[Stoves] Charcoal in Gambia

[rongretlarson at comcast.net]

Crispin, cc list: 

Can you ask Cecil to get a few more price numbers - including loose rice husks, peanut shells, wood sticks and chips, pellets. Anything that can be readily pyrolyzed and is relatively low cost. 

The Gambian prices of about 15 to 20 c/kg ($150-$200/ tonne) are certainly pretty low. However, I hope we can all agree that is not the only thing we should be discussing. What is the social cost of that char? My guess is that it is at least double or maybe triple that number - even before you start looking at the climate implications. Was the input wood for the char grown by the char maker? Not usually in these cases. 

I found (by googling) dozens of news items on the illegal production of charcoal outlawed in Gambia. (Don't google for 'legal" and "charcoal") The same is true in Kenya - which we have also been discussing. Does anyone know of any African country where char production is considered a plus for the economy? Living in Sudan has convinced me that charcoal making is the number one reason for that country's disappointing history. 

I found this at this Gambian planning site < http://www.npc.gov.gm/sectors/energy > 
" One of the key determinants of socio-economic development is the availability of reliable supply of 
affordable sources of energy that impacts directly on poverty. Past experiences suggest a close 
relationship between energy use and poverty reduction through sustainable economic growth. A 
review of the Gambia’s energy sector reveals that the energy resource base of the country is limited 
and the energy supply unreliable and unsustainable. The major source of energy for the whole 
country, according to the Energy Data (1990 – 2004), is fuel wood, which is extracted from the 
country’s forest resources, followed by petroleum products, electricity and renewable energy. Total 
energy consumed in 2004 was 467 thousand Ton Oil Equivalent (TOE). 
Fuel wood consumption account for 374.89 thousand TOE, representing about 82% of all energy 
consumed in the country. The over-reliance of the city and major urban centres on fuel wood 
(firewood and charcoal) is destroying the country’s forest resources and natural vegetation cover at 
an alarming rate, causing general environmental degradation. While these forest resources are 
fetched from the rural areas, the participation of the rural people in the business of fuel wood are 
limited (according to Lahmeyer International Reports) and therefore impacting negatively on the 
poor. In addition, the use of fuel wood has serious negative health implication on women. The 
depletion of the forest cover leading to desertification, would impact negatively on food production, 
which could lead to increased hunger and poverty " 

If the peanut log is 6 Dalasi, your comment below doesn't make sense to me in terms of balancing from the perspective of the user. Your suggested markup by 50% is sort of like saying that the right purchase price of ethanol (with lower fuel content per gallon) is one that is higher per gallon than the price of petrol - doesn't work that way in Colorado. I would be surprised to hear that many of these logs are being sold. I'd like to hear from Richard Stanley or other ag residue briquette makers on how his briquettes are priced in comparison with char.. 

I'll bet the user of a charcoal-making stove can get the cost of cooking a meal down to zero by selling the produced char (of course for putting in the ground) for enough to pay for the (presumed to be very low) cost of input biomass. Of course the economics in favor of a char-making stove is a no-brainer if the input fuel is free, nearby and already being burned as a waste. It also works if soil productivity is raised sufficiently - which seems to be the word coming out of Africa (a doubling?) 

Ron 


----- Original Message -----
From: "Crispin Pemberton-Pigott" <crispinpigott at gmail.com> 
To: "Stoves" <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, August 9, 2011 10:15:54 PM 
Subject: [Stoves] Charcoal in Gambia 




Dear Charcoal Price Observers 

Cecil Cook in the Gambia reports that charcoal is 4 to 5 Dalasi per kg in Banjul (about 27 MJ.kg) 

Peanut shell extruded logs are 6 Dalasi per kg retail to do better than break even (about 19 MJ/kg). 

There are 27 Dalasi per US$. 

Regards 

Crispin 


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