[Terrapreta] heat energy: stoves vs. thermo biopiles

[Jeff Davis]

Dear All,

When one burns fuel, for the most part, you use the lower heating value of the 
fuel.


Jeff



On Friday 23 November 2007 3:06 pm, Sean K. Barry wrote:
> Hi Gerrit,
>
> I suspect its 80% of the released heat, not 80% of the combustible energy
> in the biomass feed.  Capturing 80% of the combustible energy is about as
> good as any complete combustion (burning) process could ever do.  That
> would leave just ash.  It even 25 or 30% of the original carbon is left in
> the biomass, then this constitutes at least 60% of the energy content of
> the feed also.  I'm sure the total energy harvest efficiency from making
> compost is much much lower than 80%.
>
> Compost does make better fertilizer, to be sure, than charcoal does, even
> low temperature charcoal.  It has been suggested more than once on this
> site that charcoal could be combined with compost to make a soil amendment
> which is initially more fertile than fresh charcoal.
>
> Regards,
>
> SKB
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Gerald Van Koeverden<mailto:vnkvrdn at yahoo.ca>
>   To: jeff0124 at velocity.net<mailto:jeff0124 at velocity.net>
>   Cc: terrapreta<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>
>   Sent: Friday, November 23, 2007 12:19 PM
>   Subject: [Terrapreta] heat energy: stoves vs. thermo biopiles
>
>
>   Jeff,
>
>   I like the idea of hyour thermo biopile.
>
>   Composting to produce energy definitely has the advantage of
>   producing a much better fertilizer- the compost - than ash from
>   burning.  But it seems that less total energy is available by
>   composting, though if the biomass had to be dried before burning, the
>   resultant net energies might be conquerable?
>
>   A company in Canada (Global earth Services/Products) sells a compost-
>   maker with a built-in heat exchanger.  They claim to capture 80% of
>   the energy.  I interpret this "80%" to be 80% of what would be the
>   combustible energy.
>
>  
> http://www.globalearthproducts.com/heat_extraction.htm<http://www.globalear
>thproducts.com/heat_extraction.htm>
>
>   Gerrit
>
>   On 23-Nov-07, at 12:34 AM, Jeff Davis wrote:
>   > Dear All,
>   >
>   > Right now all my time is going into the Thermo Biopile:
>   > http://www.puffergas.com/pile/pile.html<http://www.puffergas.com/pile/p
>   >ile.html>