[Stoves] More on the Alternatives to Charcoal.

[Otto Formo]

Dear Paul M (and Crispin),

 

I am "glad" to see you have come forward
with your interest and point of views.

I am on the other hand, very sad to see the
scepticism and disbelive in people to be able and willing to change in
developing countries.

 

Your arguments are very much based on that
"people never change” or are to ignorant to even consider doing that.

I belive when people are given options, they will adapt and
accept "any" type of change, if it will benefit them in short or longer
terms.

 

I will try to look into your arguments one by one:

 

1. The social and marked aspects have to be
tackled, yes, namely by involving the same marked mechanisms ruling the
marked of today, the charcoal business or industry. 

They have to be involved from day ONE, producers,
transporters, dealers and retailers.

They should be given an option to be part of
the value chain from raw materials out of agri- and forest residues to
production of woodchips, pellets and briquettes, just like in the charcoal “industry”. 

 

We dont see that as impossible, but more of
a challenge.

 

2. We are not talking about raw wood and
wood, only, but residues. which normally are wasted on the fields and inthe  forests.

Charcoal is lighter by weight, but consuming
in volume. 

Transporting the same volume of sundried
woodchips would in terms of transport be more demanding for the haulers, yes.

But dont forget that in a ND
gasifier, or as we like to call it, a Micro Kiln, you will utilize
the gases in the biomass for cooking  and your calculation on MJ/kg will
fall apart.

 

Traditional charcoal making, looses more than
50-70% of the energy content in the biomass during production.

I thought you knew that?

 

How can you argue that charcoal is a better
option, when you bring the raw materials, sundried, to the consumer and they
are actually making and burning their own char, while cooking?  

 

Traditional charcoal making is also produced
from indigenous trees and bring a heavy tall to the forest in protected areas.

 

In the Northern Hemisphere, we do NOT turn
the firewood into charcoal, unless we like to bring up high temperatures and
melt down iron for steel production, like in the old days, when I was young………:) 

 

We normally cut the trees in late winter,
spilt the logs, let the cold dry air and finely the sun, do the work during the
spring season, before stored in a dry-storage for next winter.

 

Dont be so arrogant and pretend that people
in developing countries are ignorant and dont SEE, when given an option,
pls. 

 

3. The Natural Draft  - ND gasifiers, are lit form the top, yes, and that is the whole key to
pyrolysis and production of char-coal in an efficient and proper manner. 

The Forced Draft (gasifiers
driven by fan), operates a bit differently and consume the char. 

 

4. I cannot see the difference between
hauling charcoal, pellets, briquettes or woodchips, pls highlight me.

In Zambia transport are for "free and sponsored"
without knowledge by the owner of the truck and fuel subsidised by the driver
and charcoal producer in terms of diesel and bags of charcoal.

 

There is “no” need to develop any new low
prized technology, Its already there.

Even bicykles and wheel borrows can ferry
pellets, briquettes and woodchips, not in the same number of bags as charcoal,
but very much the same quantity in terms of MJ/kg. 

 

5. Do you know how much work and efforts in
terms of manpower, it takes to produce a bag of charcoal?

 

Pellet is much more complex to produce and a
plant need to be operated carefully and maintained, yes.

In Sweden they have been producing and used
pellets for more than three decades to be used in terms of households- and indoor
heating.The technology is not NEW and very much improved over the years 

The demand for power, either from diesel
generators or electricity, are well known, but your friends at Berkley have developed a GEK running on pellets, producing power
for generators etc.

 

It means that you can produce your own fuel
out of your own raw materials, clever, I would say.

Almost a Perpetuum Mobile, apart
from that you have to start with pellets or a diesel generator, just like;

Who came first, the chicken or the
egg...................

 

For how long can it be possible to chew on the
same biscuit?

Isnt it high time to test a different brand or
content?
For how long can we accept to see people  cutting the branch, they are both literally and actually sitting on?

 

We are just talking about biomass and different
ways of handling and preparing, that’s ALL.

 

Good luck in your testing of charcoal-  and
Rocket-stoves.

 

Kindly 



Otto F
From: crispinpigott at gmail.com
To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2013 10:08:42 +0700
Subject: Re: [Stoves] More on the Alternatives to Charcoal.

