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Julien,<br>
<br>
Your message below and the 2-page document are excellent in both
content and how they are written. "Polished" and refined. And
you link the stove and biochar aspects together so well, as they
should be. <br>
<br>
Thanks.<br>
<br>
Paul<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">Doc / Dr TLUD / Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD
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>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/5/2017 11:36 AM, Julien Winter
wrote:<br>
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<div>Hi Folks;<br>
<br>
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There is a natural draft TLUD project that has been
developing in Bangladesh over the past few years. A
locally adapted ND-TLUD has been designed, called the
Akha Chula.<br>
<br>
</div>
You will find a two page summary of the project
attached. The PDF document contains links to more
information on the web.<br>
<br>
</div>
The Akha is being well received because it is
clean-cooking, but especially because it makes biochar.
There is some excitement about biochar, and one family had
their compound broken into just to steal the biochar.
Biochar will likely be the key facilitator for cookstove
acceptance, and I expect that the Akha will lead the way
for creating a market for commercial pellet fuels and more
expensive TLUDs. The char-making ability of TLUDs can
have wide-reaching effects, so we advocate a comprehensive
"TLUD-Biochar Ecology" approach to research, extension
education, and deployment. Other cookstove interventions
in Bangladesh have not been very successful.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>There was a need to develop a locally-made stove,
because imports goods are expensive. A lot of it has to
do with the purchasing power of the local currency in the
international market. That is captured in "price point
parity," and a $US in Bangladesh buys about three times
more than it does in the USA. Another problem is the
distribution of cash income within the population, and the
rural population don't have as much cash as urbanites, and
function to a larger degree in an informal economy.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
When you look at the Akha you will see some areas for
improvement. It is a work in progress. It can take some
local experience before suggested new designs take hold.
Some new burners may be more efficient than the existing
one, but too complex to become popular in a particular
country. Even a little bit of complexity may be too much
for local stove-builders to accept. It could be a challenge
to replace an old design with a new one, once the old design
has taken root in the population. "If the old burner is
'good enough', why replace it?" <br>
<br>
Ideally, I think it is important to get good burner
introduced in the first place, because once an idea is
public, you can't recall it. However, the demand to
introduce a new innovation can outrun the pace of research
and development. (Biochar is a good example. Everybody
wanted to use it before we adequately understood its
environmental impact.) There can also be a bit of reversal
of priorities: before there is funding for research and
development on a stove, it has first to be shown that the
public wants it. And, there can be a race among NGOs and
businesses to be first. So the first stove into homes is a
Tier-3 stove. <br>
<br>
About the Akha and things to improve: (1) It is using an
old-style concentrator burner, so some flames get quenched
on the bottom of the pot. (2) The riser-pot support needs to
be made more efficient at transferring heat to the pot. (3)
Primary air control is not as air-tight as it could be ---
however, there are 18 x 2 mm holes in the side walls of the
reactor, so we really can't shut the reaction down. (The
holes are a compromise to prevent combustion in the reactor
from going out, and creating a lot of smoke. That could
cause major customer complaints). They are working on it.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>There is a need to develop compressed fuels in
Bangladesh, because half of the biomass fuel currently being
used in rural areas is low density plant residues. People
tend to burn leaves in the dry season, and save up wood for
the rainy season. We had hoped that the Akha would be twice
as efficient as a traditional stove, so wood supplies would
last longer. However, the difference in efficiency in not
yet that great. That means that the Akha can only be used
for half the year. If compressed fuels are developed, we
could double the production of biochar. I expect that
there has already been a lot of research on compressed fuels
in Bangladesh (e.g. rice hull briquettes), but TLUDs and
biochar produce a new demand that was not present in
previous combustion stoves. Biochar may provoke the
production of new cooking fuels. <br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
The project has financial support for three years from a Dutch
NGO. That gets the technologies out into a number of villages
with 100-200 stoves as a feasibility trial. I think the Akha
is already past the point of no return, because news of TLUDs
and biochar is spreading, and they are likely now
unstoppable. <br>
<br>
</div>
<div>All the best,<br>
</div>
<div>Julien.<br>
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-- <br>
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<div dir="ltr">Julien Winter<br>
Cobourg, ON, CANADA<br>
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