[Stoves] Vetiver grass-pellets Re: The wood and char and fuel "debate"

[Crispin Pembert-Pigott]

Dear Michael

 

>As you know Joel's project was never funded by World Bank.  I am not sure
why, I am afraid he over extended himself and lost some equipment also.

 

Was that a grass pellet operation? There was a rumour of there being one
machine in the country. Was that it?

 

Crispin I know you keep promoting fast growing trees for charcoal.  

 

Actually I don't promote any particular tree - I promote planting trees. I
greatly favour the approach(es) taken by my old buddy Bill Mollison which
always involves strips of trees with other things planted between creating
plant guilds with mutual benefit. 

 

It has always seemed odd that there is so little attention paid to replacing
trees where they have gone missing. Because I lived in Africa for so long
(decades) I have seen forestry projects struggle. In places where land
control is well established and ownership of a proxy of it reliable, trees
are a possible crop. The difference between Lesotho and Swaziland culturally
is large in this respect so the responses are different. 

 

>But you must realize the problem is WAY larger than just deforestation!   

 

I think we all do. Holistic veld management (HVM) is one example of tackling
many things simultaneously. 

 

>This is why hundreds of reforestation projects have failed in Haiti
already.  

 

Planting tough grasses and adding trees is probably a good way around this
problem. There are others which include planting a series of things one
after the other and making sure there is a market for each.

 

>.By planting vetiver Grass it can be accomplished within a decade. 

 

Agreed. 

 

>By putting the biochar from vetiver pellets back in the soil it will make
gardens even quicker. 

 

Yup. Support you on that.

 

>This program will work because every poor country needs vetiver hedgerows
and vetiver grows in the tropics world wide.  

 

And other plants. Lesotho uses aloes and sisal a lot, though formium tenax
is pretty good too and is worth a lot.

 

>We at HRI felt we need to be able to use vetiver for energy in order to
interest the people who cut the trees for charcoal.  I have never found a
person who wants to do this they seem to think they have no alternative. 

 

Are there pelleting machines available or are you forced to use chopped
grass?

 

>I know the vetiver pellets will work as pellets in the TLUD stoves.  I have
used a lot of switch grass pellets and these actually work better than wood
pellets and also better than any other fuel I have used in the stoves.  I
believe pellet same density and consistency makes it the easiest to tune in
the stove also.

 

Agreed. If the stove design relies on fuel consistency then there is little
choice. 

 

>The only way any pellet substance project will work is if the pellets are
as cheap a fuel as the charcoal they already use.

 

At least the baseline price if charcoal is high enough to drive that market.

 

We feel the only way to make pellets [cheap] enough to accomplish this is to
cut the cost of diesel fuel.

 

You could use grass as fuel in a gasifier supplied engine. Skip the electric
conversion and use it for motive power.

 

>The mobile pellet mill we make must generate the gas from a portion of the
pellets it produces for its only fuel source.

 

Exactly. But skip the electric part. It is just a mechanical unit.

 

>I know it will be possible to make a clean enough syngas to run the
generator from vetiver pellets. But until then I guess we should not promote
it too much? 

 

Ibid.

 

>I have talked to people from Cornell who specialize in grass energy and
Berkley who specialize in gasification.  They are worried about the amount
of ass and phosphorous and not sure if they will work in the Gek. 

 

Put it into a 6-1 Lister knock-off from India. They are un-killable. There
was also an engine design from Practical Action (ITDG at the time) that will
run on all sorts of things, even coal dust.

 

>I am hoping they will be able to perfect the downdraft gasifier to handle
any excess ash and make it for continual operation to run the generators
engine that direct-drives the input shaft of the pellet making machine.

 

Regards

Crispin

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