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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Stovers,<br>
<br>
I really like Lanny's explanation and the photo (photo in original
message). Wood that is cut to an appropriate length (a known
length for a specific type of stove) and then split (or split and
then cut into desired lengths).<br>
<br>
I will call this "split-wood," to help distinguish it from
cord-wood or wood chips or stick-wood. <br>
<br>
I learned from Ugandans to place split wood vertically into TLUD
stoves. Fill it well; not just a couple of loose pieces.<br>
<br>
Some data and photos about this are in the <a title="Quad 2 Stove
Performance Report"
href="http://www.drtlud.com/2012/10/23/quad-2-stove-performance-report/">Quad
2 Stove Performance Report </a><br>
found at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.drtlud.com/2012/10/23/quad-2-stove-performance-report/">http://www.drtlud.com/2012/10/23/quad-2-stove-performance-report/</a>
<br>
<br>
Shows 3 different sizes (thickness) of the same wood used.
Split-wood works great, and the resultant char is in good-sized
chunks.<br>
<br>
One difference from Lanny's report (that is based on USA
experiences) is that in many developing countries,<br>
<br>
a. most of the wood seems to be branch size, not trunk size.<br>
b. chain saws are not so easily accessible<br>
c. bow-saws for cutting are available, but not necessarily
affordable to all. But in addition for a machete (panga), or an
axe, a bow-saw is the start of making "prepared fuels" or
"processed fuels". Split-wood is not as "prepared" as wood
chips, or pellets, or alcohol or LPG, but split-wood is more
prepared than gangly branches dragged in from the hillside and
stuffed into 3-stone fires. <br>
<br>
There is still a lot of work to be done about fuel supplies.<br>
<br>
Paul<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">Paul S. Anderson, PhD aka "Dr TLUD"
Email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:psanders@ilstu.edu">psanders@ilstu.edu</a> Skype: paultlud Phone: +1-309-452-7072
Website: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.drtlud.com">www.drtlud.com</a></pre>
On 4/9/2013 10:29 AM, Lanny Henson wrote:<br>
</div>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing"><span
style="FONT-SIZE: 18pt"><font face="Calibri">Dale
and Stovers,</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing"><span
style="FONT-SIZE: 18pt"><font face="Calibri">How about wood
cut to a length, that works for a typical household stove,
maybe 3 to 6” long, it could be a large diameter or a
small diameter, and let the end user split the wood to the
right size for their stove, with a hatchet.</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing"><span
style="FONT-SIZE: 18pt"><font face="Calibri">Wood dries
quicker when cut to a shorter length and it is</font></span><span
style="FONT-SIZE: 18pt"><font face="Calibri"> easy to split,
easy to handle, and easy to weigh, and the wood is more
compact to ship, also the wood dries quicker.<o:p></o:p></font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing"><span
style="FONT-SIZE: 18pt"><font face="Calibri">I have been
burning red oak, pallet oak, spruce 2x4 and limbs cut to
about 6” long, and split to size with a hatchet. I used a
chain saw for the disk and a hand saw to cut the limb and
2x4. If the wood is longer than you need, and you do not
have a chain saw, split the wood first and then use a hand
saw to cut it to length. I usually cut a typical "fire
wood" length in 3 pieces.</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing"><span
style="FONT-SIZE: 18pt"></span> </p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing"><span
style="FONT-SIZE: 18pt"><font face="Calibri"><o:p><br>
</o:p></font></span></p>
<span style="FONT-SIZE: 18pt"><font face="Calibri"><o:p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing"><span
style="FONT-SIZE: 18pt"><font face="Calibri">Wood,
Short Lengths, Split to Size.</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing"><span
style="FONT-SIZE: 18pt">Lanny</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing"><span
style="FONT-SIZE: 18pt"></span> </p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNoSpacing"><span
style="FONT-SIZE: 18pt"><font face="Calibri"><o:p></o:p></font></span> </p>
</o:p></font></span></div>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT:
5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </div>
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color:
black"><b>From:</b> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
title="dandreatta@sealimited.com"
href="mailto:dandreatta@sealimited.com">Andreatta, Dale A.</a>
</div>
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial"><b>To:</b> <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
title="stoves@lists.bioenergylists.org"
href="mailto:stoves@lists.bioenergylists.org">Discussion of
biomass cooking stoves</a> </div>
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial"><b>Sent:</b> Monday, April 08,
2013 5:09 PM</div>
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial"><b>Subject:</b> [Stoves]
Alternative to charcoal</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div class="WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:
'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">At
the recent ETHOS conference Paul Means and Chris Lanning
gave a very thought-provoking talk about an alternative to
charcoal. The basic idea was to use a gasifying stove
with prepared wood fuel. The prepared wood fuel would be
bought by the user instead of charcoal, and the supply
chain would be similar to charcoal. The big advantage is
that the very inefficient step of charcoal production is
