[Stoves] re Charcoal in Ganbia

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Stovers with a Sense of Duty

 

As Ron (as usual) and Paal (as usual) have both taken time out of their busy
days to make derogatory comments about me mixed together with partially
informed (as we all are) and incomplete proposals to interfere with the
natural, economic and social environments of whole nations, I will take the
time to make an extended comment on the subject of charcoal, its production
and use.

 

>Biochar has come to be, no doubt about that, and what happen in Cambia is
what will happen allover as long as you have charcoal fans like Crispin and
others. 

 

Paal, you are (again) quite out of line to blame me for what happened to the
forest in the Gambia. It is not helping your argument to turn erect a straw
man of your choosing to knock down. You should listen more carefully to what
I write, not just fling words at me and others who do not agree with your
sweeping partial arguments made in support of your stove product. Your
enthusiasm to assist the people on the ground is overcoming the social
restraint needed to discuss the implications for societies of the grand
schemes thought up on their behalf.

 

>People are desperate for money. 

 

Yes, but are they more desperate for money than we are to promote our
favourite solutions to their problems? Perhaps not. Can’t be sure. So also
the people in also the financial district in London where they burn (your)
money to implement their favourite schemes.

 

>The low prices of charcoal will lead to more use of forest, probably short
time cheaper household energy, but also competition about the resources for
production of charcoal. 

 

The first question to ask is why the price is still so low if there is no
forest to cut down. Two reason stand out: it is not from Gambia, and people
can’t afford to pay more (though there are 1/3 higher prices in the richer
parts of Banjul). So that is a supply-side argument, and an absolute poverty
argument. As it tends to, the market sorted out what the price should be.
The charcoal market exists because it is financially viable and the
resources are there.

 

>The women of Richards will loose their material for making briquettes with
the enormous quantities char needed for soil improvement.

 

Let me rephrase that: the briquette makers are now using a variety of
materials and processing them into briquettes. Char dust is one ingredient.
At the moment there is nearly no competition for this resource – it is lying
on the ground at the markets. The amount of char needed to achieve a
meaningful amount of soil improvement is large.

 

If the special conditions needed to turn cooking char into soil amendment
exist, it may be in Rwanda. Nat is implementing an experiment there on a
large enough scale that it can be viewed as a test bed, an experiment. If it
succeeds or fails does not mean it is automatically possible to do it
somewhere else. There are many factors at play in something that complex. I
hope it works because in theory it is a great plan. I also hope that it is
not dependent on ‘carbon trading’ (CO2 offset selling) to be economically
viable because there are many unintended consequences that emerge from
subsidised behaviours.

 

>Taken into consideration the fact, the losses of combustible gases lost by
production of charcoal,  could nearby cover the need of household energy for
people using charcoal for cooking. 

 

This has always been true. Let’s stick with tree charcoal for a moment. The
difficulty has been to deal with the reality of where the wood is, where the
charcoal use is, and to overcome the huge logistical problems of moving the
tree logs from where they are to where the cooking is done (mostly cities),
chopping and drying them into a size suited to the stoves and to producing
stoves on a meaningful scale that can cook acceptably using the available
material. We are not talking yet about making char, we are talking about the
energy ‘lost’ turning wood into charcoal and cooking with the result.

 

Paal, you have several times stated that the losses are huge and, in effect,
proposed that if the wood were instead put into a stove to make charcoal,
and perhaps burn that too, there would be a gain in energy available. You
have offered numbers that suggest the very low charcoal conversion
efficiency and cooking efficiency indicate that charcoal as a fuel should be
banned completely. I have countered with an alternative solution and
alternative analysis. I suggest that the conversion efficiency of charcoal
can easily and inexpensively be increased a great deal – approximately
tripled. The solutions already exist. Next, the waste from the present
production process should not be left I the forests and fields but sent to
town as well to go into briquette production. That would increase the net
efficiency. Then I proposed that the stoves be increased in cooking
efficiency by approximately 100% - solutions exist here too.

