[Stoves] cook stoves for Cameroon

Thu Sep 18 02:46:30 CDT 2014

Dear Huck

My name is Joshua Guinto. You may call me Jed. Im from the Philippines Im
one of the side participants in the stove list serve.

I work mostly with the rocket stoves but recent lessons i learned from the
stove design community prompted me to tinker on the gasifier camp. And so
now im working on some prototypes of rocket-gasifier hybrids made of terra
cotta and that can produce char after cooking in air tight terra cotta char
box.

I appreciate your comprehensive report on the local situations that covers
the cooking habits, the fuel available, the kitchen and the food
preparations. The reports help us designers to draw ideas from our idea
banks.

I have a few questions

1. Palm oil was mentioned in the report. How extensive is the oil palm
plantation? Where does the oil go?

What remains after extraction? Are those the seed kernels? Are they dry
after pressing? Are there oil residues remaining in the shells? What is the
behavior of these waste when used for cooking?

Do you observe oil residues on the soil/base of the stove after or while
cooking?

How would you describe the smoke when these wastes are used?

2. Is pottery a tradition in Besongabang? Do they have enough clay deposits
and the skills to make clay pots?

3. The report mentioned cooking being at some point as a social activity.
And now that you are into housing design and construction. would your
architects explore this house design paradigm of common or shared kitchen?

4. If so.... how would a garden around the houses clusters be affected by
the house design? Do you see a shared garden? or at a minimum a place for
social interactions?

i ask these sociological questions because it connects deeply into the
stoves and kitchen and garden  and house design.

As i understand it from the report, the households would prefer a a stove
with a table top, several ports and one that leads to a corridor where they
prepare food, do the laundry and eventually lead to the garden.

It is a kitchen that is semi enclosed but allows interaction with the rest
of the household chores as well as their neighbors.

If this understanding is correct, then you have there a community element
that is worth preserving and nurturing, even if it has to begin with the
stove design.

And if this is making sense... i will present on the next round the stove
prototype which im working now. It is a lego brick stove that can be built
as a rocket stove or as a gasifier stove for a single port or several
ports, with or without a chimney or a table top...  from individual lego
shaped fire bricks.

There are more to discuss on this thread but i park my ideas for now.

Jed Guinto
Philippines

2014-09-17 19:27 GMT-07:00 Huck Rorick <huckrorick at groundwork.org>:

> Hi All,
>
>
>
> I found myself a little confused by the discussion.
>
>
>
> Not being expert in the field, this is how I would pose my questions:
>
>    1. There is a certain amount of energy per kilogram of wood (I’m going
>    to stick with wood for the moment rather than all biomass).
>    2. When burned, some of that energy is realized and some is not, i.e.
>    there is not complete combustion.  How complete is the combustion?  How
>    much energy is released?  That would be the first measure.  I want this
>    because it tells me about one component of the system and is useful for
>    design.  It does not tell me the net result for the user.
>    3. How much of the released energy goes into cooking?  That would be
>    my next measure.  That should tell me what weight of wood people have to
>    collect to cook their food.  It is worth noting that the amount of energy
>    that goes into cooking is also affected by the pots and lids used as well
>    as how they fit onto the stove.
>    4. It is also important to know how much energy was expended to get
>    the fuel and prepare it for use.  Some of that energy is human energy so it
>    gets treated a bit differently and has a different impact.  For example, it
>    doesn’t convert simply to climate impact (are humans low global warming gas
>    emitters?).  If you cut up the fuel a lot and process it a lot there is a
>    cost there.  I don’t know how that stacks up for gasifiers vs other stoves.
>    5. Regarding charcoal.  I am presuming you can still use the
>    charcoal.  I was, apparently erroneously, under the impression that
>    gasifier stoves could continue to receive primary air and therefore burn
>    the charcoal.  I actually liked that idea because it was simple and used
>    most of the energy in the stove.  If you take the charcoal out of the stove
>    you then have a couple of options for using it.  You can burn it in another
>    stove, which has some appeal as you can do a different kind of cooking with
>    it (e.g. BBQ, or ?).  But also seems like quite a bit of work and
>    complication for a small amount of charcoal.  Or, you can use it in the
>    soil. So another question:
>    6. Is a gasifier stove with charcoal (biochar) buried actually carbon
>    negative?
>    7. Then the other important measure: what are the emissions?
>
>
>
> And, a kind of crude question: with the ins and outs of this discussion is
> it the case that rocket stoves or some other stove is more efficient than
> the gasifiers?  In my question by efficiency I mean kg of wood required for
> a Cameroonian to cook their meals?
>
> Which stove do they have to carry more wood for and do more fuel
> preparation for?  (I’m not sure how you measure the combined work for those
> tasks).
>
>
>
> Huck
>
>
>
> *From:* Paul Anderson [mailto:psanders at ilstu.edu]
> *Sent:* Monday, September 15, 2014 9:25 PM
> *To:* Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
> *Subject:* Re: [Stoves] cook stoves for Cameroon
>
>
>
> Huck,
>
> Crispin wrote:
>
> Thus ‘gasifiers’ are getting rated as if they do not consume fuel that is
> actually consumed.
>
> Crispin's point is that wood that is turned into charcoal is no longer
> wood.   THAT is true.    But there are two ways to state the efficiency:
> Fuel efficiency and Energy efficiency.    Charcoal that is created is no
> longer wood.   But it is a fuel made from wood that was transformed.    And
> it typically represent 25% to 35% of the energy that is in the dry weight
> of the wood.
>
> You indicated that the area is reasonably wooded.   So it is not a case of
> scarcity of wood.
>
> If the created charcoal is put into the soil as biochar, then that energy
> content is no longer available.
>
> You as the project leader and with your personnel can make the decision
> about how to read the numbers in the reports on stove efficiency (of fuel
> or of energy).
>
> 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 9/15/2014 10:45 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote:
>
> Dear Huck
>
>
>
> Just one quick point:
>
>
>
> “The gasifier, as I understand it, is more efficient and has lower
> emissions.”
>
>
>
> It depends on the test method and the metrics. It is fashionable to use
> the GACC-WBT and that test does not report fuel consumption, it reports the
> fuel mass equivalent of the energy consumption, treating charcoal left over
> as unburned raw fuel (meaning it says the wood was not consumed).
>
>
>
> Thus ‘gasifiers’ are getting rated as if they do not consume fuel that is
> actually consumed. When you assess the performance be sure you are clear on
> how the method calculates performance and what the metrics are. You may
> want to measure ( and weigh) fuel needed per cooking cycle rather than use
> any calculated numbers from a complex test protocol.
>
>
>
> For evaluation of performance I recommend the CSI-WHT which is a water
> heating test (no boiling) and a measure of the raw fuel needed per
> replication of the cooing cycle. It is used by the WB in the Clean Stove
> Initiative in Indonesia. Documentation (some anyway) is available.
>
>
>
> Regards
>
> Crispin in Tamil Naidu
>
>
>
>
>
>
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