is what burning gases+burning char is doing) doesn’t really address the reason why people don’t want to burn wood if they have enough money – in other words if they have a choice.
>  
> Once it is admitted that burning wood gas then char is the same as burning whole wood as far as the forest is concerned, we can also admit that transport and convenience have a lot to do with it. In other words, this is a question strongly influenced by social questions.
>  
> The transport of charcoal (MJ per ton-mile) is much cheaper than transporting wood and this difference dominates the charcoal economy. It is impractical to ship wood 600 km in Mozambique because of cost of doing so.
>  

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