 

I have also described in detail the calculated energy flow showing that even
at present, there is not much difference between cooking with an inefficient
wood fire and charcoal, taking the original tree into consideration as the
raw material. The reason is simple: crummy charcoal stoves are much more
efficient than crummy wood stoves. When one contemplates (fantasizes) that
the charcoal production and cooking are done using much better technologies
and skill, the charcoal fire again comes out looking very good compared with
wood. Why? Because high quality, consistent, high carbon fuels are more
efficient than inconsistent wooden branches. Because cities do not (yet)
produce enough domestic energy fuels, ‘energy carriers’ are imported from
outside. Charcoal has more energy density (29.7 MJ/kg) so it is cheaper to
transport. It is also much easier to load and unload, and easier to
transport by bicycle. It is more profitable to move on any scale and thus
the impact of providing the energy can be spread over a larger geographical
region. It can involve more people in the energy business as a part-time
occupation spreading the money farther. Everything that works against these
benefits will have negative consequences for people and the environment so
be careful what you propose as sweeping changes to whole communities.

 

>By changing to charcoal-producing TLUD stoves, whatever Crispin will try to
tell us, you will utilize this gases for cooking and in addition have about
20% char left, which could go back to soil improvement. 

 

This of course has nothing to do with the argument that the energy ‘lost’
producing charcoal (outside town) could be used for cooking. It is a
separate argument. Let us examine it.

 

A TLUD stove uses wood or other biomass to cook. A top-lit up-draft stove
does not necessarily produce charcoal so we have to be clear: some TLUD’s
produce cooking heat and ash, some produce cooking heat and if operated
correctly at the end of the burn, leave unburned charcoal in various
amounts. Top-lighting is an ignition technique and has been used for
centuries to make low-smoke fires. Boy Scouts used it when I was young. It
produces a smoke burning fire. Now that the stove body encloses the fire, it
has become controllable to the point that the flame is primarily a
non-carbon burning one which turns out to be very easy to make clean and
hot. About ½ the carbon in the fuel is burned, the other half is not – but
only with some stoves. It is not inherent in a TLUD. IT is inherent in
certain designs. The initial attraction was not to the char, it was to the
very low smoke level that was measured. ‘TLUD’s burn clean!’ was the cry
from the lab. Well, yeah, they usually do. Now, how about burning all the
fuel? After all, the main energy content of biomass fuel is in the carbon.

 

Not all the TLUD’s are good at burning the carbon (we are still talking
about air-dried wood as a fuel). They had a lot of totally dry char left
over which contained a significant percentage of the original heat content.
If 20% of the original mass of the fuel is left, it will be about 0.5% ash
and 85-90% Carbon with an energy content of about 30 MJ/kg which is about
40% of the original heat content. The proposal is that the TLUD stove cook
with the same raw fuel (wood that use to be charcoaled) and that 40% of the
heat will be lost, but charcoal will remain. I have pointed out that if you
do not increase the thermal efficiency of the stove by more than enough to
compensate for this loss, more fuel will have to be gathered to put into the
stove to finish cooking. You can’t take energy out without a compensating
increase in efficiency.

 

To recap: you have delivered wood to the city and it has about 16 MJ/kg. You
can burn it directly in a fire at a certain efficiency.  Or you can turn it
into chunks suitable for TLUD stoves and use about 10 MJ of the heat,
leaving 6 MJ in the form of charcoal. That is the alternative offer. Well,
to cook with the same amount of fuel the TLUD stove will have to be 1.6
times more efficient than the wood stove. If someone offers an improved wood
stove, say 35% efficient, the TLUD will have to be 56% efficient to compete
on an energy basis. That is a steep challenge but, possible I would say. I
just haven’t seen it yet.

 

To get out 25% or 30% charcoal only makes the challenge more
.challenging!

 

Then comes the argument (confessing that the efficiency challenge is
impossible) that switching to other forms of biomass will fill in the
missing raw fuel requirement. The proposal is that non-woody biomass can be
used instead of wood so the efficiency challenge is avoided. Paal, this is
your main argument: don’t burn wood at all, burn something else. But as you
also pointed out, this creates demand for the raw materials people making
briquettes from non-woody biomass also want. OK, for the moment let’s
suppose those biomass resources exist in some communities for at least part
of the year. 

