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Cutie Wood Gas Stove
#30492 03/23/13 12:58 PM
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I have just posted pics of my new wood gas stove at the Picture Gallery.

http://www.whitneyzone.com/wz/ubbthreads.php/galleries/30491/Wood_Gas_Stove

It is the only stove I ever carry in the east, and plan on the same strategy for the JMT this summer. Jury is out on whether this is a stove or a fire for fire-prohibited areas, but it is also a great Esbit stove as a fallback, so I will have no cold camps.

Comments are welcome, including ethics of minimal biofuel vs petroleum fuel in wilderness.

Limited beta-testing available. Stove will sell for about $30 in production (soon). Weight information as soon as I finalize manufacture process, but about 10 oz all-up and 6 or so in minimalist mode. Zero fuel weight miles.

Oh, and it consumes burnable trash with no smoke and no odor. Paper leaves a trace of ash and plastic leaves nothing


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Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
saltydog #30522 03/24/13 12:43 PM
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Nice looking setup.

Wood Gas Stove --
Cooking mode: That's a cast iron 2 1/2 qt pot, to show strength and heat capacity. Yes it boiled.
[img]http://www.whitneyzone.com/wz/gallery/12/medium/894.jpg[/img]


Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
Steve C #30537 03/24/13 05:54 PM
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OK: Weights are in: 8.4 OZ for the all-up in the photo, 4.6 for just the core unit and wire pot stand. That's 8.4 OZ plus zero fuel oz.-miles (unless you want to augment with Esbits)


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Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
saltydog #30551 03/25/13 06:34 AM
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[quote=saltydog] Paper leaves a trace of ash and plastic leaves nothing [/quote]

salty, I have always heard that one should not burn trash, food scraps, etc. but carry them out. One individual's small residue multiplied by that of others is enough to attract animals and habituate them to the campsite (and so they return again to the next camper who may not burn anything)

I don't know if there is a Forest/Park service reg about this subject, but this is the first thing I Googled:
[url=http://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/htmlpubs/htm04232327/index.htm]Don't burn trash[/url]

Aside from the trash issue, there are other options for the food residue.
(1) sump method. Drain any liquids onto a cloth, trapping the solids to carry out, allowing the liquid to flow through into a hole in the ground. Admittedly, this still leaves odors in the ground, so it is not an ideal solution.

(2)My ultralighter friend Dan does this: uses soot-free alcohol stove and a thin plastic bag-like material (that is heat-proof). Lines his metal cup or bowl, pours hot water onto dehydrated food, and after eating there is no clean up because he just wads up the plastic film and carries it all out. Leaves no trace, but does require certain foods types, and weight of alcohol fuel that I imagine you are trying to avoid by burning twigs.

(3) After any cooking method: Clean up with no soap, just hot water, clean out the cup or bowl with the hot water and your finger or spoon, and drink the residue. Most people find this disgusting but after a week on the trail it's not so bad, anything goes. I'll be doing this when we are there. We may see you this summer.




Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
Harvey Lankford #30552 03/25/13 08:35 AM
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From the [url=http://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/htmlpubs/htm04232327/index.htm]Don't burn trash[/url] link:
[quote]Laboratory research has documented the emissions of some toxic air pollutants from burning wood. Many of these compounds are known to be carcinogenic to humans.[/quote]
They also found cadmium and mercury in campfire ash. After adding trash to their fires, they also found higher levels of these and beryllium and lead. The article writes:[quote]Many elemental metals occur naturally in the Earth's crust and in rocks. Small amounts of many of these metals are necessary to support life. But in larger amounts, they may be toxic.[/quote]
What are we supposed to do?

Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
Steve C #30554 03/25/13 09:38 AM
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Steve
I am not worried personally about an occasional whiff of smoke, or carcinogens in my charcoaled steak, or mercury in my tuna. It is likely only important if that is what I do every day, repeatedly, to raise my true biological risk, not just some extrapolated statistic
By the way, I researched the cadmium poisoning disease [i]itai-itai[/i] in Japan years ago, so indeed, there really are toxins.

