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I’ve been following a couple of different groups and discussions to learn about biochar for about 6 months. Id like to share what I’ve been learning and ask a couple of questions.

http://stpenergy.blogspot.com/

Teaching Renewable Energies and Sustainability in the School of Diogo Vaz (São Tomé, Africa)

This work aims to show how sustainability and renewable energies could benefit a rural area of Africa (in São Tomé) by means of using solar energy and biogas. Applying these technologies requires ingeniousness and little founding, the favourable outcomes are becoming less dependent of fossil fuels (wood, coal and gasoline) while saving time and, more importantly, the forest. We have taught how to design, build and operate systems for cooking, lighting and water-heating that use renewable sources of energy.

From Magh CM woodgas good stove design

 

From Magh CM Woodgas Good Stove

From Magh CM Woodgas Good Stove

From Magh CM Production 8 to 18 sep09

From Magh CM adoption by community 18sep09

 

From Magh CM adoption by community 18sep09

Magh CM Woodgas Good Stove http://e-maghcm.blogspot.com/ designed recently is a very low cost TLUD stove meant for Common Man (CM). This can be produced by the local communities with less than 8 dollars (USD). Under Magh CM series I have designed many stoves / burners in the past. This stove design is one of the most acceptable stoves, as it has the options to run on forced air / natural draft. Most importantly the convenient charcoal / ash removal facility is created at the bottom, the grate can be simply lifted using a wire and immediately refilled for reuse. The additional window for secondary air in case of no power, the primary air control and the 12 V DC powered fan makes it like a geared vehicle for multiple options to control the heat / flame / updraft. Used the most commonly available oil tin can of 12 inches x 9 inches x 9 inches with a combustion chamber of 6 inches diameter and 9 inches height for the convenience of adoption for a family of 5 members cooking needs. The tin cans are easily available all over India. Posting here the pictures and the design for your valuable comments for improvement. I am thankful to all for your valuable suggestions in the past. This is the 30th Good Stove design of Avan and Magh series since last 4 years of my research and design. Happy to share that the people who have seen this stove have paid money in advance for having these Stoves. For more pictures and info see http://e-maghcm.blogspot.com/ and http://picasaweb.google.com/saibhaskar.gsbc

Summary of ETHOS Stove Camp, August 3-7, 2009
Dean Still and Nordica MacCarty

Forty three folks attended Stove Camp this year coming from as far away as Norway, Germany, Honduras, and Mexico. Some people were too busy making stoves to be in the official photo. Paal Wendelbo, winner of the $250 prize for most interesting development, is the white haired gentleman two spaces to Dean’s left. The theme this year constellated around health issues. You can see the presentations and results from Stove Camp by visiting http://www.aprovecho.org/lab/index.php.

Stoves Camp 2009 Group Photo

Stove Camp featured many experiments. We set up a Test Kitchen, in which stoves were tested, making posho (African corn meal mush). Particulate Matter and Carbon monoxide were recorded in both the room air and at the nose/mouth of the cook. We also used a RAD 57 from Masimo to non-invasively measure levels of CO in the cook’s blood before and after cooking. Stoves were also tested under the emissions hood, and practice WBTs were run without emissions measurements. Peter Scott and Dr. Andreatta were successful in creating an aluminum mitad with even temperatures for making injira.

See the attached report for more detail

Here is an emergency solar cooker that is made from a cardboard box, aluminum foil, and some glue. Simple, but effective design in order to cook using solar energy.

GEO fuel briquettes

is a very low cost technology, and also for making briquettes with very less effort. This is screw based system, requires very less energy and space to operate. Briquettes can be made using human power, convenient for young or old in making briquettes from various types of waste material. Small pieces of waste papers, sawdust, leaves, wood shavings, rice husk, etc. can be used as raw material. Any sticky material available in abundant can also be added if required for producing compact and strong briquettes. The cost of each such device made up of iron is less than $8 (USD) or Rs. 400. Various types of stoves are available for using the briquettes, including some of these AVAN and MAGH series stoves can be used. Magh-1 stove with little adoption can also be used for briquettes as fuel. We can also make and use special stoves for the briquettes as fuel. For more details see: http://e-fuelbriquetts.blogspot.com/

Also see http://e-lowcostextruder.blogspot.com/ | http://www.e-geo.org | http://www.goodstove.com

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p>This Rocket Stove that is made from 4 cans and can be made by anyone with metal clippers.

Hello stoves community,

At ETHOS 2009 we held a panel on stove safety, bringing in viewpoints from corporate standards development, national standards certification, and small to medium scale developers. The team led by Nathan Johnson (Iowa State University) included Crispin Pemberton-Pigott (New Dawn Engineering), Casper Thijssen (Philips), and Karabi Dutta.

The panel gave a comparative analysis of how different stove industries (multinational corporations, medium-scale companies, NGOs, small developers, etc.) addressed fundamental stove safety questions. These topics included:

a) applicability of standards and regulation;
b) incentives and benefits
c) facilities and equipment availability
d) cost vs. benefit
e) resulting action

We determined that each type of industry has a different perspective that influences their path or actions towards a safer stove. And that all sub-industries may not produce safer stoves given the same incentive mechanisms or policies. As such more than one path to safety may be needed to reach the greatest amount of end-users (and producers). The panel ended the discussion with an overview present work in stove safety with recommendations for next steps.

Please view the attached file for more details. I will be leading a group in 2009 to work on the following: assemble database of injury data, b) analyze incentive mechanisms, cost/ benefit, c) development of lab testing procedures for different stove categories, d) publication of findings/ results, and e) look for partnerships with international agencies to support safer stove design and production.

Please contact me if you have any questions. There will be more updates to follow. Best,
Nathan Johnson
atlas@iastate.edu
PhD Candidate, Mechanical Engineering, International Development
Iowa State University

This is an experiment using biomass in the KEROSENE WICK STOVE. http://e-kerbiostoveexp.blogspot.com/ (for more photographs) The stove was lit at the top using a little amount of biomass soaked in kerosene. The fine holes of 1 to 2 mm located all along the inner and outer frame are useful in achieving very good bluish flames. The flames continued for 30 to 45 minutes duration. Only at the end the performance was bad, the option was that, a lid was used to shut down safely. The fire was very high (Reasons I am not sure). If one does not have enough kerosene, and in emergency one can use the kerosene stoves too with fine wood shavings as fuel. The end product is very good biochar. I am thankful to TOM REED for explaining the functioning of a Kerosene stove, which was the motivation for doing this experiment. http://listserv.repp.org/pipermail/stoves_listserv.repp.org/2009-January...
Also see http://e-woodgasstovemodified.blogspot.com/

This is the prototype of Magh series "Magh Utham Woodgas Burner". http://e-maghutham.blogspot.com/ This is a natural draft burner (forced air is optional). Low cost, low weight, easy of operation, easy to collect the biochar by rotating the combustion frame and easy to reload it. As it is can be used for boilers / institutional stoves / domestic cooking / etc. The performance is good. There could be some more improvements in its design to increase its performance. For details and photographs see the link http://e-maghutham.blogspot.com/ . The term "Utham" refers to "Best" which is part of the name of Prof. K. Purushotham Reddy a very well known environmentalist in India.