 

There are two proposals: burn the fuel completely, or burn it and extract
the charcoal. The same argument above applies: show that you have enough
fuel (we agree there is for the moment) to overcome the ‘inefficiency’ of
subtracting 40% of the energy in the form of char. Arguments resting on PM
and smoke do not apply because we have all sorts of clean burning stoves
around these days. This is purely an energy question. Assuming the biomass
exists, there is a net gain in the available energy supply. No doubt about
it. Whether or not it is char burning or producing only changes the amount
of input material needed.

 

>You would have a win/win situation. By changing from charcoal to TLUD, you
will have more energy, better health, higher agriculture yields, forest
conservation , more jobs, better household economy. What more do you ned?

 

We would have a win-win. It is not necessary to ‘change to a TLUD’ we need
to make char producing stoves. I do not want to limit inventers to one type
of stove layout. Any non-woody biomass burning stove can deliver the
win-win. The TLUD is one way of doing that, assuming the biomass is
available. We could even produce char, we could collect it (additional
energy), we could sent it to the fields (additional energy), we could still
cook. Great.

 

When proposing this great idea we have NO IDEA what the unintended
consequences of the proposed transformation will be, only the fantasized
intended consequences. That is why they are called ‘unintended
consequences’. As we move into the field, our fantasies may be turned into
realities, and at the same time the unintended consequences will also emerge
to be dealt with, if possible.

 

The first reality is that the biomass energy does not exist in some places.
It is sometimes already being burned whole (Harare), turned into briquettes
(Nairobi?), or recycled into the gardens and fields (everywhere). That
problem could be overcome by importing it from rural areas but the cost per
unit of benefit is much higher than with wood of charcoal because of volume
and the low energy density. The viable radius is small(er). From an energy
audit point of view it would be far better for rural folk to turn their
biomass into charcoal pellets and ship them efficiently to the city. But
that promotes charcoal! Oh dear! And we have been told charcoal is bad. And
what about the wasted energy in the grass-charring process? Well, I said
above that we are assuming the biomass exists for this so let’s char it as
an alternative. 

 

Stop charcoaling trees, and charcoal non-woody biomass. How does that look?
Looks pretty good! No trees cut, charcoal pellets produced (a-la-AD Karve)
and can be done on a small scale. Still involves charcoal trade to the
cities, but this time no tree cutting involved. The work can be spread over
a larger area than with raw biomass (more transport efficient). It basically
comes down to a choice of moving large amounts of raw biomass, or processed
high-carbon fuels. Obviously the processed fuels are going to be more
efficient. Given that all good high carbon fuel stoves are inherently more
efficient than all good raw biomass fuel stoves (for chemical and combustion
reasons) it makes the most sense for the most people to use charcoal
processed in a rural area using non-woody biomass. 

 

Quite separately, it people want to put char into the ground (the biomass
existing to supply both cooking and biochar) they can avoid the complexities
and costs of bring it from the cities by creating char in the rural area and
applying it directly to the soil. That is far more efficient.

 

Next, let’s assume the needed biomass does not exist to supply the city’s
cooking needs and a growing biochar demand. In short, the city dwellers will
burn anything they can to completion, and never send char out of the city as
it is fuel. The rural folk will only send into the city enough energy to
provide income for their needs or only spare fuel. It might be processed
charcoal, it might be whole biomass, but it will be what is left over.

 

Whether or not one uses a TLUD or advanced stove or raw wood or processed
pellets, it is pointless to be against charcoal. It is like being ‘against
energy’. Everyone is against wasteful energy use, wasteful charcoal
production, wasteful wood burning, wasteful transport models, wasteful
cooking methods.

 

Ron asks:

 

>If charcoal making is so great for the economy - why is production illegal?


 

I think the real answer is pressure from people who see the disappearance of
the forests. The forests (or savannah forests) are disappearing because the
creation of managed woodlots turns out not to be a very high priority. This
is a long-standing problem. The trees could easily be replaced but they are
not. Some countries have addressed this. Niger is one. Canada is another, so
has Swaziland. 

 

Everyone complains about the disappearance of trees and no one does much
practical to replace them even though it has been known for quite a while
that trees can be replanted. The story of community managed forestry is not
very encouraging though I remain convinced that it is the long term
solution, as the Brits found out in the 1500’s.

 

>Second the cost we should be talking about should involve externalities -
not just its availability because people have no other employment.  

