Wood-powered phone charger... the Biolite stove

Just watched a great video review of this stove by our friend Andrew. It's a gasifying stove that runs on wood, much like our woodgas campstoves, but it has a thermoelectric generator built into it, so you can charge small devices like phones while making dinner or a cup of tea! Here's the video...

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A wood-gas stove for Kenya

I recently heard about an interesting organisation called Kenya Stove, they are working to promote a design of gasifying wood stove that doesn't need a fan (unlike the ones I use). The design looks to be simple and durable - ideal for use in developing countries, where it should help reduce deforestation, improve health by reducing smoke, and also save people money on fuel for cooking. Check out the video they've made:

and go here if you want to donate some money to help get the whole thing started:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/627536440/kenya-stove-revolutionizing-how-people-cook

Mike

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Woodgas Outdoor Fireplace review

Some time ago I posted a review of the Woodgas Campstove we use for cooking in the wood. Well, now I've got another video - this time of its big brother, the Woodgas Outdoor Fireplace:The fireplace works on exactly the same principle as the campstove, with a fan drawing air in through the holes round the outside of the base, and injecting a small amount through holes in the base of the combustion chamber:The limited amount of air, combined with the heat of the fire, results in the wood being gasified, to produce a mixture of carbon monoxide, methane and hydrogen (known as woodgas), which is then ignited when it reaches the much larger airflow coming in through the holes in the top (don't worry, all the CO is burned, no risk from the woodgas):There are a few small differences between the fireplace and the campstove. The campstove had two power sockets - high and low - and ran from a pair of AA batteries. The fireplace can take a 9-12V supply, so can run directly from a lead-acid battery, or eight smaller batteries in a pack. However, it is supplied with a mains adaptor, as many people will be using it in the garden, hopefully to replace one of the nasty fossil-fuel burning patio heaters! The fan in the stove only uses 2W of power, while the heat from the stove can reach 16kW! The fireplace also has a knob to vary the airflow, although you'll normally only use anything less than maximum while lighting it.
The fireplace also has handles added to the side. These stayed cool even after an hour of operation, allowing you to move the stove (carefully!) after you've unplugged it without waiting for it to cool down.
Anyway, here it is full of fuel and ready to go. A full load of fuel should burn for an hour and a half, and you can top it up (gradually) while it is burning.Just before we get to the video, here's a few photos of it in action:
nice, eh? Well, without further ado, here's the video on how to use one:

If you want to buy one, go to woodgasstove.co.uk

Mike

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Woodgas camp stove demo

You may have noticed in some recent posts that we've got a fancy new stove to use at the wood - well, here's a demo video of how it works. (Still pictures and a text explanation are below)

It's a WoodGas CampStove XL. What it does is "gasify" the wood, burning the gas produced in an efficient manner right under the cooking pot. Basically there's a cylinder inside it that you fill with small sticks:
If you look carefully you'll see some small holes at the base of this cylinder - these allow in a small amount of air to gasify the wood. Gasification means allowing the wood to partially burn, resulting in a mixture of gases, including hydrogen, methane and carbon monoxide (so don't use it indoors). These are all flammable gases, and as they rise up the inside of the stove they meet with more air injected through a ring of holes at the top of it:
The gas mixes with this additional air and burns. Right above it sits your cooking pot, resting on a simple but effective pot stand:
The air is drawn in through holes around the the outside of the base of the stove, which encloses a small fan. In the picture below you can see the two power sockets for the fan (high and low speed), and the air inlet holes:
The battery pack contains two AA rechargeable batteries (I reckon my 3200mAh batteries will run it for over 15 hours), and you plug it into the high or low speed socket depending on how much heat you want out of the stove:

Mike

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Intelligence Squared Green Festival on Climate Change

The Ashden Awards (who I work for 80% of the time) are partners for the Intelligence Squared Green Festival on Climate Change taking place on Sunday January 25th at the Royal Geographical Society in London.

Click on the link below to register and use the promotion code ‘Friend’ to get 20 percent off tickets http://www.iq2greenfestival.com

Svati Bhogle, director of TIDE in India, who won the 2008 Ashden Energy Champion award for their work on biomass stoves, will speak, and you can visit the Ashden Awards display of low-carbon technology from developing countries.

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A walk around a different wood

This afternoon we went to visit our friends Rod and Heather in their wood, about 10 miles from us. We went on the electric bikes, being cheaper than going by car and also enjoyable, riding through the countryside.

It's always interesting visiting other woods, as you often get ideas and learn about things you never see in your own wood. Every wood is different, in terms of fauna & flora, geography, hydrography, history and especially what the owner plans to do with it. There are many ways to manage a wood. Some people focus on producing timber, some on firewood and logs, some on biodiversity and others on keeping game. All are valid, and not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Rod and Heather's wood looks somewhat like ours at certain points:
But at other points they are completely different!
The pond in the picture above is actually formed by a pit left by ancient mining operations, according to the archaeologist they've had to visit them.

I was particularly interested to see what had happened to some piles of logs that had been left there for years:
The piles looked like they should have been collected, being stacked at ride-side, but had been forgotten and now have become wildlife sanctuaries. We've left some similar piles in our own wood, some deliberately, and some because we never got round to using them, and probably won't, so it was nice to see how they might look in years to come.

We also saw why squirrel control can be a good thing. Rod and Heather have been plagued by squirrels, with the result that the few dozen young oak trees they had are now severely damaged:
Some of the oaks that have been attacked will survive in a stunted form, others won't make it. The squirrels had attacked many other trees too, going back several years by the look of it.

Some of them had become good dead wood habitats, with a range of fungi growing on them:
However, I'm not sure if this makes up for the fact that a whole generation of oaks across several acres have been damaged...

We saw an interesting feature in one dead tree though - holes made by a woodpecker:
To finish, here's a great little stove that Rod had made:
The base is a cylinder liner from a ferry engine, the top used to have a damper valve in it, and various bits have been welded on to make a chimney.
You fuel it through the top and then put the hot plate on.
Air comes in at the bottom, made possible by resting the stove on a few small stones. That's all for this weekend. I'm really looking forward to Friday - a chance to get back into our own wood and make some serious progress widening the rides to make the wildlife corridors.

Mike

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Cooking in the wood

On Saturday we were up in the wood to finish logging and splitting some birch, and took the opportunity to try out our new cooking device. Ever since seeing a "Mongolian hotpot" cooker at the Wood Fair last year (see a picture half way down this page), we've been looking for one. Well, we didn't find one, but what we did find was a fondue cooker at a boot fair for £2, and after a bit of persuasion with a hammer I managed to knock the heat spreader plate out of the middle of it to give a clear chimney up the centre. Here it is in use:
It works a bit like the Kelly Kettle we have, with the fire going up a central conical chimney, around which the food sits in a toroidal section for cooking:
We just used it to reheat chilli this time, but I think it would work for frying stuff too, as long as you stirred it frequently. We cooked the rice on the cast iron BBQ with a wood fire inside it:
After lunch Tracy sharpened her chainsaw (which she blames me for blunting!)
and I measured and cut up some four and five foot logs for a customer to use for making several raised beds to grow their veg in:
Tracy also took a wander round the cant we cut last winter to photograph the greenness that is spreading over the woodland floor:
Mike

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