eliminated. The stove would hopefully be easy to use and
would smoke very little, so as to retain the benefits of a
charcoal stove. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:
'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:
'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Their
proposed fuel was crumbled wood, which would work well,
but seemed to me to require a lot of big machinery and
capital. How could one go from a tree to a fuel that
would burn well in a gasifier with as little work as
possible, and without too much costly equipment? The
fuel should be as low or lower in cost than charcoal per
unit of food cooked, and give a better ratio of food
cooked per unit of tree. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:
'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:
'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">I
did some preliminary experiments. With 779 g of natural
wood from the trees in my yard, I used a Paul Anderson
Champion gasifier and boiled 5 liters in 21.4 minutes
(corrected). After an easy light the stove burned
steadily with no attention, other than turning down the
primary air when boiling started. About 10 minutes after
boiling the pyrolysis ended and I transferred 123 grams of
char sticks, glowing only weakly, into a charcoal stove,
and continued simmering until nearly 2 hours after the
start of boiling. I had good turndown on the charcoal
stove and a lid on the pot. There was a little smoke
during the pyrolysis phase, but not too much. This seems
like excellent stove performance. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:
'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:
'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Had
I used a very good charcoal stove to perform a similar
task, it might have taken 240 g of charcoal. This would
take about 1800 g of wood if the charcoal were made
efficiently, or 3000 g if it were made normally.
(Reference Means and Lanning on the efficiency of charcoal
production.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:
'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:
'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">The
wood I started with was about 1 inch diameter (2.5 cm) by
6 inches (15 cm) long, cut from my trees and dried
outdoors but under cover for some months. I didn’t
measure the moisture content, but a previous oven-drying
test with similar wood showed about 12-14% moisture. A
previous test with larger diameter wood didn’t go well, so
I think this is about the maximum possible diameter. I
don’t know how long it took to get to this moisture
content, not months I’m sure, but at least some number of
days. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:
'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:
'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">The
production method for this alternative to charcoal would
be to use a chain saw to cut wood into convenient lengths
while in the forest, then take it to a central place.
Here, use electric saws and/or hydraulic splitters to cut
the wood to the appropriate size. Give the wood a modest
amount of drying in the sun, or in some simple oven. The
wood might have to finish drying at the place of use. I
expect that split wood would dry faster than cut sticks,
since the moisture doesn’t have to pass through the bark.
Alternatively, use a chain saw and engine powered splitter
to cut the wood to size in the forest, then transport to a
central place for drying. When fairly dry, transport the
wood to the users as with charcoal. During transport, the
energy per unit weight would be lower than charcoal, but
the energy per unit volume would be similar. The user
might be given the option of buying shorter sticks for
cooking smaller meals, or longer sticks for larger meals.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:
'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:
'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">In
comparing the economics of this method to charcoal, I
would think of the cost of the fuel as coming from 5
elements; the cost of the trees, the cost of the
processing equipment, the cost of the labor, the cost of
the transportation and distribution, and the cost of the
stove. If the trees are free, then the fact that you
don’t cut as many trees doesn’t help much. If the trees
must be paid for, then this method looks more attractive.
The processing equipment for charcoal is virtually free,
but hopefully this method doesn’t take too much
equipment. The labor for this method might be similar to
charcoal, but it might be less because you are cutting and
processing a lot fewer trees to serve the same number of
customers. Transportation would be more expensive, since
you are shipping more mass, though not a lot more volume.
This method would require a gasifier or T-Char stove,
which would be an expense, though hopefully not a lot
compared to the annual cost of fuel. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:
'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:
'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Thus,
if the trees must be paid for, this method might be
attractive to the consumer of the fuel, the producer of
the fuel, and to the forest. If the trees are not paid
for, this method looks less attractive, though the forest
would still benefit and some outside subsidy might be
available.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:
'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY:
'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Dale
Andreatta, Ph.D., P.E. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<p> </p>
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