 

Rural people are ‘an externality’ in terms of food pricing, dumping
practices, unfair global trade rules and pro-urban political pressures. City
people are not automatically better or more deserving people. Why are they
there? They have been driven off the land because it is hopelessly
uneconomic to remain there in miserable rural poverty. Many political
parties encourage this because they see the future of humanity as urban. The
more cynical say they do it because they are easier to control in the
cities. The urban poor (our target market) are ‘an externality’ of the
failure to address the needs of the rural masses. Promoting the further
diminution of the rural economy is not going to help anyone.


>I still maintain that Gambia is probably being ruined from people breaking
the law.  

 

A friend of mine (not Cecil) said he saw charcoal production 150 metres from
the office (in Banjul) responsible for preventing charcoal production in the
Gambia. Banning something usually means the price goes up, not that it is
actually banned. It is banned because of pressure from outsiders who believe
that making something illegal will produce a different outcome for the
forest without having to address the need to change people’s attitude to the
law. There are PV solar electric feed-in tariffs in Germany but not in Italy
for the same reason.

 

And Biochar production in pyrolysis stoves by these same unemployed folk can
be accomplished by people like me paying for taking atmospheric carbon out
of their (and my atmosphere.  

 

Those are two quite different issues. A rural family that collects biomass
now and that changes to a pyrolysing stove will have to collect more
biomass, unless the stove is more efficient (see above). The management of
funds (subsidies) is fraught with problems in an environment where the
office in charge of preventing charcoal making has a charcoal production
business 150 metres from its own head office. Think.

 

>Partly this can be done locally, but also these same unemployed can plant
and manage trees.  

 

Those places which tried managed forestry have a spotty record, and I think
there is a big future in it. It would be more efficient to turn some of the
forest into char for local agriculture and to ship whole or processed fuel
to the cities.

 

>The same tree used as wood can probably cook for 4 to 5 times as many
people (I have seen the number 7).  And the properly managed tree (and its
roots) will not be savaged - but rather coppiced.



I would like to see those numbers in a detailed form. I am suspicious that
the stoves efficiency, good stove efficiency, has not been factored properly
into the equation. People tend to pick the worst case with which to compare
their best case scenarios. Stoves and fuels are hugely complex and huge in
scale. Making sweeping technology changes without first hearing from the
social scientists is plainly foolish. The number of urban people a rural
tree can cook for might well be 4-7 times more in some cases, but that is
not the whole energy equation – and the argument has been made on a whole
equation basis. I don’t think there is any denying that. The proposal has
big differences showing partial equations tacked onto holistic arguments.

 

>There is a good reason for most laws and I hate to see the subject of
illegal charcoal making going undiscussed.



What would you like to say about it? It is like banning bread and saying,
“Let them, rather, eat cake.”

 

>Thanks for the report below that Bakari has used the phrase  "very big
improvement" from Biochar  I hope he can give us more detail.  

 

Cecil might be able to provide details. I see that George of the
Disappearing Jungle also knows my e-buddy.  Cecil visited his garden to get
a firsthand report. 

 

>I don't know whether that is 20% (very big in this country) or 200%.(which
I am hearing a lot in Africa).  The difference can start with the rural
stove.

I take it then you are not against charcoal in general? Would you make trade
in TLUD-stove char legal? That would be like legalizing elephant ivory if
the elephant died of natural causes. When caught with tusks, people will
claim the elephant died of ‘natural causes’, to wit, ‘lead poisoning’. It
was a mistake to ban charcoal production, when they really wanted to ban
tree cutting. There is a big difference. Perhaps we should lobby for the
lifting of the charcoal making ban and ban tree cutting. No? Wouldn’t work?
People would cut trees anyway? Quell surprise. The solution is planting and
managing, not banning. It is a supply-side production problem, not an energy
shortage problem. Running out of energy does not change the nature of the
cause of the problem. It is secondarily an energy efficiency problem. By
that I mean there is a demand-side partial solution to supply-side problem.

 

Joyfully, the stoves that burn most efficiently also produce the least PM
and CO! I see all the elements of a win-win-win-win solution: faster,
cleaner cooking, renewable energy self-sufficiency, rural employment and
improving agriculture. Proposals dealing with these complex issues should
include the whole energy equation.

 

Regards

Crispin

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20110812/4356040e/attachment.html>