[Stoves] Charcoal from waste - home cooking or other markets? (Re: Crispin, Anand Karve)

[Ingelore Kahrens]

... not to forget a project in Bungoma, North West Kenya, where they 
make briquettes from water hyacinth, a noxious weed that is suffocating 
Lake Victoria.

http://aconetwork.weebly.com/fuel-briquettes.html

Ingelore Kahrens


Am 11.10.2016 um 12:35 schrieb scda2 at t-online.de:
>
> "Charcoal from waste",
> i can report from 3 interesting projects in East Africa and Southern 
> Africa  transforming waste to charcoal:
>
>
> 1) A project in the East of Kenya near Lake Victoria is transforming 
> bagasse from sugarcane can into charcoal. They are using an 
> "adam-retort" kiln for the carbonization of the bio-waste. About 100kg 
>  to120kg (dry weight) of bagasse fit into the wood chamber of about 
> 2,5 (?)m³.
>
> About 30kg of charcoal are harvested. Efficiency is about 30% (burnt 
> waste fuel in fire box not counted). The charcoal is shaped into 
> briquettes, but I have not details about it.
>
> *mark.lung at eco2librium.com, <http://www.eco2librum.net,,> 
> http://www.eco2librium.net/
> *
>
> 2) Another interesting project is done in Kenya near Naivsha.
> I cite from their homepage: "In urbanizing communities we install 
> modern container-based toilets in people's homes for free and charge a 
> small monthly fee to service them. Then, instead of dumping the waste, 
> we transform it into a clean burning alternative to charcoal. Our 
> dependable, user-focused, and vertically integrated sanitation 
> services address the full sanitation value chain and allow families 
> living in urbanizing communities throughout East Africa to live a 
> modern and healthy life.
>
> As far as i understood the "pupe" is used as a binder to make charcoal 
> briquettes. The charcoal comes from twigs, roots and leaves which is a 
> left over from nearby flower farms. The twigs and leaves are 
> carbonized in an "adam-retort" kiln. Unfortunately i don't have any 
> further details.
>
> Catherine Berner | Technical Leadcatherine at sanivation.com
>
> www.sanivation.com <http://www.sanivation.com/> |
>
> 3) In *Malawi / Zimbabwe* a project is using bamboo left overs for 
> carbonization. I am not sure if the bamboo-char is used itself or it 
> is compacted into briquettes. What's interesting is that they made 
> essays with an industrial steel retort and a brick built "adam-retort" 
> kiln. The industrial steel retort has less volume and its costs 
> including transport *300% more* that the brick built kiln
> and they prefer the brick built kiln.
>
> (citation. "...The metal retort  stores approx. 330kg of bamboo (adam: 
> dry or wet ??) and yields about 80kg – 100kg charcoal but uses almost 
> as much firewood as the brick retort so efficiency conversion rate is 
> low..."
>
> On the brick kiln i got the following information, i assume the wood 
> chamber has a volume of about 3m³ :
> " ..It is very successful.  The community group built it entirely 
> themselves on provision of the materials.  The recovery rate is *very 
> high* – approx. 800kg bamboo (adam: dry or wet ??) giving *250kg 
> charcoal* and using around 100kg firewood or less. (adam: 800kg --> 
> 250kg, folllows 100kg --> 31kg)..".
>
> louise.bleach at googlemail.com,
>
> http://bio-innovation.org
>
> Cheers
>
> Dr. Chris ADAM
> biocoal.org
>
> -----Original-Nachricht-----
>
> Betreff: [Stoves] Charcoal from waste - home cooking or other markets? 
> (Re: Crispin, Anand Karve)
>
> Datum: 2016-10-04T16:43:48+0200
>
> Von: "Nikhil Desai" <pienergy2008 at gmail.com>
>
> An: "Discussion of biomass cooking stoves" 
> <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
>
> Moderator: I changed the subject line. This is in response to 
> Crispin's comment about Anand Karve's work.
> ---------------
> Crispin: "That is what is so inspiring about AD Karve?s work on 
> charring waste biomass to produce a high quality fuel. He even 
> produced the extruder and the Sarai stove to go with it. That is a 
> museum quality piece of work - to be studied... "
>
> I take your word for it, but I also had this suspicion a few years ago 
> that what Anand Karve was proposing in terms of converting waste 
> biomass for charcoal was worth more attention, not primarily as a fuel 
> choice issue but as a waste management issue. In dry regions such as 
> much of India, leaf and tree waste along with other open biomass waste 
> is a major problem in municipal waste management. Why, just driving by 
> Gandhinagar - the capital of Gujarat state where I lived - a few 
> months ago I saw huge piles of leaf waste in numerous parks that have 
> been created by the state government to make the city "green". All 
> those leaves will be burned in the open, contributing to air pollution 
> (not reported in peer-reviewed literature so it must not exist) that 
> damages biota health here and now. On the other hand, such burning 
> will release organic aerosols that supposedly cool the atmosphere, so 
> it is most definitely "green" for the "global environment" advocates.
>
> Open organic waste - including leaves, tree debris, food waste - is a 
> huge headache for local governments. On the other hand, urban trees 
> have multiple benefits including air filtering 
> <https://www.accessscience.com/content/urban-tree-leaves-remove-fine-particulate-air-pollution/BR0116141>, 
> favorable changes in ambient temperatures (thus impacting building 
> energy demand; I did some work for Cinncinnati Gas and Electric 
> climate options 20+ years ago), and I also happen to like urban 
> forestry, gardening, food production (if land, water, and air quality 
> so permit).
>
> A new paradigm of urban/peri-urban biomass production, utilization, 
> and waste management needs to emerge, and energy analysts have much to 
> offer.
> Unless they leave the field to WHO and EPA.
>
> The question is, do Indian customers care to advance to cleaner 
> charcoal or convenient LPG?
>
> As I mentioned in the previous post, the commercial potential may not 
> lie in household cooking but in water heating (peri-urban, rural) and 
> commercial/institutional cooking and heating (water/space).
> ****
>
> Crispin: "But he is promoting charcoal consumption -  very offensive 
> to some. Shall we forgive him too? :)"
>
> Asking forgiveness from sinners of cooked science? You must be joking, 
> Mr. Pemberton-Pigott.
> I note your emoticon, but this is no laughing matter. I think it's 
> time to stop blaming direct use of solid fuels for presumed 
> envionmental ills.
>
> It's the process that matters. Converting primary solid fuels into an 
> energy service can be "dirty process" or "clean (or cleaner) process."
>
> Extending Kirk Smith et al (AREE 2000 on India) to all processes of 
> solid fuel transformation, not just final combustion, and counting all 
> emissions, could well show that investments at all steps of the fuel 
> cycle can deliver small-scale direct use of solid fuels at a lower 
> emission rates than the "traditional" processes (unprocessed solid 
> fuels with relatively uncontrolled combustion and no emissions capture 
> or ventilation).
>
> I will send you and Ron an e-mail about solid fuels and "dirty fuels"; 
> you decide if it would add rancor or value to this List. I too prefer 
> gas, electricity, and solar (thermal or soon enough, induction cooking 
> via PV). There are markets for those. But until the 3 billion people 
> we bleed our hearts and research funds on get to that nirvana, 
> reducing the PICs and the drudgery of cooking should be the prime 
> goals of research on solid fuels use. Banning solid fuels should be 
> limited to some areas and some users.
>
> Nikhil
> 
>
>
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