[Stoves] Cuber and size of densifying machines. (no longer Re: The wood and char and fuel "debate" )

Nolbert Muhumuza muhumuza at gmail.com
Thu Mar 6 03:10:57 CST 2014


Mr. Bjarne Laustsen,

We have a 2-3 commercial briquette producers in Uganda. One particular
company gave us an excellent sample for our Quad gasifier stoves.
However the quality soon deteriorated (for two subsequent supplies),
they became un-burnable in the gasifiers. They were very smoky, picked
up moisture quite easily. So we had to dry them a day before cooking
each meal.

Reason was variations in feedstock mixtures, due to infrequent
supplies. These guys drive all around the country collecting biomass
feedstock, so they surely couldn't maintain a steady and consistent
supply of feedstock which affected their final product. The other
company added chicken droppings, which also made the briquettes smoky.

Dr. Paul Anderson once picked high density (only wood shavings) from
Zambia, they were excellent.

Hope you put some of these issues in consideration as you prepare to
use briquettes in gasifiers.

Regards, Nolbert.

2014-03-06 10:32 GMT+03:00, Bjarne Laustsen <bjarne at kiwlau.com>:
> To Paul and others
> Fuel supply can be big business but it does not need to be.
> We have been making pellets for gasification stoves.
> The pellets in itself work very well if they are in sizes from 6 mm or 8
> mm in diameter, they have been burning very good in our gasification stoves.
> The problems in relation with pellets for gasification stoves are how to
> find good and sustainable pellet presses for producing the pellets.
> The slides from the presentation from Crane Wang MUYANG illustrate this
> very well. Because the pellet press they shows are big and expensive
> equipments that will do a good job, however they are outside the
> financial reach of most of us.
> We have experiences with some of the smaller and cheaper pellets mills,
> and they are not able to produce pellets in a sustainable way. They are
> designed for feed pellet production, and they aretherefore not able to
> produce fuel pellets in an economical way.
>
> I have noted that in China they are mainly working with pellets for fuel
> production while in India they are working with briquettes.
>
> For me to see the cuber will still be an to expensive solution.
>
> The solution for us will be to use the Indian type of mechanical piston
> briquette presses that can make briquettes with diameter of 60 mm and
> get attached a puck cutter on that so the briquettes are cut out in
> pucks. Such pucks will be a good fuel for gasification stoves. And the
> equipment is reasonable in price so it is possible for many to finance
> such a solution.
>
> These briquette presses can work with most types of agricultural
> residues, so we at the same can shift to using renewable biomass for
> cooking and in this way also contribute to reducing the deforestation.
>
> Bjarne Laustsen
>
> On 3/5/2014 10:47 PM, Paul Anderson wrote:
>> Stovers,
>>
>> Slide #9 of the presentation at the site given below is interesting.
>> Those cubes should work very well in gasifiers of many different sizes.
>>
>> I was impressed by the other slides that show the very large sizes of
>> the pelletizers and cubers.   If supply of raw materials is
>> sufficient, large machines seem so much more appropriate than 100 or
>> 1000 small units.   Fuel supply is BIG business.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>> Doc  /  Dr TLUD  /  Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD
>> Email:  psanders at ilstu.edu
>> Skype: paultlud      Phone: +1-309-452-7072
>> Website:  www.drtlud.com
>>
>> On 3/5/2014 9:58 AM, Energies Naturals C.B. wrote:
>>> Hello Michael,
>>>
>>> .....
>>>
>>> We saw some examples of cubers in a Beijing(?) stove exposition some
>>> time ago.
>>>
>>> Also check this:
>>> http://www.novator.se/bioint/BPUA12Pres/10_BPUA12_Crane_Wang_MUYANG.pdf
>>>
>>> Hope this helps
>>>
>>> Rolf
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, 26 Feb 2014 10:36:47 -0600
>>> Michael Mahowald <memahowald at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> You are absolutely correct Paul !
>>>> Deforestation happens all over the world with the lack of fire wood.
>>>> There simply is not enough dry sources of trees or waste from them
>>>> even for TLUD's to keep even poor consumers interested in them.
>>>> We know vetiver grass has the highest photosynthetic activity of any
>>>> plant, making it the most renewable energy source on the planet.
>>>> We just have to densify the grass into pellets at a cost that people
>>>> can afford.  The only way we can do this is to eliminate the cost of
>>>> diesel fuel to run the generator to make the pellets.
>>>> We are planning on using a downdraft gasifier for gas to accomplish
>>>> this.  We just have to perfect this process and size it for a
>>>> portable pelleting plant that can be taken to the fields they grow it.
>>>> When we perfect this it will be capable to work everywhere in the
>>>> world that needs clean cook stoves.
>>>> If you want to see what we are doing check out
