permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

A few thoughts:

I have been pondering the cost of firewood for my woodstoves. I don't have 
trees to cut other than
thinnings, prunings and fallen branches, quick burning trash wood.
The permaculturists advocate groves of fast growing hardwoods for coppicing.
This is probably one of the better options for a homesteader with a serious 
interest in
organizing his property for efficient maintenance, recycling of nutrients and 
water
and enhancing the permaculture systems he installs. Coppiced hedges and 
windbreaks serve multiple purposes,
fuel, screening, wildlife habitat and wind protection. I am thinking in terms 
of what a homeowner can do
to provide his own fuel rather than utilizing external inputs, more in the 
realm of immediate possibilities.
As for off site sources of fuel, you see land clear cut for commercial and 
residential development
every day. Much of the plant material displaced is ground into mulch and left 
on site for landscaping - a good thing.
Some landscape debris is hauled to landfills for shredding and resale or 
windrowed (as is done on farms sometimes).
Transportation from source to user is a big issue. It is a good idea to clear fire prone areas of biomass that could be 
pelletized - likely done by a subcontractor (hired by neighborhood associations), the forest service or municipalities. 
Homeowner groups could seize the opportunity and do it themselves with group or regional group
purchase of equipment.

A chipper-grinder-compactor (pelletizer) could be designed and fabricated - design specs and plans could be distributed 
to interested parties. I am thinking of using a standard (electric powered for myself) chipper-grinder with the output
going into some sort of powered device that utilizes an auger screw to 
compact and dewater material fed into it.
Look at a Lifestream wheat grass juicer and you will get the idea - basically 
a modified sausage stuffer.
This would output a continuous stream of compressed wood particles - maybe the grindings could be premixed with some 
inert bonding agent to make the final product more solid after drying. This process wouldn't make a pellet per se but a 
burnable material greatly reduced in size from its original state. With a gear train, large flywheel and bicycle this 
machine could run on human power, if sized appropriately.

So, from coppiced grove and trash from landscape maintenance to chipper-grinder-compactor to wood stove you have a 
process that many homeowners could use to provide themselves with fuel for heat - this also means greenhouse heat for
added food self sufficiency during the cold season and early starting of 
transplants for the food garden.

As for the woodstove, perhaps an HS Tarm Danish wood fired boiler for hot 
water radiator heat - the best way to go
from what I can tell. A space heating version of a pellet burning stove could be designed maybe even with a catalytic 
converter incorporated into the design. This could be a passive system not requiring electrcity. Utilizing the principle
involved in the convection tower charcoal starter for the grill additional combustion air could be channeled into some 
sort of carburetor through which the fuel could pass (using a solar electric powered auger screw again). This would 
provide efficient combustion to get max btu's from your fuel.