My main concern here would be the trash burning/odors and habituation-of-animals-to-the-trail-or-campsite issue.

here is what the Whitney/Inyo rules say:
[b]it is not acceptable to burn or bury food or trash.[/b]

[url=http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5347547.pdf]Whitney Inyo rules[/url]


Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
Steve C #30555 03/25/13 09:41 AM
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[quote=Steve C]What are we supposed to do? [/quote]
1) Don't rob carbon otherwise destined for the soil from places that don't have carbon to spare. Park regulations attempt to provide guidance here.

2) Don't bring in fuel (or anything else) to burn that contains anything but hydrogen, carbon and oxygen.

For example from:
http://www.sequoia.national-park.com/camping.htm
"Campfires

Wood fires are permitted in Kings Canyon National Park below 10,000 ft / 3050 m except in Granite Basin and Redwood Canyon. Fires are permitted at lower State Lake - 10,250 ft / 3124 m.

Fires are permitted in the Kaweah Drainage of Sequoia National Park below 9000 ft / 2743 m except in Hamilton Lakes and Mineral King Valley above Mineral King Ranger Station.

Fires are permitted in the Kern Drainage of Sequoia National Park below 11,200 ft 3414 m with some exceptions."

And from:
http://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/wildregs.htm
"Wood fires are allowed in existing fire rings only, and prohibited above 9,600 feet in elevation. Fire are also not allowed at Lower Cathedral Lake and within 1/4 mile of the shorline of Kibbie Lake. Use dead and down wood only."
and
"Can I use a Sierra stove above 9,600 feet?
No, you may not use a Sierra stove (stick stove) above 9,600 feet in elevation. The small twigs used to fuel Sierra stoves are just as valuable a part of the ecosystem as is the larger wood used in traditional campfires. Regrowth at higher elevations is extremely slow and the soil is low in nutrients. Removing this wood from the system further slows growth."

Dale B. Dalrymple

Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
Harvey Lankford #30573 03/26/13 06:44 AM
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[quote=Harvey Lankford][quote=saltydog] Paper leaves a trace of ash and plastic leaves nothing [/quote]

salty, I have always heard that one should not burn trash, food scraps, etc. but carry them out. One individual's small residue multiplied by that of others is enough to attract animals and habituate them to the campsite (and so they return again to the next camper who may not burn anything)

I don't know if there is a Forest/Park service reg about this subject, but this is the first thing I Googled:
[url=http://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/htmlpubs/htm04232327/index.htm]Don't burn trash[/url] [/quote]

And excellent advice that is, as far as it goes. And an excellent point to bring up. The link you supplied is well worth looking into, as it illustrates two things: first, the wide range of completely inappropriate material that people will try to burn: batteries, foil, diapers.

Second, what a lousy incinerator a conventional campfire makes. Note that even the flammable plastics were usually reduced to partially combusted blobs of either raw plastic, or tarry compounds, also indicating only partial conversion.

The two stage gasifier ( of which the Cutie is a simple version) uses a different process from the typical campfire. In the gasifier, all the organics are pyrolised (broken down to much simpler compounds by heat) in the fuel layer. then secondary air is introduced to these hot fumes and they combust completely in the flame layer. The reason that plastic residue is left behind in the campfire is that the flame consuming the most volatile gasses (largely H and CO from the wood) uses all the available oxygen, which never reaches much of the plastic and leaves it only partially converted or just melted.

In the little gasifier, however, everything is gasified and then mixed with air, completing the conversion .

A second advantage of the stove is that if something does go wrong - i.e. there is some residue - it is in the stove and not in a fire ring. If the concern is over paper ash, that can be packed out with the rest of your unburnables. It has negilgible weight

I always repackage even store-bought food, so I never have foil, mylar, etc food packaging. I only ever end up with paper or poly bags, both of which convert completely in the gasifier.

