[Stoves] report with disappointing results from cleaner cookstoves

Crispin Pemberton-Pigott crispinpigott at outlook.com
Wed Dec 14 16:00:50 CST 2016


Dear Ron

Thanks for injecting humour into the conversation.

I don’t mean the cartoon, that was just politics. I am talking about asking us to stop talking about anything other than ‘biomass’. We have enough political interference in the stove development sector without creating fake quote about Trump.

I am involved in four pilot projects at the moment. Three of them involved stoves and multiple fuels: biomass briquettes made from crop wastes, coal, wood, crop wastes without processing, and coal and processed coal (either briquetted, semi-coked and briquetted, or semi-coked nuggets.

Some stoves are designed to burn as many fuels as are likely to be encountered in the field – a very reasonable thing to do otherwise the customers will reject them.

Here is a photo of a multi-fuel stove (something I felt was almost an oxymoron until I saw some pretty good ones):

[cid:image006.jpg at 01D2562B.98E40AF0]

Amazingly, this same stove, if the grate is reversed, is a pretty good coal stove:

[cid:image007.jpg at 01D2562B.98E40AF0]

Building on the knowledge gained over the past few years in Asia, this type of product is now being tested through the winter in two countries. The fuel savings are expected to be about 50%.

Blocking discussion about the design while it is burning coal will not help the stove community. You referenced the decision to have a discussion stove for biomass stoves only. For a number of years the topic was strongly concentrated on ‘gasifiers’.  Then it was concentrated on ‘Rocket Stoves’. Then it was concentrated on ‘TLUD’s’.

Now, due to developments in multiple countries, TLUD coal stoves are all the rage. The super-performing CARITAS Model 4’s are coal gasifiers and are likely to displace the TLUD’s! I am convinced that with a little research they can be turned into wood pellet gasifiers that operate continuously instead of in batches.

Are there any other fuels we should not discuss on this list? Ethanol? Solar? Kerosene? Diesel?

What about biodiesel made from palm oil?

What I am getting at is are you ‘against’ discussion of coal (or other fuels) on the basis that they are fossil fuels? In short, is there an agenda other than biomass?

We have had people on this list who are fanatically (it is the correct word) against discussing charcoal, which is a very good fuel and can be made from all sorts of biomass. The reason was that ‘charcoal making is causing the destruction of the forests in Africa’.  That may well be true, or was true, but these days a lot has been done to change the methods and systems of old.

Dr Karve has done a marvellous job of transforming rubbish into fuel and cooked meals – I believe without any encouragement from this list.  It is done by making charcoal.

Robert v.d. Plas. Who reads this list, did a marvellous job in Chad of turning a large criminal-dominated illegal market into a sustainable, profitable, large scale employment legal one. It lasted for 4 years until the criminals influenced the president to make charcoal production and transport illegal again, so they go back to dominating it - which they now do.

The same success has happened in Rwanda but with lasting effect. Charcoal is produced on farms and sold to the market as just another agricultural product. If we had listened to the anti-charcoal voices, how advanced would the stoves be that burn charcoal much better than before?

Someone made a joke on this list the other day about Trump not listening to certain voices. In fact it is quite the opposite: he is accused of listening to too many voices, including those than bring balance and perspective. So I thought the comment was humorous but not for the reason intended.

We should discuss and be aware of all the developments relevant to the field of domestic energy. Remaining ignorant of domestic coal appliances, a major energy sector, the energy carrier for more than ½ the population of many regions, by closing our ears is not helpful. Ignorance is not a virtue.

When was the last major breakthrough in biomass stove design? When was the last major breakthrough in coal stove design? I can answer that: October 2016. And biomass stove designers can learn a lot from it, which is why I put the drawings on the web for all to share.

Let’s keep on keeping on.
Crispin



Andrew:

            Agreed.  But I feel a need to modify your statement a bit - and say that not all stove subjects should be on this list - as our charter specifically uses the word biomass  (in fact the list address is “Discussion of biomass”).   The intro material also identifies cookstoves, with exceptions (grudgingly?) for biomass heating stoves (and I can’t remember when we had any discussion on those).  There must be a web site for coal burning stoves?  There are plenty of places to talk about biomass heating stoves.

            Since I have introduced the word “coal”,  I apologize - but maybe can make amends by showing why we chose twenty years ago to limit the stove list to biomass (bringing in a witness - Marshall Ramsey (and Donald Trump?) - who puts coal in less than the most positive light):

[cid:image001.png at 01D25490.C31FCA30]


Ron

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