Dear Tom Miles, We have designed a portable T-LUD type of portable kiln, which can convert any dry agricultural waste into charcoal. The kilns are taken to the place where waste biomass is available, and one carries back only the char,weighing just 30% of the original biomass. We are currently using this system mainly for producing charcoal from sugarcane leaves, because, one can get these leaves almost daily over a period of about 150 to 200 days. The window of availability of all other sources of agricultural waste is rather short. The powdery char is briquetted and sold to our customers, who use our Sarai cooking system, which uses charoal as fuel. We tested this charcoal in a brazier in which we had made arrangements to introduce steam into the burning coal. We got a nice and totally smokeless blue flame. That would be the so called water gas, containing a mixture of CO and H2. We are already using a wood gasifier based electricity generation system in a village, and I have asked my colleagues to test this gasifier with charcoal instead of wood. Since we make our charcoal from agriculture waste or from leaf litter from a forest, or even from leaf litter from avenue trees, there would not be any dearth of biomass. Agricultural waste is a neglected source of energy. India produces annually 800 million tonnes of it. Since it is a by product of agriculture, it costs nothing extra to produce it. Until now, the farmer never got any money for the agricultural waste, and therefore he just burned it in situ or allowed it to rot in situ. But our technology opens up the possibility for the farmer to convert his agricultural waste into money. Now, if the briquetted char could be converted into water gas and used as fuel in an internal combustion engine, it would help our economy in a great way. We import into India annually 120 million tonnes petroleum. If one compared the energy content in the agricultural waste with that of the imported petroleum, it would appear, that our agricultural waste contains almost 2.5 times the energy contained in imported petroleum. One can convert agricultural waste into wood gas, charcoal gas, water gas, and to some extent even biogas. All of these fuels can be used in internal combustion engines and be able to replace petroleum. We have already introduced our charcoal making technology into East Africa through some local NGOs and entrepreeneurs, but have not got any feedback from them. Yours A.D.Karve
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