Dear Doug

Great to have your notes to remind me of the great/Frigid week.  It wasn't just 
below freezing; it was below ZERO every day.

Tom 

Dr Thomas B Reed
President, The Biomass Energy Foundation
www.Woodgas.com

On Feb 14, 2011, at 11:16 AM, Doug Brethower <[email protected]> 
wrote:

> 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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