[Stoves] Energy content cow dung

rongretlarson at comcast.net rongretlarson at comcast.net
Tue Feb 12 19:15:28 CST 2013


List - In the message I just sent about dung, I meant to mention AD's name. Apologies. Obviously a lot of dung is used in bio-digesters with the biogas used for cooking. This is an area where AD is an expert. But I think AD stays away from dung, as its energy content is not so great - and he can market a much smaller digester for home cooking, if the feedstock is other than dung. 
AD - tell us your current thinking of the best way to use dung as a cooking fuel. Or not use it? 

Ron 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Anand Karve" <adkarve at gmail.com> 
To: rbtvl at aol.com, "Discussion of biomass cooking stoves" <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 5:56:51 PM 
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Energy content cow dung 

Dear Bob, 
I think that this topic should be of interest to everybody working on 
biomass burning stoves. So instead of answering your query privately, 
I address my answer to the entire list. Cattle, grazing outdoors, eat 
mainly leafy and herbaceous material. They digest the carbophydrates 
and proteins in the leaves. The dung consists mainly of lignin and 
some of the bacteria and archaea. I therefore think that on dry weight 
basis, the energy content of dung should be same as wood. Only its 
energy density would be less. 
Yours 
A.D.Karve 
On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 1:43 PM, <rbtvl at aol.com> wrote: 
> Some of the Maasai burn cow dung in their three stone fires and now burn it in our stove and report it is okay and they use less just like the wood burning folks. I want to do some analysis and need a reasonable estimate of energy per mass of some average dung. Googling I got about 75% of the energy density in hard wood fuel. Please send me info or sources on this. Don't need to bore the whole list so use my email. Thanks 
> Bob. Maasai Stoves and Solar. 
> Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Airtel Tanzania. 
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-- 
*** 
Dr. A.D. Karve 
Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI) 

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