Re: Charcoal

[Thomas J Stubbing <heat-win@cwcom.net>]

Dear Stovers:

John Flottvik wrote:

January 9, 2001 Dear Stoves Hope every one had a good holiday This is probably a stupid question, but, if you are going so far as to make torrified wood, why not go the one extrastep and make charcoal? By going the exta mile, you are able to collect all the oil from the wood, and sell, at a good price, I might add.

I think it's a matter of supply and demand.  If you make and sell high per tonne value charcoal you are selling less energy than if you sell dried or dried and torrefied wood.

By all means make and sell charcoal if you can usefully combust the pyrolysis gases by using their thermal energy to dry additional biomass and/or extract oil from them.  There is demand for all four, i.e. dry fuelwood, torrefied wood, charcoal and oil, but if production gets out of balance the price of the over-produced commodity will fall and production volumes will be adjusted accordingly.

Regards,

Thomas