[Stoves] wheat husk pellets

[Alex English]

All Pauls and all,

Interesting subject title. Having grown,combined,ground,sifted wheat and 
burned wheat 'berries" and wheat short blended pellets at times over the 
past 35 years, this is the first time I have heard the term 'wheat 
husk'. My failure to separate husk from chaff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_middlings

We can buy into energy conspiracies but they only go so far. Having 
watched greenhouse boiler fuel gyrations during energy price spikes, I 
can pull my head out of the oven and tell you that cleaning and 
maintaining a 'natural' gas fired boiler is as close to the 
'aspirational' desk job as a farmer gets. A boiler fired with 
oat-hull/wheat-short blended pellets is continueally coated with sticky 
ash. It all makes work for the working-man to do, or avoid doing. 
Opposite ends of a fuel spectrum with labor and equipment  costs playing 
a huge role in the decision. Where is that spreadsheet?

There are quite a few pellet mills experiments around and most are 
having significant difficulties with ag residues and energy crops. 
Youtube videos only go so far, but its early days, or decades.


Visions of pyrolysis stoves in the kitchens of North America are 
borderline male fantasy. Try the patio dadios first. That will be a 
tough enough sell. Not enough smoke flavor.

A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's pyrolysis for?

"That's nice, now take it outside dear, I have a meal to prepare, and 
also the insurance company said no" :)


But your rice hull stove still seems like a pretty good niche. At least 
from a distance.

Alex in Wonderfulland.
A practitioner of the combustion arts and letters.





On 11/06/2013 10:37 PM, Paul Olivier wrote:
> Yes, Otto, you are right.
>
> Big Oil receives subsides from the US government. Its lobbying effort 
> is colossal. It has succeeded in convincing most of us that it has all 
> the answers. The infrastructure it has set up is vigilantly supported 
> by the US military. In our design of stoves, we should do everything 
> we can to make sure that we are not taken in by their lies. As Shell 
> Oil, says in an advertisement: "We at Shell believe that the world 
> should have a broader mix of energies". And then they point to natural 
> gas.
>
> Paul Olivier
>
>