permaculture

[Keith Johnson <keithdj@mindspring.com>]

Tommy,
You may need to tweak your conclusions a bit more. Granted much wood is 
poorly combusted, but it doesn't have to be. Consider this comment from 
a review of Ianto Evan's book: Rocket Mass Heaters-Superefficient 
Woodstoves You Can Build (and snuggle up to)


"The key feature of Ianto's rocket is a super-insulated internal 
chimney, which he calls the "heat riser", which allows the wood to 
completely vaporize and burn at temperatures up to 1100F, so that only 
*steam and carbon dioxide* exit through the flue...*no ash, no creosote, 
no chimney flue fires*! Actually, it's instructive and somewhat amazing 
to smell(!) the exit gasses from a blazing rocket stove flue: no smoke, 
just steam more like a laundry-dryer vent with a nice woody scent!

So a well designed rocket stove combusts as close to 100% efficiency as 
anything I've seen. Why is this important, if wood fuel is plentiful? 
For one, no smoke to pollute our air. But note also that more efficient 
burning means more heat from less wood, hence less physical labor or 
money spent acquiring fuel, more time for other activities (gardening, 
reading, dancing, weaving, etc!)"

This is the point I tried to make about mass heaters in an earlier email.
Keith

Healing Hawk wrote:
> Again, I apologize.  I was wrong about wood burning contributing to global
> warming.  It contributes to air pollution, not to global warming.  
>
> Air quality issues are why Holmgren talks about training firewood users,
> designing better stoves, and using sustainably produced charcoal instead of
> wood. 
> Tommy Tolson
> Austin, TX    
--
Keith Johnson
"Be fruitful and mulch apply."
Permaculture Activist Magazine
PO Box 5516, Bloomington, IN 47408
(812) 335-0383
http://www.permacultureactivist.net
Impeachment: It's not just for blowjobs anymore.
Switch to Solar Power the Easy Way
http://www.jointhesolution.com/KeithJ-SunPower
http://www.PowUr.com/KeithJ-SunPower
Blog: http://kjpermaculture.blogspot.com/
also Patterns for Abundance Design & Consulting
http://www.permacultureactivist.net/design/Designconsult.html
also Association for Regenerative Culture
also APPLE-Bloomington (Alliance for a Post-Petroleum Local Economy) It's a 
small world after oil.
http://www.relocalize.net/groups/applebloomington
also Bloomington Permaculture Guild