[Stoves] Coal and biochar stoves

kgharris kgharris at sonic.net
Thu Sep 24 15:38:22 CDT 2015


All,

Coal is compressed and concentrated former biomass.  Toxins will also be concentrated along with the carbon.  Also during its time in the ground, coal is subject to being infused with toxins not in the origional biomass.  I hesitate calling coal a fossil fuel because to fossilize means to replace the origional material with other materials.  This does not describe coal or oil, but fossil fuel is the description we use.  Perhaps sequestered fuel would be a better description.

Coal is mostly sequestered carbon and burning it unsequesters it, adding the previously sequestered carbon and sequestered toxins to our living environment.  Biomass is actively involved with our living environment already so burning it does not add any carbon.  Toxins from the soil may possibly enter our living environment through burning biomass, but it won't be concentrated like some coals.  Much of any toxins should be in the ash for both coal and biomass.

I assume that testing only coal fires and not biomass refers to toxins or heavy metals.  My biomass stoves have to be tested.

Harvesting wild fire fuel before the fire would benifit the environment over using coal.  It is a diverse fuel source, but it does not require digging big holes, so it should not be any more difficult to harvest than coal.  It could provide a lot of fuel for different types of uses including cook stoves, jobs for a lot of people, and through pelletizing a possible export product.

Kirk
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Crispin Pemberton-Pigott 
  To: Stoves 
  Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2015 12:05 PM
  Subject: Re: [Stoves] Coal and biochar stoves


  Dear Todd
  You raise an interesting point and it should not be missed. 
  Wood and coal both contain mercury, sulphur, lead, uranium and other heavy metals, and the fire emissions contain fly ash‎, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, numerous chemical species, and particles of incomplete combustion including condensed volatiles. 
  It would not be fair to ignore the emissions from any fire. Also it is unfair to require testing on coal fires and not wood fires. The inherent emissions are different for different fuels. Categories of fuel include: 
  WoodOther biomassPeat ligniteCoalSemi-coked fuelsCokeCharcoalDensified biomassTorrefied wood
  The toxic contents occur in different concentrations and combinations. It is reasonable to assess fuels individually. There are toxic woods and toxic coals. There are toxic emissions. Toxicity is strongly dependent on concentration. 
  When you consider what and how well something needs to be burned one rule should apply to all. No pet fuels. 
  Regards Crispin 

  Stovers: 


  I'm confused.  Coal & Biomass stove disconnect?  No one is discussing the dissimilarities.


  Is this a logical?  The discussion of coal combustion must address Mercury, fly ash and other heavy metal pollution, not just run of the mill biomass combustion pollution.  Water and air pollution contamination are other major health concerns.  Mining and transporting coal has wide documented health impacts.


  Don't we have to ask although coal maybe combusted cleanly with very well designed stove compared to an inefficient coal stoves, advanced scrubber technologies are not affordable or practical for household stoves.


  Do any of the biomass stove testing entities have or can afford coal emission testing technologies?  Currently I am not aware of any biomass testing organization that has the sophistication or equipment for heavy metal emission testing, or am I incorrect?


  Regards,


  Todd Albi, SilverFire,  


  On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 7:41 PM, Frank Shields <franke at cruzio.com> wrote:

    Dear Stovers,

    Coal and biomass stoves:

    Similarities:

    1) They both have the same goal of producing a clean secondary flame used to boil water.
    2) They both have achieved this goal (Crispin and Dean - and others)
    3) They both have the three types of energy: a) pyrolysis gases b) solid-C > CO and c) CO > CO2
    4) During optimization the three energy types are adjusted via primary air to produce the best ratio.

    Because they are so much the same and manipulated the same to optimize conditions for the secondary I believe the coal stoves should be included in our discussions. They start with different ratios of the three energy types and it would be very interesting (to me) to know what the ratio is just before entering the secondary flame when burning clean. I wonder if they are the same or if we can learn ranges and limits to the ratios we need to achieve. As we get better testing techniques to study what goes on in combustion chambers it would aid us to include the info from coal stoves.

    Real problem is Stove Labs need more money!  That to purchase testing equipment for their research, added personal and they should be testing more stoves.

    as I see it…

    Regards

    Frank

    franke at cruzio.com
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