[Stoves] plant physiology

Mon Dec 2 13:48:30 CST 2013

I remember a few years ago reading of a system in INDIA that was taking sugar cane waste and packing it tightly in metal tubes. The tubes were then placed in a biochar unit and biochar and outgas produced.
The resulting char was mixed with a cheap binding agent I think it was a waste flour, starch, etc. and put into a hand press and made into bricks to dry. The bricks were then burned in small rocket stoves for cooking.
Very low tech, very low cost. Such a system should work with the grass described below since sugarcane is just a type of grass.

Alexander Keenan

From: Lloyd Helferty [mailto:lhelferty at sympatico.ca]
Sent: Sunday, December 01, 2013 4:50 PM
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
Subject: Re: [Stoves] plant physiology

Michael,

  Wow!  That is just amazing!  I am just so very glad that you have been able to take so much wisdom from the "collective body" of knowledge about 'sustainable cropping' for bioenergy, biochar and soil sustainability.  (It is also wonderful to read about your focus on soils -- and Vetiver grass [Chrysopogon zizanioides].)
  I, for one, am completely onside with what you are attempting to do in Haiti -- and would be very willing to assist you in whatever way I can to help make what you have described a reality ~ for I believe that this agro-ecological 'systems approach' [permaculture] would not only be relevant to Haiti, but could and should also be very relevant to so many other places around the world. (Wherever Vetiver grows.)
 [Note: I have also recently plugged into the global 'Vetiver Network', and am learning more about the amazing potential for these grasses to become sustainable bioenergy feedstocks.]

 If there is any way that I might be able to assist in helping with the development of some of this "portable machinery" (the pyrolitic downdraft gasifiers that can run portable generators) for producing electricity and other useful products ~ including the harvesting and pellet machines themselves...  these are the type of small, integrated systems that I would very much wish to support [in terms of testing, training and deployment] ~ not only in Haiti, but anywhere else around the world where these systems may be applicable.  [i.e. the rest of the Caribbean and probably many other Small Island Developing States in the Pacific ~ South-East Asia and, in fact, probably in many/most other countries of the so-called "Global South".]

Regards,

  Lloyd Helferty, Engineering Technologist

  Principal, Biochar Consulting (Canada)

  www.biochar-consulting.ca<http://www.biochar-consulting.ca>

  48 Suncrest Blvd, Thornhill, ON, Canada

  905-707-8754

  CELL: 647-886-8754

     Skype: lloyd.helferty

  Steering Committee coordinator

  Canadian Biochar Initiative (CBI)

  President, Co-founder & CBI Liaison, Biochar-Ontario

  National Office, Canadian Carbon Farming Initiative (CCFI)

  Organizing team member, 2013 N/A Biochar Symposium:

    www.carbon-negative.us/symposium<http://www.carbon-negative.us/symposium>

  Member of the Don Watershed Regeneration Council (DWRC)

  Manager, Biochar Offsets Group:

           http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=2446475

   Advisory Committee Member, IBI

  http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1404717

  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=42237506675

  http://groups.google.com/group/biochar-ontario

  http://www.meetup.com/biocharontario/

  http://www.biocharontario.ca

   www.biochar.ca<http://www.biochar.ca>

"Producing twice as much food with diminishing resources, without further loss of natural habitats and biodiversity and in a changing climate may be the greatest challenge facing humanity."

   - Lloyd Helferty
On 2013-12-01 12:01 PM, Michael Mahowald wrote:
Dear All,

Very good and needed discussion,

This is the most important thing we are currently looking for at Haiti Reconstruction Intl.

