[Stoves] Last? Alternative to Charcoal

Sat Apr 27 06:39:58 CDT 2013

Dear Paul,
please have a look at our web site www.samuchit.com which describes the
cooking devices being offered by us. One of our stoves called Sampada
(which means wealth) gasifier stove generates about 200g charcoal from 1 kg
woody biomass. The villagers can earn money by selling the charcoal to the
village blacksmith. Woody biomass in the form of stalks of cotton and
pigeonpea, shells and leaf raches of coconut, and woody pods of various
trees are available to the villagers free of cost. The name Sampada was
chosen for this stove because it generates money by burning woody fuel that
is available for free. Our Sarai cooker is also a very popular cooking
device. Using the combination of the Sampada stove (for burning the woody
biomass) and the Sarai (meaning celebration) cooker for burning the
charcoal, the entire meal for a family of five can be cooked by using just
1kg woody biomass. This of course does not leave any charcoal for the soil.

Yours
A.D.Karve

On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 6:03 AM, Paul Olivier <paul.olivier at esrla.com>wrote:

>  Paul Means,
>
> Rice hulls and rice straw are abundant in Asia, and in many areas they are
> available for free or at very little cost. If we were to go about designing
> a stove to exploit this abundant biomass, should we design a stove that
> only produces heat? Or should we design a stove that produces both heat and
> biochar?
>
> If it can be demonstrated that the biochar produced by this stove greatly
> enhances the growth of vegetables such as mustard greens, water spinach and
> Chinese cabbage, then the by-product of cooking a meal acquires
> considerable value. Every time someone cooks a meal with a stove that
> produces biochar, this person would be earning money. It might not be a lot
> of money relative to us, but believe me, it represents a lot of money for
> the average Vietnamese, Cambodian or Laotian. The average household in
> these three countries could produce up to a kg of biochar per day which,
> already in this area, has a value of about 30 cents US. If funding agencies
> were to invest heavily in the kind of biochar research that people such as
> Reg Preston and Simon Shackley have been doing, then biochar would, no
> doubt, acquire an even greater value.
>
> One ton of rice hull pellets sells in Saigon for about $75 US. This one
> ton of pellets produces about 330 kgs of biochar. This quantity of biochar
> has a value of about $100 US. A biochar merchant could give pellets to an
> urban household at zero cost in exchange for all of the biochar produced
> from these pellets. This means that the urban household would have its fuel
> free-of-charge.
>
> In the case of a rural household where undensified rice hulls are abundant
> and often free, the household could earn enough money through the sale of
> biochar to pay for the cook stove within six months. In one year this
> household could earn about $120 US, which in many cases here in Vietnam, is
> far more than a monthly wage. If the cook stove is made out of high quality
> stainless steel, then it would assure a steady and important stream of
> income over many years.
>
> So if we were to go about designing a stove to exploit the enormous
> tonnages of biomass available in Asia, what should we do? If we design a
> stove that only produces heat (with biochar being burned), when this heat
> dissipates, there is nothing of value that remains. But if we design a
> stove that produces both heat and biochar, a by-product of considerable
> value remains, and once incorporated into the soil, it greatly enriches the
> soil and stays there for a very long time.
>
> I would urge funding agencies such as the GACC to pour big money into
> biochar research throughout the whole of Asia, especially in those regions
> where rice hulls, rice straw and other forms of agricultural biomass are
> abundant. They should disseminate the results of this research to farmers
> so that these farmers might understand the considerable value of biochar
> when incorporated into the soil or fed to animals.
>
> Biochar could easily be the driving force behind everything related to the
> financially sustainable production and sale of cook stoves in a given area.
>
> Thanks.
> Paul Olivier
>
>
>
>  On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 7:17 AM, Paul Means <paul at burndesignlab.org>wrote:
>
>>   Hi Crispin,
>> In answer to your questions.  I assumed that the cost of transportation,
>> for bulk products like this will primarily be based on weight rather than
>> volume.  Therefore, in my analysis, the relative costs for transporting
>> each of the different fuels is simply the product of:
>>
>>  1. the relative energy density (MJ/KG)
>>  multiplied by
>>  2. the relative haul distance.(KM/MJ) to pick up a MJ of fuel.
>>
>>   Sized & dried biomass (whether pellets, crumbled wood, dried chips,
>> sticks, etc) has only 59% of the energy density of charcoal. On the
>> other hand, the relative haul distance for traditional charcoal, because
>> the process is so inefficient and it consequently has to be hauled from a
>> much wider area, is 3 times more than for sized & dried biomass.
>>
>> For the "alternative to charcoal" I assume that the market for this fuel
>> being brought into the cities is developed on the basis of modern/new
>> micro-gasifier / TLUD type stoves.  It's assumed that the char is either
>> burned in the TLUD (a few designs are coming out with this now) or the char
>> is burned in a separate stove.  I have assumed that this TLUD / Char
>> Burning together has an overall efficiency of 40%.
>>
>> - Paul
>>
>> Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 11:22:53 +0000
>> From: crispinpigott at gmail.com
>> To: "Stoves" <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Stoves] Alternatives to charcoal - transportation &
>>         biochar
>> Message-ID:
>>         <798760741-1366284175-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.
>> net-357301314- at b5.c10.bise6.blackberry>
>>
>> Content-Type: text/plain
>>
>> Dear Paul M
>>
>> Could you please clarify two things (I can't see the slides. I am in
>> transit).
>>
>> Are you basing the transport on a volume basis on the assumption that a
>> vehicle bearing a higher density fuel can carry more?  Someone was talking
>> like that.
>>
>> Next, I think you can (very) safely assume that any charcoal stove will
>> deliver 1.5 times as much heat per available MJ into a pot. I aim higher
>> than that but let's stick to average mediocre wood and charcoal stoves. A
>> pretty ordinary charcoal stove will deliver 40% of the energy available to
>> the pot.
>>
>> I don't know how that affects the outcome but it is the reality re the
>> processed v.s. unprocessed fuels (char vs wood).
>>
>> Thanks
>> Crispin
>> Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network
>>
>> --
>> Paul M. Means
>> Research & Testing Manager
>> Burn Design Lab
>> (253) 569-2976 (mobile)
>> http://www.burndesignlab.org/
>> “In the whole of world history there is always only one really
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>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> Paul A. Olivier PhD
> 26/5 Phu Dong Thien Vuong
> Dalat
> Vietnam
>
> Louisiana telephone: 1-337-447-4124 (rings Vietnam)
> Mobile: 090-694-1573 (in Vietnam)
> Skype address: Xpolivier
> http://www.esrla.com/
>
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-- 
***
Dr. A.D. Karve
Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)
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