>>>> http://haitireconstruction.ning.com/page/grass-energy
>>>> and http://haitireconstruction.ning.com/page/sustainable-path-on-how-to
>>>>
>>>> Michael E. MahowaldPresident
>>>> Haiti Reconstruction International952-220-6814
>>>>
>>>> Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 20:43:31 -0600
>>>> From: psanders at ilstu.edu
>>>> To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org; biochar at yahoogroups.com
>>>> Subject: [Stoves] The wood and char and fuel "debate" (was a long
>>>> time ago called Re: Request for technology proposals - Clean Stove
>>>> Initiative, Indonesia)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>                    Dear Crispin, Ron and all,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>        It is interesting reading the back and forth between Ron and
>>>>        Crispin.   I emphasize two paragraphs from Crispin,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>        On 2/24/2014 10:10 AM, Crispin Pembert-Pigott wrote:
>>>>
>>>>          There
>>>>              is no dispute between us whatsoever as to the energy
>>>>              consumption: the energy remaining in the char represents
>>>>              energy not liberated from the fuel consumed.
>>>>                    The
>>>>              important question is not what we want, but what the
>>>>              customer of the test result wants. They are not asking how
>>>>              much energy was used when cooking, they asked how much
>>>> fuel
>>>>              was consumed. The answer is of course different if
>>>> there is
>>>>              char remaining and that char is not 'fuel' to the same
>>>> stove
>>>>              for the next fire.
>>>>                            For the vast majority of "customers"
>>>> (including governments that
>>>>      want to reduce or reverse deforestation), the important
>>>> question is
>>>>      "how much wood is burned."    The interests are highly related to
>>>>      WOOD, specifically related to TREES, not even counting sawdust
>>>> that
>>>>      goes into pellets.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>      So, because TLUD stoves are VERY GOOD at burning NON-wood biomass,
>>>>      the wood saved can be 100%.   And we still get the char.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>      Concerning fuel and wood and non-wood and char and other such
>>>>      measurements, the real problems can come from rankings and
>>>> Tiers and
>>>>      o
>>>> ther reports that could give excellent stoves some poor results
>>>>      because the "authorities" are defining fuel as being exclusively
>>>>      wood, as in trees and woodlands that need to be protected.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>      If we could get past that "imposed intellectual construct" of fuel
>>>>      being wood, we could make more progress about some types of
>>>> biomass
>>>>      stoves being even better than good for the environment.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>      Rest assured that the advocates of alcohol and kerosene and other
>>>>      NON-biomass fuels are pointing out that their stoves help minimize
>>>>      deforestation/enviromental degradation.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>      Biomass that is NOT WOOD needs to be recognized as being favorable
>>>>      for saving trees, and credit given to the stoves that can use
>>>> those
>>>>      non-wood biomass fuels.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>      AND that recognition and credit needs to be EXPLICITLY STATED
>>>> IN THE
>>>>      REPORTS ABOUT FUEL CONSUMPTION.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>      In some ways, this is all just another discussion about why the
>>>>      reported results of any stove testing need much explanation (which
>>>>      is usually not provided) and why the results are so easy to ignore
>>>>      as being poorly related to the realities of people and their
>>>> stoves
>>>>      and their fuels.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>      I hope we can do better in the future.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>      Paul
>>>>         (still another week to go on my vacation trip to Brazil,
>>>>      so I probably will not be sending replies.)
>>>>
>>>>      Doc  /  Dr TLUD  /  Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD
>>>> Email:  psanders at ilstu.edu
>>>> Skype: paultlud      Phone: +1-309-452-7072
>>>> Website:  www.drtlud.com
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
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>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> Bjarne Laustsen
> Director
> Kiwia & Laustsen Limited
> P.O. Box 285
> Karatu, Tanzania
> phone +255 787295684
>
>
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>


-- 
Nolbert Muhumuza

President & Chief Operations Officer
Awamu Biomass Energy Ltd.
P.O. Box 40127, Nakawa
Kampala - Uganda.

Mobile: +256-776-346724
Skype: nolbertm
www.awamu.ug




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