Dear Paul M Thanks for taking the time to consider this systematically, meaning as a systems problem.  I will add one consideration that I did not see which is that the thermal efficiency (raw fuel to hot pot efficiency) of the stove is usually quite different between wood stoves and charcoal stoves. I have just been testing a charcoal stove (Anglo Supra and Anglo Supra Nova) which are widely used in this area for party cooking and commerce. They have an efficiency of about 50%. There is nothing like that available for wood. The Keren wood stoves, basically a sheltered fire made from terracotta, are about 18-22% efficient. Maybe 15%.  The difference is large and when the numbers you correctly considered for the available energy in the forest delivered to the pot are factored for stove performance, the result is a surprise to many people, meaning a surprise for those who consider charcoal to be an ‘inefficient’ fuel overall. Not only is it not nearly as bad as they have assumed, it has easily be improved (all elements of the system). The jury is thus still out on which way to go with charcoal, even if it has a large crowd hissing at it. Charcoal is a major employer, it is a preferred fuel (mostly because it is clean burning and doesn’t make pots dirty) and the system is ripe for improvement. RegardsCrispin  Dale, thank you for getting this discussion going.  I think we all  would agree that the traditional charcoal production & use systems around the world have much to be improved upon.  Some comments - many in response to Chrispen's comments:1. I could not agree more about the social (& market) aspects of substituting dried woody biomass for charcoal.  That is a big issue which has yet to be tackled.  It could be a show stopper for some of the alternatives.  2. In terms of transport economics, no doubt that charcoal has a substantially higher net (LHV) energy density than dry wood, not to mention wet wood.  Consequently for the same amount of energy shipping the same distance charcoal wins hands down.  For my analysis I used 10% moisture which assumes either aggressive solar drying or that some of the biomass is being burned to dry the remaining fuel.  Even with this much drying, the hauling cost penalty of biomass over charcoal is about 67%.  Where the analysis becomes interesting, at least to me, is when the whole system is considered.  In this case we need to factor in the efficiency of the charcoal production vs. the woody biomass production and this effect on forest area required.   Bottom line is that the charcoal must be hauled in from a much larger land area just because of the gross inefficiency of the charcoal making process.  This has the potential to make the hauling cost on a per MJ basis actually 40% LESS for dried biomass.   I say potential because it will all be specific to the forest area, it's density (tons of biomass / hectare) and it's distance from the point of fuel use.  This collection hauling penalty for traditional charcoal, has not been discussed much from what I have seen. The other interesting point is that dried biomass is actually equivalent to charcoal on a MJ / m3 basis.  Consequently, the truck will need to haul more weight per MJ with dried biomass, but not more volume.    3. On the stove side,  there is much work to do, from what I can tell, to make a TLUD burning dried biomass as attractive to the user as a charcoal stove burning charcoal.  In fact it may never be.  However, it seems to me that there is the potential.  Given that this fuel is consumed in the city there should be an easy & efficient way to burn the residual charcoal.  Also perhaps turn-down needs improvement in the gasification phase.   And of course it needs to be simple to operate.  Each one of these issues may represent substantial work to develop solutions for.  4. Speaking of development, a low capital method for distributed drying of woody biomass is another area that will need substantial appropriate technological development for this to be successful.  5. Final comment on Pellets:  I am most familiar with pellets, and many know they are now a major energy commodity in the developed world.  The downside is that they take much higher electrical or diesel energy input than simply chipping or splitting biomass.    Also, they require more capital, and the plants are more complex to operate and maintain.  Consequently they are less suited for a widely distributed system - like the existing charcoal production - especially in developing countries.  If the pellet plants are large then the wet wood is hauled further to get to the plant and the benefit in comparison to charcoal is reduced.  Still they are the most uniform, transportable, and appealing of the dried woody biomass options.  It just remains to be seen which of these different approaches - pellets, chipped, crumbled, or split dry biomass will develop more over time.  - Paul  -- Paul M. MeansResearch & Testing ManagerBurn Design Lab (253) 569-2976 (mobile)http://www.burndesignlab.org/“In the whole of world history there is always only one really significant hour – the present…If you want to find eternity, you must serve the times.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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