If it’s the plant matter that makes it a good fuel, why not collect plant matter to burn?
Plus, it comes out round and compact. How much easier could it be?
Q
Green plant material that herbivores typically eat would not burn, if you dried it out it would burn really well, for about five to ten seconds.
We do already. In Germany, Rapeseed is sown and harvested for many things, including fuel.
I think you may be thinking on a larger scale, Antigen, right?
I admit I don’t know what other plants would make a good source of fuel, but if we’re already looking for oil in sand, what does that tell us?
Thanks
Q
Because it is less work to let the animals collect the plant matter and compress it into slow burning lumps.
I don’t know, maybe those of you who are around horse shit all the time think it’s fine…I think it’s all pretty gross myself.
Burning cat pee is bad, really, really bad. I know this because of a cat that peed on the (cold) electric fire. The smell once it was turned back on – at breakfast time, when we were all getting ready for school/work – was unbearable.
Because this way your cow gets nutrition and you have fuel. Also, cow dung is easier to collect than firewood, which can often be far away from the village or group, and it’s a renewable resource.
Then what would the animals eat you need for transport and work (horses, camels)?
And as mentioned it’s too wet. (You can see how animals are adapted to dry areas when they produce dry shit like horses and camels, compared to cows who make wet shit because they live in moist areas).
It’s also much more simple and economical to collect the waste from your animals (which are nearby anyway) then run around a barren steppe trying to collect dry twigs or a few bushels of hardy grass.
That’s not really the same: it’s a plant that produces a lot of oil, the oil is then processed into bio-diesel. They are not cut off and thrown onto a fire, which the OP was thinking off.