Now, I'm not saying that this requires that any rule against burning trash not be considered to apply to this stove, or allows us to ignore any rules just because this stove is different: all that I am saying is that the reasons for any ban do not apply, the conversation ought to at least be started considering the soundness of gasifying trash vs burning in a campfire.

Another reason to gasify the combustible trash - if it can be proven to be clean and sound - is that it supplies heat and reduces the amount of other fuel required to be consumed.
Other merits of the burn itself - organic matter conservation, carbon etc, discussed below in response to D.



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Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
dbd #30575 03/26/13 07:43 AM
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[quote=dbd][quote=Steve C]What are we supposed to do? [/quote]
1) Don't rob carbon otherwise destined for the soil from places that don't have carbon to spare. Park regulations attempt to provide guidance here.

2) Don't bring in fuel (or anything else) to burn that contains anything but hydrogen, carbon and oxygen.
[/quote]

Again two very good points.

1) Carbon conservation. Not as simple as "just say no". As you look at the sparse organic matter in the litter and duff layers in a subalpine forest, realize that most of the carbon you are looking at is headed more or less straight to the atmoshpere in the form of CO2, during the decomposition process. In wet areas, add a little methane to that mix. A very small amount will make it through that process to become part of the soil carbon, mostly as humate. That's the dark matter in the topsoil, such as it is, in these high forests. And there isn't much humate in say foxtail pine forest soil, so every little bit counts, hence the high elevation fire ban.

The typical campfire upsets this delicate process by sending a tremendous amount of biomass directly into the atmosphere as CO2. What it leaves behind is mostly locked out of the carbon/nutrient cycle because it is either large chunks of charcoal, or if unburned, torrefied wood. Torrefied wood is wood that has been partially charred - brown but not black - and does not contribute to soil carbon because it is rendered inert: essentially inedible to the microorganisms of the decomposition process. Like that log someone threw into the campfire thatdidn;t burn but sat and cooked all night. So there it sits.

The gasifying stove does something a little different: it leaves no torrefied wood. The combustion process sends half of the carbon content of whatever it is burning directly to the atmosphere as CO2, less than would end up there as a result of natural decomposition . But what happens to the rest is more interesting. If you snuff the stove when the flame dies down, you get about half the carbon content in the form of very pure charcoal. But unlike the campfire charcoal, this stiff is granular-to-powdery and disperses in the soil where it does some interesting things.

Although it is biologically inert (it doesn't get eaten by anything) it works in much the same way carbon in say an aquarium filter works: it hangs on to organics, and provides habitat for microorganisms far beyond the capacity of mineral soil. So net, it holds more soil organic carbon - and holds it longer - than would be there if you just let that 2 ounces or so of forest litter sit there and decompose and leach away into the runoff and groundwater.

SO two points could be made: that the total amount of carbon involved is very small, and because of the way it is made and distributed, is a slight net gain to soil organic carbon where this is practiced.

Oh yes, and a third: the distribution of char in this manner is highly carbon negative: every ounce of carbon applied in this way represents somewhere between 9 and 14 ounces of CO2 equivalent carbon removal from the atmosphere.

2) Composition of fuels. Paper is overwhemingly wood pulp, made up of long chain carbohydrates cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin (all roughly the same CH and O ratios as sugar and alcohol. Polyethylene is a hydrocarbon(C2H4)nH2, where n is the number of links in the polymer chain. OK the paper also has a little calcium carbonate (limestone) titanium dioxide and clay, but compared to the nutrients, urea etc we each introduce into the wilderness areas we visit (with the possible exception of the WZ where wag bag is policy) the milligrams of paper ash left with the biochar are insignificant.

Now balance this against the cumulative effect of all those fossil hydrocarbon fuels we carry to fuel our Dragonflies and Jet Boils and what have we, I come up heavily on the side of the wood gas stove for conservation.

Now to convince NPS and USFS . . .


