Dear Bob, hybrid Napier is a high yielding fodder grass. An area of 40 sq.m. irrigated by the waste water generated by the household would allow you to harvest daily 1 sq.m., yielding daily about 10 kg green biomass. This would yield daily about 800 litres biogas and 1kg non-digestible dry matter. The non-digestible biomass can be briquetted and used as fuel in a wood burning stove. This is enough cooking fuel for a family of 5 or 6 persons. After 40 days, you are back to square 1, which would again yield 10kg biomass. You get 9 cuts in a year. Yours A.D.Karve On Sat, Nov 30, 2013 at 9:22 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
> thanks Arnand > > I hope to come to Ethos but might be in Tanzania working. > > do you have any data on how much fuel you can grow at some maximum > rate? > > My concern is that we can't expect poor rural people to focus their water > gathering energies and land use on firewood production. Of course, if they > can burn dried up corn plants and stuff like that it is all to the good. > integrating growth of fuel and food is always a good idea. > > bob > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Anand Karve <[email protected]> > To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <[email protected]> > Sent: Fri, Nov 29, 2013 10:40 pm > Subject: Re: [Stoves] ETHOS program growing firewood > > Dear Bob Lange and Stovers, > I am a plant physiologist. I won't mind attending Ethos Meeting if > somebody pays me my air fare and local expenses. > The high energy in seeds and tubers that you mention has nothing to do > with the physical calorific value of these substances. They have a high > content of digestible matter so that the energy becomes available to you, > when you eat them. Burning sugar, starch, cellulose or lignin would release > about the same quantity of energy per unit weight. Because cellulose and > lignin are not digestible to humans, the straw and stover from crop plants, > constituting about 60 to 70% of the total biomass, is available to the > farmer to be used as fuel. It must however be processed to increase its > energy density to resemble that of wood. > Yours > A.D.Karve > > > > On Thu, Nov 28, 2013 at 5:09 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I think we should invite a plant physiologist to come to ETHOS to explain >> why we should not focus on getting people to grow their own fuel. Plants >> are living things. In the first place they are not very efficient at all in >> catching the energy in sun light. But what they do catch they put mostly >> into metabolism and reproduction. Like us animals. That is why we eat >> seeds. They are loaded with energy that the plant put there for their >> young to use until the little ones can photosynthesize for themselves. >> Mammals use the mother's milk Plants use their seeds. (Some animals, not >> mammals, use eggs for reproduction. So we eat eggs.) >> >> If you are rural and poor and have a little land and sufficient >> water, you will almost certainly want to grow food itself rather than fire >> wood. no? Fire wood is very demanding of land area. You can be clever >> and minimize it. This species that species. but it is land expensive. >> Because the part of the plant you burn for fuel is not important to the >> plant, except to support its leaves. so the plant puts minimal energy >> there. >> >> If growing fuel wood is going to be taken seriously, it should be a >> government task. Local or national government. Centralize it. Do it >> big and well on land that individual families don't need to grow food >> itself. do it on land that is difficult to use for other things. On the >> sides of hills. someplace useless. someplace rocky. Make it a campaign >> in the Global Alliance's "enabling environment". >> >> Funny, but the problem is that people cook so much. What we need are >> more species of plants and animals that produce parts that we could find >> nourishing and tasty and desirable without cooking at all. Damn it. Why >> do we have to heat up food so much? Maybe soak the food in some liquid >> like fruit juice or spices some natural acid for all day and then serve >> it. I know cooking has a very significant role in make food culturally >> and physiologically acceptable. But If only we could find more foods that >> were good for us, culturally and physiologically, but eaten raw. That >> would be real stove progress. I personally like to eat almost all >> vegetables raw. even beans and corn. I don't know if I am throwing away >> a lot of their nutrition, though. >> >> Bob Lange Maasai stoves and solar. >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Stoves mailing list >> >> to Send a Message to the list, use the email address >> [email protected] >> >> to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page >> >> http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org >> >> for more Biomass Cooking Stoves, News and Information see our web site: >> http://stoves.bioenergylists.org/ >> >> >> > > > -- > *** > Dr. A.D. Karve > Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI) > > _______________________________________________ > Stoves mailing list > > to Send a Message to the list, use the email > [email protected] > > to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web > pagehttp://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org > > for more Biomass Cooking Stoves, News and Information see our web > site:http://stoves.bioenergylists.org/ > > > _______________________________________________ > Stoves mailing list > > to Send a Message to the list, use the email address > [email protected] > > to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page > > http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org > > for more Biomass Cooking Stoves, News and Information see our web site: > http://stoves.bioenergylists.org/ > > > -- *** Dr. A.D. Karve Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)
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