We have discussed and planed using fast growing nitrogen fixing trees in hedgerows on mountainsides for trimming and getting fuel wood for cooking stoves.  But we now believe their need is greater and with the millions that need it we have to use pellets nationwide.
We know the greatest problem in Haiti and most of the world is erosion and lack of good top soil especially on hilly terrain. We also know vetiver grass is the best plant to not only stop erosion but it can replenish the soil with the terraces it makes when planted correctly.
Vetiver has the highest photosynthetic activity of any plant according to Dr. Massimo Maffei of the University of Turin Italy.  Other plants may produce more tons per acre total weight but contain 50% more moisture.  Vetiver hay when dried can produce 70 to 80 tons per hectare of cellulosic biomass.
This grass with 3 meter roots can be trimmed twice a year without hurting its terrace building ability.  Leaves when dried are turned into fuel pellets without any detriment to the plants to stop erosion.  Once the terraces are established moisture is retained and gardens can be planted behind the vetiver.  Haiti's mountainous terrain needs so much vetiver they can produce millions of pounds of pellets a year.
The miraculous TLUD will turn grass into gas that burns clean, (save lives of those who cook with it) and leaves the carbon to put back into the soil behind the hedgerows to enhance the soil.  This will also clean the atmosphere and reverse effects on global warming!
Our goal is to make pellets cheap enough not only for TLUD cook stoves.  We feel in order to do this we must perfect pyrolitic downdraft gasifiers with low tar levels that can run portable generators.  We need portable electricity and machinery where the grass is cut to shred, grind, form into pellets and seal them in plastic bags.   These clean bags of pellets can be sold in markets by the same street venders who currently sell dirty charcoal.  Those who cut trees to make charcoal, can now make a living. planting, cutting and making vetiver pellets.
This perfect circle of permaculture design and its byproduct of hedgerows that create their own terraces.  These terraces will create humus as they collect leaves and debris.  Humus and biochar will hold moisture and microorganisms.  Vetiver can also be used for composting, and toilets will stop the spread of cholera, hedgerows stopping erosion keep anthrax spores buried deep preventing epidemics!   Fruit trees will once again grow on mountainsides.  Gardens can be planted and food will grow so bountifully they will be exporting it.  Eventually there will be enough vetiver to run generators for small towns to process food for export.

No one man our group can accomplish everything, but I know this is all possible with more help.

I am hoping any of you may want to help us, we need to find universities and groups from every organization to chip in.

Please join us at HRI website(click on this Haiti Reconstruction International<http://haitireconstruction.ning.com/> )
Michael E. Mahowald
President
Haiti Reconstruction International<http://haitireconstruction.ning.com/>
952-220-6814
________________________________
From: cookswelljikos
To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org<mailto:stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2013 17:11:37 -0800
Subject: Re: [Stoves] plant physiology

Dear Bob,

>From personal experience most rural Kenyan's I have met are little concerned with outsiders expectations of how they should manage their natural resources and landscapes. As it is today, a large part woodfuel in Kenya (both commercial and domestic) is coming from farm forests or Trust land since the Govt. bans on harvesting plantations in the 1990's. (please see http://www.inforse.org/Case/Case-Kenya-Afforestation.php3 and  http://www.acts.or.ke/dmdocuments/Acacia%20Pocketbook%20low%20res.pdf and also http://worldagroforestry.org/newsroom/media_coverage/agroforestry-can-meet-charcoal-demand-kenya and also http://rael.berkeley.edu/bailis_phd  for some recent studies).

Tree's can be planted during the rainy season to minimize need for watering and can be grown as alley-crops or fence line windbreaks etc. and thus not overly compete for arable land.

My interest in this is from my understanding that by designing, manufacturing and selling cookstoves, ovens and kilns that make it easier and cheaper for people to burn trees, I have very strong vested interests and a responsibility to advocate and encourage positive woodfuel security measures. I know not everyone of my customers will be able to take part in the ''seed-to-ash'' cycle (please see below), but I am always thrilled when the early adapters do. And if we can help subsidize the cost of fuel for our customers, they hopefully can use the money saved to buy another model of stove from us.

Back to my question of the possible discussion of fuels at the ETHOS conference, is this something that is of interest to any of you?