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Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
saltydog #30579 03/26/13 08:13 AM
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Salty - thanks
Who would have thought a simple topic like a stove could have so much information - great explanations on both topics.

Yeah, I knew you did not throw diapers and batteries in the fire. Fortunately, the JMT is really clean.


Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
saltydog #30580 03/26/13 09:01 AM
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[quote=saltydog]Again two very good points.
1) Carbon conservation. Not as simple as "just say no". As you look at the sparse organic matter in the litter and duff layers in a subalpine forest, realize that most of the carbon you are looking at is headed more or less straight to the atmoshpere in the form of CO2, during the decomposition process. [/quote]
Carbon that goes into the atmosphere as CO2 during decay does so providing energy to microorganisms in the soil. The same energy you want to get by stealing the carbon for yourself to convert to CO2 to get energy. You can have it or the micro-organisms can. That's the truth whether you spout loaded phrases like "just say no" or not.

[quote=saltydog]2) Composition of fuels. Paper is overwhemingly wood pulp, made up of long chain carbohydrates ... [/quote]
How do you verify that the users of the stove will only repackage their foods in "good" wrappers and will not try to eliminate food residues with the stove? OK, I know... "Stoves don't burn food residues, people burn food residues." :)

[quote=saltydog]Now balance this against the cumulative effect of all those fossil hydrocarbon fuels we carry to fuel our Dragonflies and Jet Boils and what have we, I come up heavily on the side of the wood gas stove for conservation.[/quote]
The only true high ground is to just don't go. No one here is advocating that. The cars, trucks, buses and planes we use to get to our play areas far overwhelm fuel consumption on the trail. But we do need to do less harm while on the trail to avoid destroying the areas we chose to visit so those who come after us can visit them as well. (I might want to go back again, too.)

[quote=saltydog]Now to convince NPS and USFS . . . [/quote]
Hopefully they will never become that stupid.

Dale B. Dalrymple

Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
dbd #30581 03/26/13 09:56 AM
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DBD, why should collecting a couple of ounces of twigs and burning them in a wood gas stove be forbidden while the parks and national forests are finding now how detrimental the past 100 years of fire suppression has been to the forests?

[quote] But we do need to do less harm while on the trail to avoid destroying the areas we chose to visit so those who come after us can visit them as well.[/quote] That seems a bit out of balance when you consider how much "harm" was done by actually building the trail.

"stupid" is pretty harsh when you look at the bigger picture.

Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
dbd #30582 03/26/13 10:21 AM
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DBD:

"Spout"?

"Stupid"?

Honi soit qui mal y pense, my friend.

The LCA that is reflected in my abbreviated description above compeletely accounts for the thermodynamics of the energy as well as the material conversions: net is the same: a little biochar is a net efficiency gain to all the soil processes involved. What is lost in a little raw wood is more than gained in retention of more complex and concentrated nutrients, for the micros and the macros. That's one reason periodic ground fires are not only survivable but necessary. Its also a reason for the phenomenal fertility of the American Midwest

Of course if one is more comfortable in regulation for the lowest common denominator, let's just stay with the status quo: a rule is always easier to enforce than to improve.




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Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
Steve C #30583 03/26/13 01:01 PM
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[quote=Steve C]DBD, why should collecting a couple of ounces of twigs and burning them in a wood gas stove be forbidden while the parks and national forests are finding now how detrimental the past 100 years of fire suppression has been to the forests?[/quote]
The region of concern in the regulations quoted above are areas that lack developed soils or have been abused already. We're not talking about regions where there is plenty of carbon. The first line of my first post was about "places that don't have carbon to spare".

[quote=Steve C]That seems a bit out of balance when you consider how much "harm" was done by actually building the trail.[/quote]
We build and maintain trails to concentrate the damage to limited areas to minimize damage. I haven't suggested that people should not visit, only that they shouldn't rob carbon from marginal and already abused areas.

