From: "Kevin Adair" <kevin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Dear List,
There are many important points made in Zach's paper, including the
economic detriment that large-scale switching to propane for cooking fuel
would have on Haiti.
Zach and I have shared many discussions on this, and our FdS stoves and
briquette cooking system (www.elfuegodelsol.com) fits will into Zach's
overall plan as presented.
Our stove can also serve as an efficient charcoal retort. The FdS stove is
already excellent at turning wood into charcoal. It is much more efficient
than any other way. The stoves could be used with wood as their fuel, in
institutional settings, such as factories and industrial parks. It is
entirely effective to dump the charcoal out after it is created, extinguish
it in an air-tight metal container, load new wood in, and off you go. The
stoves could even be adapted to have two combustion chambers so the food
would not need to be moved, if producing charcoal is the goal.
Of course, the same stoves can also be used with briquettes. The difference
is that the briquette use engages totally unused Haitian resources. Waste
biomass, paper and cardboard are in large supply. Planting the Amyris
trees, using them first for oil, and second for briquettes is much more
effective than charcoal use, and would be the best future path for Haiti.
Using our stoves to make charcoal as a transition to this ultimately
preferable future is a great intermediary step.
One point Zach and I differ on is the relative importance of the health
issues of charcoal cooking. I find the research of the respiratory
infection rates and pari-natal death rates compelling. Zach thinks it's a
distraction. Zach, please correct me if I'm misrepresenting your position.
I look forward to a lively discussion on this, especially the fact that 10
pounds of tree are destroyed for every one pound of charcoal produced. Zach
is correct that charcoal is not the only cause of this, but much more
efficient tree usage, through greater and greater non-carbonized renewable
biomass stove use can keep Haiti's domestic fuel percentages high and
replace every charcoal job with a better, more ergonomic job in agriculture
and briquette production.
Best,
Kevin
Kevin Adair
www.elfuegodelsol.com
Volunteer, Internship and Eco-Tourism Voyages available.
Now writing and publishing the book and article series: *Listen. Lead.
Listen Again.*
about the lessons learned in development in the DR and Haiti:
https://medium.com/@kevinadair
Support Kevin's research, writing and publishing endeavors at
*www.patreon.com/kevadair
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Available at one of these phone numbers anytime.
When I'm in Haiti: +509 3444 0200
When I'm in the Dom. Rep: (New Number) +1 809 661 2626
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