[Stoves] re Charcoal in Ganbia

[Xavier Brandao]

To Crispin: Ahah, I've seen the police headquarters about the same distance
from a big camp of oil smugglers. Being outlaw is very relative.

" 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."
Right. The best and only way to banish charcoal is to propose something
better. Here in Benin, people from the cities are (very very slowly
unfortunately) leaving charcoal for gas. Gas suppliers will always do 100
times better than any charcoal prohibition agency in changing people's
behaviour. I don't deny the use of prohibitive laws. In some cases they are
useful. In some cases they are the only way. In Benin, people have been
prohibited to drive their motorbikes without wing-mirror. It was a bit
painful at first but people changed habit. Now, every motorbike has a
wing-mirror. People still do not wear helmets, but that is another battle.
The goal of prohibiting something is to change a habit under constraint, and
make people realize how the new alternative is actually pretty good, and how
the former habit was actually pretty bad. They will realize that a
wing-mirror is indeed useful, and will be like: "how did we do before?".

Forbidding charcoal is in my opinion counter-productive. Other and better
alternatives exist, but they are not mature yet. Not nation-wide. We have in
Benin, at the moment and once again, gas supply shortages. In the wealthiest
households, people re-use the good old charcoal stoves. In less wealthy
household, they never stopped using them, for cultural reasons. We could
force people to use gas in town, if supply was ensured for everyone. At the
same time, campaigning would be needed to show that, yes, gas is less
expensive than charcoal, and no, gas does not always make houses explode.

If we need to offer other alternatives before any prohibition, the question
is: can we now or in the coming years replace all charcoal use by another
fuel use?

Can charcoal be replaced by gas in a developing country, in this case in
Benin? Yes, and I think one day we'll have gas stoves/plates everywhere, or
perhaps electric plates, just like in Europe. It will take a lot of
improvement in supply, so hungry towns can be supplied continuously first,
and improvement in logistics in the country, so rural people can have access
to it. It will take a lot of advertising to fight bad habits and
misunderstandings. Something must be done about price. Gas will be too
expensive for rural people who have access to cheap wood nearby. Since oil
prices (and then gas prices) will certainly continue to go up on the long
term globally. Since, at least in Benin, the government has decided to raise
fuel prices because they didn't reflect the reality.
Or perhaps economic development and enrichment of people is also an engine
for a switch in fuel use. We need social scientists and historians able to
explain the great structural changes in energy consumption in developed
countries. And see if developing countries will take the same road, with
ever increasing gas prices. In Europe in the 20th century, population became
richer while gas prices were ever-decreasing.
In France, gas use in towns via a network of pipes started in the 19th
century. It was used for public lighting, was progressively replaced by
electricity. Gas started to be used massively for cooking. Now, according to
Wikipedia, France had in 2006: 687 TWh gas transported, 185 000 kms of
pipes, 9100 communes (municipalities) connected.
Did it start yet in Benin? I don't think so, I'm not sure they have plans
for that. I have the feeling we are far far far away from having city gas
supplied to every house. In Cotonou, it would take decades. In the Great
North of the country, I can't even imagine it.

So now, we still have to deal with charcoal some years. Even people from
rural areas seem to switch from wood to charcoal. What to do? Alternative
biomass fuels, with briquettes and TLUD stoves would be great. But I am not
sure could be produced/collected an amount of these fuels equivalent to the
charcoal production. I may be wrong. Or perhaps this biomass, such as waste
biomass, is available in enough quantity. But then it needs to be bring
first from rural agricultural regions to urban regions. That is what I was
saying in one my previous messages on this list: provide the fuel supply
first, before selling the stove. Before the briquette stove can be sold
everywhere, briquettes must be available everywhere, that is a lot of work.

So that's why I think reducing charcoal consumption is at the moment the
first and best step to take. Especially as a small entrepreneur. Not in
terms of "money making", but in terms of "what is the best I can do
socially/environmentally/climatly with my dire straits". Obviously, I don't
have the means to import Russian or Algerian gas and distribute it to urban
population in Benin. I leave that to big companies, such as Oryx, the main
supplier for Benin (http://www.addax-oryx.com).

That's why I want to produce charcoal stoves. I think it is the best way to
impact consumption, even if they don't create an incentive for a change of
fuel. For example, I'd prefer to reduce 50% of the charcoal consumption of 4
million people with charcoal-efficient stoves than to suppress 100%
consumption of 200 000 people with briquette stoves or biogas facilities. It
will be 10 times less charcoal consumed. I use these figures just as an
example. Briquette and biogas are great and must be developed, but that
would be my second step. I hope other entrepreneurs will do that.

Now there's another question that needs to be addressed, and I don't really
have an opinion about that. I wanted to ask this question to the stove list,
I mentioned it when I was talking about skirts for efficient gas stoves.

To what extent do I prevent people from changing to a cleaner fuel, when I
promote a good and efficient charcoal stove?

I think this question is fundamental. What is the name, in economy, of that
phenomenon? Does anyone know good studies about that? I know the concept of
suppressed demand, but it is when people limitate their consumption because
of scarce economic resources. When they earn money, the demand is not
suppressed anymore, they start consuming.
When I was talking to the people of the GTZ in Benin last year, I was told
they preferred to promote wood stoves, and then to work in rural areas,
because wood consumption is more efficient and less destructive than
charcoal consumption. Everyone seems to agree here, even on the list
(right?). So for them, by promoting a wood stove, and if I understood well,
some people could go from charcoal to wood. They'd rather do that than
making wood users use charcoal. So that's why they put most of their efforts
on wood stoves and rural areas. So the GTZ also seemed to aknowledge this
phenomenon: by promoting a stove, you promote its fuel. To what extent? How
to measure that?

But the charcoal market remains. In Africa, it is the cities, it is huge.
You can promote the best wood stove, not sure people of the cities will drop
charcoal. How to reach them if not with charcoal stoves, or a more modern
fuel?

When I was visiting the institutions and promoting the institutional rocket
wood stove, I saw some kitchen had gas plates. Sometimes a whole kitchen.
And somehow they stopped using them. "Too expensive" "not good for big pots"
"we had problems with supply". Sometimes some stupid administrative problems
prevented them from using gas (I couldn't have more details than that). A
military camp sure cannot rely on a fuel that knows shortages (gas). Wood
comes from ever depleting forests maybe, but for now they are still here.
And gas is not yet here.

But what if, one day, I come into an institution where, well, they were
hesitating to change fuel. They used to cook on crappy wood stoves, lot of
smokes, diseases, pretty dirty and expensive. And they saw they could have
good gas plates, that gas supply was now more reliable, and the fuel quite
cheap. What if I come, with my nice, clean and efficient wood stove. The
opportunity presents itself, they grab it and forget about gas. I'll be
responsible for making an institution continue to use less wood, but still
some wood. Instead of letting this institution stop its depletion of natural
resources. I often ask myself this question.
What keeps me going is that I think there's a lot of inertia in Beninese
institutions. Changes take years. I see that gas supply can still be scarce.
I am sure they would go on using a lot of wood. So, on the short-term, a
maximum of these institutions should have efficient stoves. Even if because
of my action, a handful of them will abandon their project to switch to gas.

I think the choice of a "side" in this debate, "for charcoal" or "against
charcoal", really depends on one's analysis of the situation and how one's
answers the above-mentioned question.

Regards,

Xavier