This is a thought experiment with real/physical world application.

Degrowth transitioning to a circular regrowth bioeconomy? Sustainable adaptation? Carbon negative survival?

A backup or primary survival system using biochar for Carbon Removal in a Cascade of Uses (CRCU).

More for your biochar! Appropriate for 'on-grid' household (backup) or 'off-grid' household/bush shack/love shack/AirBnB/Tiny House/remote villages and communities/refugee camps etc. (primary).

This can change the game for sustainably meeting basic physical human needs.

Parts (base to top):

• old BBQ cast iron plate for additional thermal mass and heat radiation at base
• 50L stainless steel stockpot for heat shield and water quench collection
• 300mm x 900mm galvanised steel chimney flue (new or upcycled)
• 304 woven mesh top, 1.6mm thick with 5mm aperture grinded to a square (pan/pot/bucket stability, even flame distribution and heat radiation)
• standard steel wok ring (pot stand and flame distributor/concentrator)
• 20L stainless steel bucket (water boiling/pasteurisation)

Tech notes

• TLUD (Navigator Stove mainframe)
• Batch pyrolysis
• Chopped wood, stick or pellet feedstock

Applications

• Appropriate for 'on-grid' household (backup) or 'off-grid' household/bush shack/love shack/AirBnB/Tiny House/remote villages and communities/refugee camps etc. (primary)
• Cooking
• WASH
• Biochar
• - Boil the water (kills pathogens)  then filter with Biochar (removes POPs, microplastics and other nasties)->Permafilter 20L->spent biochar->Bokashi and biochar dual toilet system (1- urine/liquid (add biochar), 2 - poo/solids (add bokashi and biochar))->Nitrogen doped/inoculated (urine) biochar (1) + fermented humanure (2)->added to outdoor composting system eg.plus more bokashi and biochar, liquid sea kelp plus additional Carbon and Nitrogen biomass sources->growing systems eg. Swales/Zai pits, wicking pots, fabric bags etc.->food and medicine
  - A key barter. Scale up and there's the Biochar Carbon Removal credit option with various Carbon Removal Marketplace platforms and dMRV systems to choose from

Operation

• needs to be tested
• • there's a small possibility that the TLUD may need a 100L stockpot
• Water quench
• -After a quench, the water can be recovered as 'smoke water' for watering seedlings, added to a biochar compost pile to keep it moist or for watering plants in growing systems, which has various 'soil food web' biological benefits
  -Alternatively, if the biochar produced from a burn isn't going to be used in a cascade of uses, and doesn't need to be milled (which is normally done before inoculation), in-stockpot biochar inoculation can be performed. The smoke water needs to cool down first. Then, if you can access it, add some liquid kelp and microbiology eg. EM or Popul8 with some molasses (follow container instructions). The inoculated biochar can then be added directly to a compost pile or mixed with aged manure eg.poultry at a 1:1 ratio and added directly into growing systems either as a fertiliser eg.swales/Zai pits or as a complete growing media in wicking pots or recycled PET/PETE fabric bags (I've tested it successfully with basil, salad greens, tomatoes, curly parsley and 2 fig trees)

Total cost ~AUD$255

• $100 50L stainless steel stockpot
• ~$100 if buying new chimney flue
• $10 for mesh (but may need to buy a larger mesh panel and grind a section off)
• $10 wok ring
• $35 20L stainless steel bucket

Alternatively, a much cheaper TLUD (using 2 upcycled 20L oil drums) that can tick all the boxes could be the 'Rock Solid Oil Drum V3 TLUD' with a smaller fuel volume and cost ~AUD$75 (see the 'Rock Solid' page for more detail).

Built with 2 x 20 Litre food grade plastic buckets with lids (which may or may not be BPA free). Water is added to the top bucket and filtered via gravity through stones eg.scoria ->unmilled biochar->medium milled biochar->finely milled biochar->cheesecloth->dripped through a drilled hole pattern within a bottom central and circular footprint. This drilled area matches the diameter of a single hole sawed into the lid of the bottom bucket.  In my system, it takes about 45 minutes for filtration. This time will vary from system to system.