[Stoves] ------ making salt just an aside

Crispin Pemberton-Pigott crispinpigott at outlook.com
Sun Aug 30 01:48:57 CDT 2015


Dear Ron

This is a very good idea and salt making (which is far more efficient than
boiling sea water) is a good application. The fire has to be pretty large.
An issue is an absolute lack of biomass. It is possible to bring in fuel
100,000 tons at a time from Kalimantan and other islands where the oil palm
industry produces huge amounts of agricultural waste. Literally millions of
tons. What is required is a local market that turns a penny at every corner.
Shipping fuel is not very expensive - perhaps $30 a ton. If the local
transport is not excessive (like, on the coast) salt making with a char
production element could be viable.

At the moment the wood burning salt makers collect char from the
(inefficient) stoves and sell it to the blacksmiths. The labourers keep the
money, not the boss. That relationship would have to change. It takes about
6 kg of char to forge a steel knife (quite large) so market is there. They
are going to use charcoal from something, somewhere. It might as well be
part of the formal value chain. 

The transport of fuels is a major portion of the cost, even with subsidised
diesel. A truckload of coconut husks is 'not a good deal' from an energy
point of view because most of the price is transport. A truck of wood is not
much more and has several times the energy. Empty Bunch Hands (EBH?) from
oil palm is available on other islands but it is bulky. It might be better
to make char and send the char. At the moment EBH is a major pollution
issue. So are the kernel shells. 

Regards
Crispin


Hi all;  adding two

	On a different list there has been considerable dialog on making
char using pits or metal cones/cylinders.  Unlike the stoves list, there has
been little discussion of productive use of the flared (quite clean)
pyrolysis gases.  The emphasis for that discussion is solely on the char.
These can be big systems - area exceeding 1 square meter.

	My guess is that salt production could fit in nicely in the right
places - even starting with ocean water.  Otherwise the pyrolysis gases have
no use/value.  

Ron







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