7 ms·

Wood is worse than other fuels by most accounts, but I guess if you were planning to build a fire for warmth anyway it's not so bad. Thermoelectric generators

by byerley 12y ago

Wood is worse than other fuels by most accounts, but I guess if you were planning to build a fire for warmth anyway it's not so bad. Thermoelectric generators are something like 200yrs old though and this isn't even the first hiking oriented variant (http://www.powerpractical.com/ http://www.powerpractical.com/ - not obvious on the front page, but it also works fine with a wood fire). Historically I think hikers considered this a non-issue because of better battery life and/or keeping your phone off except in emergencies. It's a little ironic that people are staying tied to their smart-phone even during long camping trips. These really aren't good for much else because they only keep a good heat difference for a short time and have to be used with a battery.

personZ 12y ago
Wood is worse than other fuels by most accounts Wood is carbon neutral (trees are, of course, very efficient solar energy plants), and backpackers burning scrub branches are not diminishing nature. Further the fan leads to an extremely clean burn, which was the original intention of these various designs. Quite a few people throughout this thread seem to be under the assumption that the intention of this device is purely as a charger. It is instead a camp stove that incidentally can charge as a side effect of having a powered fan. Instead of a propane stove or the like, the idea is that this makes it easy to use small branches to cook breakfast or whatever. The biggest criticism I've heard of this device is that it's a pain and highly inconvenient to constantly feed it twigs when you try to heat anything of consequence (e.g. pot of water).
- byerley 12y ago
  I don't know where you're getting that information. Burning wood produces significantly more CO2 than coal or oil regardless of your air flow; not to mention CO, volatile organic compounds, and nitrogen oxides. If you've ever had the displeasure of being within a few miles of a forest fire, it's really rough on the lungs. You can argue that by growing the tree specifically to burn and then being careful how you harvest it, the wood burning ends up being carbon neutral. That's obviously not the case here, and it doesn't scale in general.
  - personZ 12y ago
    Worldwide, and across all scientific realms, burning wood is considered carbon neutral. This is not an "argument", it is actual reality -- the carbon released when you burn wood is identical to the carbon captured to form the same, and which will be captured in its place. The branches that fall to the ground will often become, in a relatively short timeframe, CH4, which is much worse than CO2. Add that this is relative to coal or oil or natural gas that have been carbon stored underground for millions of years. This is not up for debate. It is not open for you to argue whether it "scales". It is the reality of the planet that we live on. Your opinion on it is utterly irrelevant. And it's actually humorous that you mention forest fires given that removing the brush that camp stoves like this burns helps prevent forest fires, not to mention decomposition methane. As to being rough on the lungs, the whole point of this whole initiative is clean burning the wood, eliminating the vast majority of particulate that is the result of an incomplete burn. I suspect you really don't care about the actual facts though, but just for anyone else coming along.
    - byerley 12y ago
      > Worldwide, and across all scientific realms, burning wood is considered carbon neutral, right? Absolutely not. For wood burning to be carbon neutral, you have to replace the wood and produce exactly zero CO2 during harvesting and transportation. Even if we gave your picking up twigs example a good 50yrs to cycle, you're removing fertilizer that would otherwise help the growth of current/new trees. There's a reason we put restrictions on wood burning and overall traffic in a lot of forest areas; it reduces the forestation. > This is relative to coal or oil or natural gas that have been carbon stored underground for millions of years. The length of the cycle doesn't make a difference because we're growing energy production exponentially and seeing consistent global deforestation (thus the scaling problem). That carbon from your stove might get replaced in 10-50 years.... if not for the environment suffering immediate effects that propagate. > And it's actually humorous that you mention forest fires given that removing the brush that camp stoves like this burns helps prevent forest fires Not in any significant way. As far as we know, forest fires are caused by weather patterns, forest life-cycles, insect life-cycles, ect. Clearing brush is a stop-gap fire fighters use to protect homes. > As to being rough on the lungs, the whole point of this whole initiative is clean burning the wood, eliminating the vast majority of particulate that is the result of an incomplete burn. The vast majority? I doubt either of us is going to do a study on this particular stove, but given that Biomass power facilities still produce large amounts of particulates, I'm pretty sure the little self-charging fan doesn't solve the problem. > I suspect you really don't care about the actual facts though, but just for anyone else coming along. I'm doing my best not to be confrontational, but your only "fact" is the misapplied notion that trees can only release carbon that they've previously absorbed. Every study I've read on using biomass for power generation has concluded that their only "environmental" advantage is that the fuel is easier to renew.
- jessaustin 12y ago
  Quite a few people throughout this thread seem to be under the assumption that the intention of this device is purely as a charger. I think quite a few on this thread haven't camped or hiked enough to realize that cooking is an important part of those activities.

