Playing with fire

I’ve been back for nearly seven weeks now, and I’m getting into something of a routine again. However, it’s a little different than I had expected. This semester was supposed to be my crazy-busy academics semester, with two loads of classes, thesis research, and thesis writing. Thus far, that hasn’t really been the case.

The Master’s of Renewable Energy program actually starts in February, so when I came in August I was jumping into a program during the second semester. These next few months I will be doing the first semester classes with the new incoming group of students while also doing the third semester of specialization courses (bioenergy for me) with the students from last semester.

I have one load of classes that has started…to some degree. The first semester courses began on February 2, but I am only taking 4 out of 5 of them since I knocked out one last semester. The third semester courses (a total of three courses) were originally going to be taught by visiting Norwegian professors in blocks of two weeks. However, it now looks like that won’t work for their schedules, so we are scrambling to find African professors (one might come up from Dar Es Salaam) to teach those courses. In other words, classes are not yet taking much time.

That leaves me with research, which, actually, has been taking up the majority of my time since coming back. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, my research revolves around the use of biochar as a soil amendment. Biochar is basically charcoal that is mixed with soil for agricultural purposes. The last few weeks have been spent making several different types of char which will then be compared in a greenhouse experiment.

The last two weeks have been especially hectic, which accounts for the lack of recent blog posts. The reason – Tracy arrives today and I needed to get all of my experiments to a point where I can leave them for 10 days…because the last thing I’m going to make her do is come here and watch me do research! The good news: I managed to get everything done that I needed to do! I'm now free to take a few days away from experiments and the university.

I’ve included a few pictures from the last couple weeks to try and show what I've been up to.

As I look toward the next three months, I will need to complete all seven classes, obtain my experimental data, and write my thesis in order to finish the program. Will it happen? Hopefully! The biggest challenge will be battling the bureaucracy at Makerere to make this process go faster than it’s supposed to…something that rarely (if ever) happens over here. Wish me luck!!!

Cheers!
Chris




Taking a picture as I use my charcoal kiln to make char out of groundnut (peanut) shells


Peaking into my kiln during the char-making process


The Makerere Faculty of Technology technicians...I would have been lost without these guys! The gasifier that we used for experiments is in the background.


The gasifier takes biomass and turns into a gas that can be burned. Since our unit is just an experimental one, we burn off the gas immediately at exit. This is the sign of a successful run...always something I enjoyed seeing!


The charcoal had to be ground to pass a sieve for my use. Naturally, the grinding has to be done by hand over here...these are the results