The more I read about ETHOS the more I want to come to learn more! I have been sending quite a few stoves to the USA from Nbi. and I would love to meet some customers and do some M&E on how our North American clients use our jikos.

Thanks and any thoughts, critics and comments any of you have is always very instructive to me.

Teddy

Cookswell Jikos
www.cookswell.co.ke<http://www.cookswell.co.ke>

www.facebook.com/CookswellJikos<http://www.facebook.com/CookswellJikos>

www.kenyacharcoal.blogspot.com<http://www.kenyacharcoal.blogspot.com>

Mobile: +254 700 380 009

Mobile: +254 700 905 913

P.O. Box 1433, Nairobi 00606, Kenya

-----

On Sat, Nov 30, 2013 at 6:52 AM, <rbtvl<mailto:rbtvl at aol.com>> wrote:

thanks Arnand

I hope to come to Ethos but might be in Tanzania working.

do you have any data on how much fuel you can grow at some maximum rate?

My concern is that we can't expect poor rural people to focus their water gathering energies and land use on firewood production.  Of course, if they can burn dried up corn plants and stuff like that it is all to the good.  integrating growth of fuel and food is always a good idea.

bob

-----Original Message-----
From: Anand Karve
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org<mailto:stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>>
Sent: Fri, Nov 29, 2013 10:40 pm
Subject: Re: [Stoves] ETHOS program growing firewood

Dear Bob Lange and Stovers,

I am a plant physiologist. I won't mind attending Ethos Meeting if somebody pays me my air fare and local expenses.

The high energy in seeds and tubers that you mention has nothing to do with the physical calorific value of these substances. They have a high content of digestible matter so that the energy becomes available to you, when you eat them. Burning sugar, starch, cellulose or lignin would release about the same quantity of energy per unit weight. Because cellulose and lignin are not digestible to humans, the straw and stover from crop plants, constituting about 60 to 70% of the total biomass, is available to the farmer to be used as fuel. It must however be processed to increase its energy density to resemble that of wood.

Yours

A.D.Karve

On Thu, Nov 28, 2013 at 5:09 PM, <rbtvl<mailto:rbtvl at aol.com>> wrote:

I think we should invite a plant physiologist to come to ETHOS to explain why  we should not focus on getting people to grow their own fuel.   Plants are living things. In the first place they are not very efficient at all in catching the energy in sun light.  But what they do catch they put mostly into metabolism and reproduction.   Like us animals.  That is why we eat seeds.   They are loaded with energy that the plant put there for their young to use until the little ones can photosynthesize for themselves.    Mammals use the mother's milk   Plants use their seeds.  (Some animals, not mammals, use eggs for reproduction.  So we eat eggs.)

If you are rural and poor and have a little land and sufficient water, you will almost certainly want to grow food itself rather than fire wood.   no?  Fire wood is very demanding of land area.   You can be clever and minimize it. This species that species.    but it is land expensive.   Because the part of the plant you burn for fuel is not important to the plant, except to support its leaves.  so the  plant puts minimal energy there.

If growing fuel wood is going to be taken seriously, it should be a government task.  Local or national  government.   Centralize it.   Do it big and well on land that individual families don't need to grow food itself.  do it on land that is difficult to use for other things.  On the sides of hills.  someplace useless.  someplace rocky.  Make it a campaign in the Global Alliance's "enabling environment".

Funny, but the problem is that people cook so much.   What we need are more species of plants and animals that produce parts that we could find nourishing and tasty and desirable without cooking at all.   Damn it.   Why do we have to heat up food so much?   Maybe soak the food in some liquid like fruit juice or spices some natural acid for all day and then serve it.   I know cooking has a very significant role in make food culturally and physiologically acceptable.   But If only we could find more foods that were good for us, culturally and physiologically, but eaten raw.  That would be real stove progress.  I personally like to eat almost all vegetables raw.   even beans and corn.  I don't know if I am throwing away a lot of their nutrition, though.

Bob Lange    Maasai stoves and solar.
<snip>

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