[Stoves] Coal and biochar stoves

Sat Sep 26 05:36:28 CDT 2015

I just love “possibly poisonous particles.” Alliteration’s artful aid strikes again! But try looking at things from the other end.  People have been burning biomass for thousands of years.  There are three possible reasons for its continued use:

1.      We have evolved resistance to the PPP

2.      We die before the awful effects of PPP become apparent; or

3.      The effects of PPP were not awful to start with.

Take your pick – whichever you choose, the end result is the same.  First identify the real problem, then real debate is possible.  Putative problems proliferate, and produce poor productivity.

Philip Lloyd

From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Ronald Hongsermeier
Sent: 26 September 2015 12:01
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Coal and biochar stoves

Hi all,  don't want to complicate things unnecessarily, but isn't it axiomatic that even the same species of biomass grow in a radically different nutrient environment (soil) will have different levels of possible poisonous particles in the burnoff?

regards,
Ron von Oktoberfestsafedistance

On 24.09.2015 21:05, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote:

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: 

Wood

Other biomass

Peat lignite

Coal

Semi-coked fuels

Coke

Charcoal

Densified biomass

Torrefied 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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