[Stoves] [biochar] Methane from char-makers [1 Attachment]

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Paul

>Please confirm, but I am sure that those factories are quite large, and distance to transport the biomass can become a problem.

I understand that transport is not the main cost – collecting it from the field is.

>If you want to burn it without smoke (which is not difficult) no one cares.

The issue is not the waste of biomass, it is air pollution. There are bans on burning, but usually it is burned at night by “persons unknown”.

>Agreed.   But they are not burning it without smoke.

All burning of it in the field is illegal.

>So “not difficult” could also mean “not financially viable”.

There is no incentive (at all) to burn it cleanly. It would first have to be collected. It is not worth it.

>Please comment on the “not difficult” technology that you have in mind, and what are the costs associated with it.

You know well that this material can be burned in a TLUD or downdraft fashion. Alex English has some ideas. Anything useful would be continuous, so a trench-like device might be viable. Flame caps are the way forward – if that is what you want to do. It doesn’t hvea to be done vertically.

>Also, please comment on the degree to which mechanization (possibly smallish tractors??) is in use in  the areas where burning is causing the air pollution problems.  Raking straw manually is quite different from having a tractor-pulled rake to create  windrows of the agro-refuse (sort of like hay and straw operations in  North America like I remember for decades ago in  my youth.)

At present no one is willing to pay farmers to remove and deliver agriwaste, (in most localities).  Why would they do that work and then burn it just to be “clean”? If you are willing to pay them to do it, rather don’t burn it – make pellets or fertiliser. But there is no subsidy for creating that, it has to float on its own income.

Due to the scale of the need, it seems large scale processing is the long term solution. I warn that they said the seasonality of the supply is a big issue. No one can afford to buy stock and hold it for a year.

Regard
Crispin
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