[quote=Steve C]"stupid" is pretty harsh when you look at the bigger picture.[/quote]
It is the right word for demands to freely abuse naturally limited or already overused areas. The use of wood elsewhere in the "bigger picture" isn't under question.

Dale B. Dalrymple

Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
dbd #30586 03/26/13 01:22 PM
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dbd, the tone of your first post sounded simply anti-wood stove, but now your qualifications appear to change that. So then, you might not object to a hiker collecting a few ounces of wood from "[i]places that [b]do[/b] have carbon to spare[/i]"? Someone could pick up the wood and carry it to a pass where there is no wood at all. It seems like that should be ok.

Granted, there are many places where wood fires are prohibited, and I agree with those restrictions. Too many people seem to connect camping with a roaring bonfire. And that's too bad.

Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
saltydog #30588 03/26/13 01:45 PM
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[quote=saltydog]
...net is the same: a little biochar is a net efficiency gain to all the soil processes involved. What is lost in a little raw wood is more than gained in retention of more complex and concentrated nutrients, for the micros and the macros.[/quote]
The energy from forming CO2 from C can go to heat your water or to the metabolism of the organisms decomposing material in the soil. There is no gain from burning the fuel and no break even.

[quote=saltydog] That's one reason periodic ground fires are not only survivable but necessary. Its also a reason for the phenomenal fertility of the American Midwest

Of course if one is more comfortable in regulation for the lowest common denominator, let's just stay with the status quo: a rule is always easier to enforce than to improve.[/quote]
We aren't discussing restrictions in the American Midwest or regulating to the lowest common denominator, but marginal soils at the tops of mountains and in areas at lower elevations where overuse has consumed the down wood and campers have been removing the duff from soil already. Those are the "places that don't have carbon to spare". Those are the places the regulations address. No one has suggested that you shouldn't sell stoves in the American Midwest or the Sierra, only that the people who use them should consider how to do so responsibly in consideration of the local conditions. Is there some reason you think your customers aren't up to that?

Dale B. Dalrymple

Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
Harvey Lankford #30615 03/27/13 01:55 PM
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[quote=Harvey Lankford]Salty - thanks
Who would have thought a simple topic like a stove could have so much information - great explanations on both topics.

Yeah, I knew you did not throw diapers and batteries in the fire. Fortunately, the JMT is really clean.

[/quote]

Thanks, Harvey. Yes carbon is amazing stuff even in its simplest, elemental, amorphous graphene form!


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Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
saltydog #30642 03/29/13 01:01 PM
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[quote=saltydog]I have just posted pics of my new wood gas stove at the Picture Gallery.

http://www.whitneyzone.com/wz/ubbthreads.php/galleries/30491/Wood_Gas_Stove[/quote]saltydog,
What is the role of a second metal cylinder right of your stove on the 4th picture?

Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
Yury #30643 03/29/13 02:45 PM
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[quote=Yury][quote=saltydog]I have just posted pics of my new wood gas stove at the Picture Gallery.

http://www.whitneyzone.com/wz/ubbthreads.php/galleries/30491/Wood_Gas_Stove[/quote]saltydog,
What is the role of a second metal cylinder right of your stove on the 4th picture? [/quote]

That is a chimney that is used for a draft and boost to gasification of more stubborn fuels. Shown in use in the next to last frame, also serving as pot rest


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Re: Cutie Wood Gas Stove
saltydog #30644 03/29/13 07:00 PM
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[quote=saltydog][quote=Yury][quote=saltydog]I have just posted pics of my new wood gas stove at the Picture Gallery.
http://www.whitneyzone.com/wz/ubbthreads.php/galleries/30491/Wood_Gas_Stove[/quote]saltydog,
What is the role of a second metal cylinder right of your stove on the 4th picture? [/quote]That is a chimney that is used for a draft and boost to gasification of more stubborn fuels. Shown in use in the next to last frame, also serving as pot rest [/quote]How do you pack it?
Would it fit inside a stove?

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