Donnelly

Seachr: A one week update from the field.

8 September 2013 - 4:34pm
Donnelly

Hi friends,

I have reported to many of you how fun and successful my cooking demonstration with Dr. Paul
Olivier's rusk husk burning TLUD was on my 1st day back in San Jose. My thanks again to friend and frequent SeaChar volunteer Birgit Lendernick for hosting and organizing that. So fun, great food, great conversations and the stove's clean blue flame impressed everyone there
It has been an absolutely exhilarating ten days, since my MEPE bus rolled into Puerto Viejo. Yesterday E.F. promoter, Thierry Mangel and I conducted a biochar buy-back day in the Bribri communities of Amubri, Suiri and Sueretka. We worked closely with the organizers in each community and although it involved lifting and transferring approx. 1200 lbs of biochar from homes to truck, to boat, back to truck and then off-loading. It went great, everyone coordinated well. After stopping at APPTA to pick up the last 10 sacks of biochar that we had inventoried there. We off-loaded and dry stored 565 kilograms in 54 sacks. This gives us enough to meet the order which we have received from a researcher at CORBANA. http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.corbana.c...

CORBANA is the research and farmer education arm of the Costa Rican Banana industry. They have one of the most sophisticated soil testing laboratories in the country. They will be initiating a three year long controlled study program evaluating the use of biochar on banana cultivation and field practices. This will be the 1st of several orders as this program gets underway. We will enjoy full access to the data from the project as this very important relationship develops. As I have said recently I am not so impressed with how much more biochar we have been selling this year as I am by how influential some of the parties buying it are.

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Costa Rica

Goat Droppings as a TLUD fuel and Biochar

2 June 2011 - 5:04pm
Donnelly

Hi Stovers,

This was a great opportunity for me to break out of my two year "lurker"
role and contribute. I have quite a bit of first hand experience with goat droppings as both a TLUD fuel input and a biochar soil amendment. In late
2009 I was asked by researchers at PATH to evaluate it as a potential fuel in a possible stove project, which they were planning in northern Senegal.
Although the project did not get funded, I had very good results with this type of dung.

It, of course, has a lower density than man-made pellets. However, if you could get those goats to squeeze a bit harder (a stand in one place), it would be perfect. It burns very cleanly and smells great. I had the resulting Goat poop charcoal tested for ph, adsorption and adsorption, by Dr Hugh McLaughlin. As a soil amendment it's high ash content would give it a significant liming effect, but this was largely neutralized by rinsing.

It worked well in pot tests and I have attached Hugh's data sheets.

We have not had much of a chance to work with this in the field, not a lot of goats in Central America. However this has become a staple fuel in my High School stove building workshops. What 15 year old doesn't like to light poop on fire?

Art Donnelly

--
"SeaChar.Org...positive tools for carbon negative living"

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TLUD
Fuel Properties
Manure

Organic Coffee and Improved Stoves in Costa Rica

18 December 2010 - 12:48pm
Donnelly

Art Donnelly, December, 2010

Mas que Cafe (on YouTube)

(Produced, shot and edited by Majo Calderon & Carlos Herrera
http://www.biodieseldiaries.com )

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Costa Rica
Gasifier (microgasification)
Metal
Wood

Proyecto Estufa Finca An Update from Seattle

10 June 2010 - 12:48pm
Donnelly

Art Donnelly, SeaChar.Org June, 2010

It was not quite 9 months ago, when I sent out an email to a small group of collaborators, with a Subject line that asked the question: "How do we get biochar stoves to Central America?" Of course, like the punch line to the old vaudeville joke, the answer is "lots of hard work". I could not have imagined 9 months ago was how rewarding all that work would feel. I want to share that feeling with all of you.

I recently returned to Seattle from Costa Rica's famed coffee producing area the Santos Zone. This was my second trip since mid- January. I have been continuing my work as a technical consultant to a clean stove/biochar project. Proyecto Estufa Finca (Farm Stove) was initiated by organic coffee farmer Arturo Segura http://www.solcolibri.com/ and the members of the local citizens group APORTES.

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Costa Rica
Estufa Finca
TLUD
Metal
Wood
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