Pellet Boiler from Tarm Biomass is Helping Cafe Solar to Dry Coffee Beans

During the summer of 2010, Richard and Raul from Mesoamerican Development Institute (MDI) paid us a visit with pellets produced from coffee bean waste. We burned some of the fuel in our Multi-Heat 2.5 pellet boiler. The Multi-Heat has a very simple burn process that can handle the higher ash content of the fuel. Burning the coffee bean waste pellets was a success, so a boiler was packed up and shipped to MDI for later shipment to Honduras. MDI has teamed up with Cafe Solar to help coop coffee growers in Central America find better ways in drying their coffee beans. For the past 70 years, coffee has used firewood to dry coffee beans. All of this firewood comes from the local rain forests. It is estimated that Mesoamerica (The area between Central Mexico to Honduras) uses approximately six thousand hectares (almost 15,000 acres) of forest to dry coffee beans each year.
The pellet boiler will help a large solar-powered dryer at the COMISUYL Cooperative located in Subriana, Yoro, Honduras. Here are some images of their processing center. This processing plant does not use any firewood from the rainforest.