[Stoves] plant physiology

Sat Nov 30 11:50:31 CST 2013

Dear Bob,
hybrid Napier is a high yielding fodder grass. An area of 40 sq.m.
irrigated by the waste water generated by the household would allow you to
harvest daily 1 sq.m., yielding daily about 10 kg green biomass. This would
yield daily about 800 litres biogas and 1kg non-digestible dry matter. The
non-digestible biomass can be briquetted and used as fuel in a wood burning
stove. This is enough cooking fuel for a family of 5 or 6 persons. After 40
days, you are back to square 1, which would again yield 10kg biomass. You
get 9 cuts in a year.
Yours
A.D.Karve
On Sat, Nov 30, 2013 at 9:22 AM, <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 <adkarve at gmail.com>
> To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <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 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.
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> ***
> Dr. A.D. Karve
> Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)
>
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-- 
***
Dr. A.D. Karve
Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)
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