Crispin,<br><br>Likewise good to hear from you. <br><br>To give an update, I have left the UK to work for All Power Labs in Berkeley, California - developing automation and electronic controls/monitoring for biomass fuelled gensets (10kW- 100kW). It's good to be in the San Francisco Bay Area - which is rapidly becoming a hotbed of Cleantech development. <br>
<br>My "pet" project however is to complete the research I started on the spark ignition conversion of the 6hp Lister diesel - and produce a kit of parts that allows it to be started on diesel and then run on woodgas. These I hope can be produced at an affordable price for rural farmers who purchase small diesels for pumping and power generation - I think an Indian Listeroid is $600 to $1000 at the factory gate.<br>
<br>This is not dual fuelling, but a means of substitution possibly 95% of all diesel consumption for woodgas. At the same time producing healthy quantities of boichar - which is benefical to small scale farmers.<br><br>
We are going to working alongside Re:char <a href="http://www.re-char.com/">http://www.re-char.com/</a> who are producing biomass kilns in Kenya, from waste 55gal oil drums, in a 20 foot shipping containerised workshop they call "Shop in a Box"<br>
<br>Thanks for you figures relating fuel and beer to the local wages. It makes an interesting metric.<br><br><br><br>Keep up the good work<br><br><br><br>Ken<br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 15 March 2012 15:35, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:crispinpigott@gmail.com">crispinpigott@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-CA"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">Dear Ken<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">So nice to hear from you after all these years.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<div class="im"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:#1f497d" lang="EN-US">></span></b>Gasoline is $4.59 this week in Berkeley, and $9.20 a US gallon back in the UK.<span style="color:#1f497d"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">I filled up the pickup truck yesterday at the SeTAR Centre: ZAR 740.00. I could not believe my eyes. That is just about $100 for 66 litres. $5.75 a gallon. A rural farmer with government support for children might get 1.5 tanks of fuel a month in income.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">I found that one of the reliable ways to tell what a local salary should be is measured in beer and gasoline. The local cost of 24 beers and 100 litres of gasoline is often a standard local salary.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">Remember that Angola was for a time on the ’beer standard’ where local currency was useless. Beers can’t be created and have near universal value. It is also a decent value so it applied to many commodities (3 beers, 2 for 5 beers). As only the brewery could create a beer, counterfeiting was impossible. Very practical. The same with gasoline and diesel. I heard that the WB used to use the gasoline and beer calculation in Uganda as a way of coping with rampant inflation in the local currency.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">Best regards<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">
<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">Crispin in thundery Johannesburg<u></u><u></u></span></p></div></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>
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