Starter Kit. Idea 422 of 500. Cluster 21
Biomass pellets from the coconut and rice husks for the tea factories' driers
The mechanism, from the book
The sun shines on every roof and the island imports its fuel.
The first step
Visit the managers of two tea factories and ask what fuel their driers burn now, how much they use each month and what they pay per tonne. Then ask the owners of the nearest rice mill and coconut mill what they do with their husks and shells. The proof is a named price from a factory, and a husk supply you can secure below it.
- Who pays first
- A tea factory manager who buys firewood or fuel for the driers every month and wants a steady, cheaper supply that burns evenly.
- What leaves today
- Husks are burned in the open or dumped while factories buy fuel; pellets turn a farm waste into the heat that dries a product the island exports.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Tea Board. Ask which tea factories are looking for cheaper fuel for their driers.
- Coconut Development Authority. Ask where coconut husks and shells are available in volume.
Check before you spend
Environmental approval for making pellets, that the pellets suit the factory's driers, and a supply contract for husks you can rely on.
Find out these three numbers
- What do tea factories pay per tonne of fuel?
- What do mills do with their husks now?
- What does a pellet machine cost?
A comparison from the book
Zermatt's taxis. Chapter Five
"the money spent on them stays close to home rather than leaving for a factory in another country"
Fuel made from local husks keeps the money a factory spends on drying close to home.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.