Rocket Stoves and Biochar at the Florida Earthskills Gathering

Earthskills Gatherings are weekend long events consisting of workshops and discussions to do with primivate skills and permaculture.  They happen all over North America, usually on an annual basis and place a strong emphasis on regional ecologies and cultures.  At the Florida Earthskills gathering a few weeks back, there were workshops on anything from how to make rope from various regional grasses, how to build houses using cob construction, how to harvest and filter rainwater using materials found in the dumpster or how to slaughter a goat.

One awesome thing about the event was how sustainable everything was.  And by "sustainable" I don't mean that we bought fluorescent bulbs, rented low-water porto-potties or bought tofu rather than chicken.  I mean that food came from dumpsters behind Trader Joe's.  I mean that people collected and prepared fresh roadkill for dinner (the meat you pay for at the grocery store is much worse for you [seriously..]). Meals were prepared on high-efficiency stoves built from salvaged materials.  Composting toilets were built onsite and the humanure will later be used to fertilize garden beds.  This event was sustainable!

There were about 300 people at the event, all of whom had to be fed.  I helped out in the kitchen a bunch with maintaining the stoves and fires that the food was cooked over top of.  A couple guys, Joe and Conner, had been working on high-efficiency rocket stoves and bio-char ovens for a few years and, while volunteering in the kitchen, I was able to learn a thing or two about what it takes to build stoves similar to the ones we were using.

____________________________________________________________

Rocket Stoves

Conner setting up the rocket stove

The air flow allows for wood to burn hot.  Using long and thin pieces of wood allows for more area of a given unit of wood to burn.  The downside is you have to monitor closely and keep stocking.  Build it and give it a shot.

____________________________________________________________

Biochar Ovens

(10 minute video defining biochar, the process of creating it, and it's purpose)

Doug cookin' up a storm

There are two main outputs: 1) Biochar (used as wonder-fertilizer), and 2) heat.  The heat can be trapped and harnessed in whatever way you can image and could be used for many things (ie, heating a house).  The method that Joe and Conner use works really well for cooking food en masse. 

____________________________________________________________

All of the food for the gathering (300 people X 2 meals X 4 days) was cooked over a few different stoves.  There were also two fires that food was cooked on in addition to the two-burner rocket stove and the biochar.

Moral of the story: If you are paying for sustainability you are doing it wrong!

“Radical Resourcefulness” is old news (fortunately)

John and Sid planning the structure

In this post I talk about how the underlying ideas of A) “Recycle, Reduce, Reuse”, B) people who dumpster dive, and C) rows of broken down cars and junk on the properties of rednecks across the continent are the same.  I also mention how it is economically sensible and environmentally necessary for us to overcome our learned perceptions of A) “hippies trying to save the world”, B) “bums eating garbage from dumpsters” or C) “rednecks making a mess of property”.  Enjoy!

___________________________________________________________

I spent most of January working and living on a farm outside of Gainesville, Florida.  For anyone wanting to learn how to farm and travel at the same time, I encourage you to check out http://www.wwoof.org/.  For a small membership fee you are given access to the WWOOF database of farms by country.  From there you can pick and choose what you want.

_______________________________________________________

Greenhouse construction

While on the farm, I spent most of my volunteering time building a greenhouse which Sid (the father of the family who live on the farm) bought a number of years ago.  He bought it for next to nothin’ from a farmer who no longer had a use for it. Sid stored it on his property for a number of years until he was able to find the remaining resources needed to build and complete an entire greenhouse - plastic, mesh, fan and all.  While rummaging through a dumpster behind a tree nursery, Sid found enough UV plastic (in near-perfect condition) to cover the entire greenhouse.  Thus the greenhouse project was underway! 

Sid was able to acquire the necessary materials for the greenhouse for about 1/3 of it's total retail value.  There were no instructions nor labels on the pieces since it was used.  If any pieces didn’t seem to fit together, we would improvise, often using other salvaged or 'reclaimed' resources to put the greenhouse together.  It took a bit of patience, a bit of creativity, but we were able to finish the structure before I left the farm.

Ray and Panelopie

One recurring topic of conversation was the use of salvaged materials in building.  Apart from being aesthetically interesting, it's an extremely economical and environmentally-responsible way of building as your not using newly purchased or processed material to build.  Seems like there are a number of terms for this basic idea, some being more buzzy or trendy or recent than others.  "Resource reclamation" or "radical resourcefulness" were a few terms that I heard while being around Gainesville.  Though the terms do sound pretty cool, and many permies drool over the mere sound of them, their definitions are a bit redundant.  As far as I know, radical resourcefulness means (re)learning to (re)use material found right around us as resources that could be used in building.  It also has to do with being able to procure resources for free (i.e. dumpsters).

Another one of Sid's projects which he was looking for additional materials for was this A-Frame that I stayed in for a little while.   The entire structure was built out of used material.  The wood of the frame once belonged to a barn (I think..) and the metal roofing had been sitting around on the property of the farm for a while.  With a little bit of labour, a few Wwoofers were able to build the simple structure.  The best part about it is that it was nearly free!




Used.  Recycled.  Reclaimed.  Radical Resourcefulness.  Sensible use of available materials.

In my view, all of these terms mean the same thing.  Whether we're talking about a couple of hip kids going through dumpers in the city to build raised garden beds or a few old time farmers looking at an aged car out in the bush to use in restoring an F-150, salvaging resources for alternative use is nothing new.