by byerley 12y ago

personZ 12y ago

Wood is worse than other fuels by most accounts Wood is carbon neutral (trees are, of course, very efficient solar energy plants), and backpackers burning scrub branches are not diminishing nature. Further the fan leads to an extremely clean burn, which was the original intention of these various designs. Quite a few people throughout this thread seem to be under the assumption that the intention of this device is purely as a charger. It is instead a camp stove that incidentally can charge as a side effect of having a powered fan. Instead of a propane stove or the like, the idea is that this makes it easy to use small branches to cook breakfast or whatever. The biggest criticism I've heard of this device is that it's a pain and highly inconvenient to constantly feed it twigs when you try to heat anything of consequence (e.g. pot of water).

byerley 12y ago
I don't know where you're getting that information. Burning wood produces significantly more CO2 than coal or oil regardless of your air flow; not to mention CO, volatile organic compounds, and nitrogen oxides. If you've ever had the displeasure of being within a few miles of a forest fire, it's really rough on the lungs. You can argue that by growing the tree specifically to burn and then being careful how you harvest it, the wood burning ends up being carbon neutral. That's obviously not the case here, and it doesn't scale in general.
- personZ 12y ago
  Worldwide, and across all scientific realms, burning wood is considered carbon neutral. This is not an "argument", it is actual reality -- the carbon released when you burn wood is identical to the carbon captured to form the same, and which will be captured in its place. The branches that fall to the ground will often become, in a relatively short timeframe, CH4, which is much worse than CO2. Add that this is relative to coal or oil or natural gas that have been carbon stored underground for millions of years. This is not up for debate. It is not open for you to argue whether it "scales". It is the reality of the planet that we live on. Your opinion on it is utterly irrelevant. And it's actually humorous that you mention forest fires given that removing the brush that camp stoves like this burns helps prevent forest fires, not to mention decomposition methane. As to being rough on the lungs, the whole point of this whole initiative is clean burning the wood, eliminating the vast majority of particulate that is the result of an incomplete burn. I suspect you really don't care about the actual facts though, but just for anyone else coming along.
  - byerley 12y ago
    > Worldwide, and across all scientific realms, burning wood is considered carbon neutral, right? Absolutely not. For wood burning to be carbon neutral, you have to replace the wood and produce exactly zero CO2 during harvesting and transportation. Even if we gave your picking up twigs example a good 50yrs to cycle, you're removing fertilizer that would otherwise help the growth of current/new trees. There's a reason we put restrictions on wood burning and overall traffic in a lot of forest areas; it reduces the forestation. > This is relative to coal or oil or natural gas that have been carbon stored underground for millions of years. The length of the cycle doesn't make a difference because we're growing energy production exponentially and seeing consistent global deforestation (thus the scaling problem). That carbon from your stove might get replaced in 10-50 years.... if not for the environment suffering immediate effects that propagate. > And it's actually humorous that you mention forest fires given that removing the brush that camp stoves like this burns helps prevent forest fires Not in any significant way. As far as we know, forest fires are caused by weather patterns, forest life-cycles, insect life-cycles, ect. Clearing brush is a stop-gap fire fighters use to protect homes. > As to being rough on the lungs, the whole point of this whole initiative is clean burning the wood, eliminating the vast majority of particulate that is the result of an incomplete burn. The vast majority? I doubt either of us is going to do a study on this particular stove, but given that Biomass power facilities still produce large amounts of particulates, I'm pretty sure the little self-charging fan doesn't solve the problem. > I suspect you really don't care about the actual facts though, but just for anyone else coming along. I'm doing my best not to be confrontational, but your only "fact" is the misapplied notion that trees can only release carbon that they've previously absorbed. Every study I've read on using biomass for power generation has concluded that their only "environmental" advantage is that the fuel is easier to renew.
jessaustin 12y ago
Quite a few people throughout this thread seem to be under the assumption that the intention of this device is purely as a charger. I think quite a few on this thread haven't camped or hiked enough to realize that cooking is an important part of those activities.