Officially prepared for the National Biomass Producers Association.
Presented to this list in hopes of more widespread fueling of thought,
commentary, discussion, corrections and critique.
CHAB Presenters included:
Paul Anderson
Dr. TLUD, maximizing efficiency of biomass to heat energy and biochar
conversion, fuels characterization.
-- Introduced the "Joy to the World" institutional scale smokeless biomass
cooking stove developed at the first CHAB camp by Amanda Joy. Campers
discovered that this stove also makes an excellent high throughput cooker for
biomass to biochar conversion inside a retort chamber.
-- Worked with camp attendee aka "trench foot" on trench pyrolyzer design.
Goal is maximum biochar production "in the trenches", an on site trench in
locations with plentiful biomass waste in need of conversion. 14 percent
biochar was achieved on the second and final run. Some interesting scale up
designs and heat uses were gathered from subsequent inputs by camp attendees.
-- Detailed the design considerations of his Champion cookstove, a
competition winning natural draft gasifier stove that has just began commercial
production and was used to prepare breakfast each day during the camp.
-- Nothing new under the sun, the Paal Wendelbo story, simultaneous and
separate development of TLUD technology.
Hugh McLaughlin
Biochar characterization, biomass to energy calculations, biomass in
lighting applications (to replace fire, lamps, light bulbs), stove design
considerations, fabrication techniques.
--General fabrication instruction, calculations, theory, design, wear
gloves, etc throughout the camp, aka Uncle Buck.
Tom Reed
General info and history of gasification with personal anecdotes going back
to Harry LaFontaine. Limelight lighting, rare earth lighting, "Vagabond"
cookstove, a two-can natural draft design, built from two small corn cans.
Insights and inspiration, including background accompaniment on the mouth harp
to keep campers entertained during particularly long-winded mass flow and
energy calculations.
Paul Wever, commercial application of gasification technology,
-- TMHJ camp stove, hardware store components, thirty minutes hand
fabrication, boils water in 10 minutes with a few handfuls of woodchips and no
smoke
-- A commercial gas grille that uses biomass pyrolysis and natural draft to
replace propane in a dual cooktop unit. Used to prepare lunch each day for
camp attendees.
-- An upsize of the gas grille technique, added forced draft to produce
200,000 btu heat energy plus ~ 19 pounds per hour of biochar. Commercially
available in two versions:
--Industrial version, fully automated, fits in a 20 foot shipping
container, output can be doubled and still fit in 20 foot container. A
commercial unit is operational at Freedom Field Energy in Rockford, IL.
--Manual feed version of the same combustion unit. Fits in the bed of a
pickup truck. Includes augers and programmable automated auger controls.
-- Pelletizing, pucks, briquettes, blocks, bales, biomass densification for
transport and feeding
-- Community scale biomass conversion to energy and biochar for profit
Bill Ayres, big picture of biomass energy production. Official judge and timer
for final day biomass to Combined Heat and Biochar competition.
The competition promotes practical application of lessons learned during the
camp using stoves hand fabricated from readily available materials (obtainium).
Bringing 2 liters of water to a boil quickly, then sustaining a simmer for the
longest time using 500 grams of biomass fuel was the essence of the
competition.
Kathy Nafie of the Biomass Energy Foundation won both preliminary competitions.
At the same time she kept campers loaded up on nutritious, delicious hot eats
from the "Woodgas Grille" in suburban Goodfield, IL. The outdoor temp until
the last day of the camp was below freezing, way below freezing at night.
Kathy's value to the camp - priceless.
Hugh McLaughlin won the final competition with sunflower seeds, tinsnips, two
#10 cans, and a small computer sized fan operating on a 9 volt battery. Boil
was achieved in slightly over 10 minutes, simmer lasted for 100 minutes. Final
char was 18 percent.
I left my notes on top of a file cabinet, so this is from memory. When the
notes arrive I will check the math to see if Hugh sneaked in a perpetual motion
machine.
Verticalized uses of biochar, essentially "loading up" biochar for value added
applications, compost, em, bokashi was a hot topic outside the daily learning
environment.
Sincerely,
Doug Brethower, long time lurker
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