[Terrapreta] Fwd: compost and charcoal

[mmbtupr at aol.com]

from  Lewis L Smith

The "contemporary charcoal stove" was very popular in Paraguay, when I 
worked there 1959-61. In fact, we used one for a little while, until we 
replaced it by a kerosene stove. The same kind of stove can also be 
found in some of the residences in Pompei, so the design is a little 
bit older than "contemporary" !  ###

-----Original Message-----
From: lou gold <lou.gold at gmail.com>
To: Tom Miles <tmiles at trmiles.com>
Cc: terrapreta preta <terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>
Sent: Sun, Nov 25  3:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Fwd: compost and charcoal

Hi All,

I might as well toss in a few pics from Acre State in the Amazon region 
of NW Brazil

Old charcoal kiln
http://www.flickr.com/photos/visionshare/373350669/


Contemporary charcoal stove
http://www.flickr.com/photos/visionshare/373339790/

I live here part of each year.

hugs,

lou






On Nov 25, 2007 5:57 PM, Tom Miles tmiles at trmiles.com> wrote:















Duane,


 


Beautiful countryside. The beehive kilns shown are described in
detail in Robert Massengale's book but as a Missourian forester he
concentrates on Missouri.


 


He does provide great history of charcoal use for iron
production in the east and describes how it moves west and south to 
show the
periods in which charcoal was produced, first for iron, then for wood
distillation (methanol), then for domestic use. Production for iron 
revolved
around wood plantations owned by these mining companies like the silver 
mine
you saw. These were company towns of the kind we had in the wood 
industry. He
describes a period of what you might call "sustainable use" in
which companies consumed as much wood as they could regenerate. As in 
the wood
products industry this gave away to overcutting when demand for iron 
rose and
small producers gave way to corporations.


 


When high temperature blast furnaces were able to use coal to
reduce the ore then wood was no longer in demand. Production of 
charcoal as a
byproduct of wood distillation stopped when cheap synthetic  (coal 
based) methanol
was available from Germany, in about 1935, for substantially less than 
it could
be produced from wood. For the wood technologies see books like Hermann 
F J
Wenzl, The Chemical Technology of Wood, Academic Press, 1970 or N.E. 
Rambush,
Modern gas Producers, 1923, Benn Brothers Ltd., London.  The chemical
products are now made from natural gas.


 


There was a vigorous spurt of charcoal kiln development in the 
1930-1950s
to meet the demands of the increasing briquette market. At the time New 
York
City, for example had a very large consumption of charcoal for domestic 
use. I
did not understand the significance of the development of the Missouri 
Charcoal
Kiln until I read Massengale's book.  That was a very active period for
wood science. (He quotes people like Andrew Baker, formerly of the USFS 
Forest
Products lab in Madison, Wisconsin, who was very active in charcoal 
development
in the 1950s and 1960s.) These labor intensive kilns have largely been
displaced by modern continuous retorts using waste wood as raw 
material.


 


Tom


     


 








From: Duane Pendergast
[mailto:still.thinking at computare.org]

Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2007 10:53 AM

To: 'Tom Miles'; 'Kevin Chisholm'; 'lou gold'

Cc: 'terrapreta preta'

Subject: RE: [Terrapreta] Fwd: compost and charcoal






 


Tom, Kevin, Lou


 


My wife and I ran across this little bit of US charcoal
history in the spring of 2003 and visited while on a trip through the 
Death
Valley area.


 


http://www.nps.gov/archive/deva/Charcoal.htm


 


 


http://www.terragalleria.com/parks/np.death-valley.4.html


 


 


The websites above note they were in operation for only
about ten years. They don't say what happened to the surrounding 
forest. It is
high and dry there and the trees in the immediate neighborhood are 
quite small
now.


 


We got some nice pictures, but I'm giving list members a
bandwidth break.


 


I wonder if this was mentioned in the book you
referenced.


 


Duane


 


-----Original Message-----

 From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org 
[mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
]
On Behalf Of Tom Miles

Sent: November 25, 2007 11:15 AM

To: 'Kevin Chisholm'; 'lou gold'

Cc: 'terrapreta preta'

Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Fwd: compost and charcoal


 


The meaning of "charcoal" in the US has simply
changed. Until 1925


"charcoal" meant charcoal, lump or sold in
various fine grades. Now most


people think it means charcoal briquettes.


 


In the 1920s Henry Ford was faced with a shortage of wood
alcohol which was


used as a solvent in lacquers and as anti-freeze. So he
built a sawmill, a


(wood) auto body plant and a wood distillation plant to
make his own in


Michigan.


 


 










--
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