[Stoves] Biochar Projects for Science Students

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Richard and All

The charcoal business around Dar really got a boost when Uganda attacked
Tanzania in the last days of Idi Amin. There was a limited capacity to
produce paraffin and diesel. Production of paraffin was basically shut down
to provide fuel for the diesel needed by the military. The result was a
nation-wide paraffin shortage.

Dar Es Salaam was soon having trouble cooking. People went back to charcoal
en masse and the footprint of deforestation expanded suddenly and rapidly.
Wood was also used more as the charcoal price went up. Crematoria in Dar
which use large piles of wood had to hire armed guards to protect their
supplies in order to remain open. It was an 'interesting time'.

What needs to happen in East Africa is afforestation and reforestation
projects of the type seen in Swaziland and Niger, Rwanda and South Africa.
I think Ethiopia is in the same boat. I met people in Addis Ababa who
remember thick forests around the city when they were young. No more.
Malawi is denuded - the view from the air going into Lilongwe is shocking.

The supply of biomass to the charcoal stoves is a sustainable possibility
but it is not being addressed appropriately. There is for example, save in
Swaziland, no 'security of supply' clause in the national energy policy
document that deals specifically with access to biofuels for the poor who
need them. Security of supply always refers to oil products, as if more than
70% of the population did not use wood. If someone knows about a national
energy policy that includes biomass for the poor I would like to hear about
it to add to the collection of successes.

I see several places for mass intervention: replanting and sustainable
forest management, improved charcoal production methods (+80%), the capture
of production waste for briquetting (+50%), the capture of transport and
vending waste for briquetting (+25%) and the use of improved stoves, pots
and cooking techniques (+50%). The combination would more than triple the
amount of food cooked per ton of trees.

Transported wood is relatively expensive even in pellet form so the energy
concentrated fuels will continue to be more widely traded. We should learn
to cope with this reality. And as you say, Richard, local is where it will
be solved.

Regards
Crispin in Singapore


-----Original Message-----

Of course you have disparate efforts here and there but they are no where
near even a blip on the radar screen.  Numbers of trees aside,  it's not
about just planting at this late stage, I'm afraid. The plan for planting
and management of same-- all has to be indigenously driven on a self
sustaining  and readily replicated basis. That and not the tree, or even the
act of planting per se,  is the vernacular I'm talking about.
Richard