[Stoves] HEDON Newsletter (30/11/2011)

Thu Dec 1 15:57:23 CST 2011

Dear Crispin,
Interesting argument but I feel that you leave out one very critical element in your assessment: 
Your assumption that the fuel ( as charcoal ) has to be transported is, I assume, based on the fact that one cannot go around making charcoal in the cities. Fine but in comparing that to biomass fuel –at least the kind being made by the  wet ,low pressure, ambient temperature process–you left out the fact that (quite unlike charcoal),   wet process non wood biomass briquettes  can be –and usually are–produced  very close to the point of consumption, whether the market is Urban, peri Urban,  or Rural.  

The issue of transport does not figure into the equation for the biomass briquette producer because of lower energy densities, although the difference is hardly 50%, when comparing well made agro residue briquettes to lump charcoal. 
viz., charcoal blend briquette fire in the dark kitchen of Mariette Kusaga's Three ways cafe, Lushoto Tz. for making chapaties: 

Non charcoal agroresidue& paper based  briquettes heating water for tea in Ashland oregon,  (top  and isometric frontal isometric views in Rok Oblak's iteration of a holey rocket stove).   

The issue of transport does not figure into  the equation mainly because few would tend to attempt widespread distribution to distant markets,  when the product is so easily replicated just  about anywhere there is human habitation and a viable local market demand for solid fuel. Small is not only beautiful but logically linmited  by common sense. 

Where a charcoal form of heat is preferred, the local producer will just sweep up the waste crumbs and dust (15 to 20% generally) that accrues  just from the handling of the charcoal (just from the truck to the  retailer(s)  and on to the customer.

Charcoal is of course here to stay though, but even if the cost of lump charcoal goes up, the wastes tend to remain just that.  

Pressing on in the harbor of peace, Tanzania,

Richard Stanley
www.legacyfound.org

==============

On Dec 1, 2011, at 6:35 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote:

> Dear Vetle
> >Does anyone have any thoughts of how the charcoal business will react when more efficient or other fuel -consumption stoves are available in urban areas.
> 
> >I guess some people will always lose economical  in the end. producer, transporter, distributor or consumer?
> 
> >any known project including this issue?
> 
> The excellent description of the energy source and use given by Paal the other day and the similar post more or less addressed to me two weeks ago (which I have not had time to answer yet) describes the principle opportunity: the energy exists in some form, and it is sufficient to meet present needs.
> 
> The challenge is to deliver that energy in the forms wanted by people who are going to make use of the resource. Clearly the Peko Pe type stove is one option for at least a portion of those needs.
> 
> One of the difficulties faced by people living in rural areas is generating enough cash to buy things they cannot make for themselves including matches, candles, buckets, batteries, shoes, soap, school books and things like cement and window panes. Just about everyone wants to get some cash for these basic necessities. Charcoal is one of the most reliable things they can produce with zero investment. It is a knowledge product though not usually described as such. Yes it uses biomass, but that is considered to be a community resource in nearly all places and “what belongs to everyone can belong to me.” It’s free.
> 
> Our market research into attitudes towards wood stoves in an urban environment found that people perceive wood to be a ‘free fuel’ even when they are paying for it. That was unexpected. It will be difficult in say, Zambia, to change the attitude that wood is free as long as they are not paying for it, and even if they are, the attitude will be that it ought to be free for quite a long time.
> 
> There are three sets of people financially affected by the charcoal industry (excluding the end users): the producers, the transporters and the re-sellers (there are usually two levels of reselling). Many vendors in Maputo contract with a transporter to move what they buy in the field. The transporter is not a charcoal owner, just a transporter with a price per km. They do not mind what they transport. This may not be the case in all markets but it is common.
> 
> If you switch to wood or non-woody biomass the total amount transported will be greater (total tonnage). Looking at the macro-economics, there will be more transport involved because biomass contains about ½ the energy per ton (compared with charcoal). Whatever is going on in the city, the transport cost of the energy supply will double. So the relevant question is, what is the transport value or the transport % of the fuel’s cost at the delivery end? If the transport is 60% of the retail price, the impact is pretty strong.
> 
> Transport 60, charcoal 40 = 100. Double transport: 120, charcoal 40 = 160 which is a 60% rise in cost to the end user for energy.
> 
> In order for energy costs not to rise (and that means we are not talking about a saving at all) the device that uses the biomass stove must deliver a fuel saving compared with the charcoal-using stove. Remember that there are improved charcoal stoves and that is the proper baseline if one is talking about fuel switching, not stove improving.
> 
> To date I have not seen any paper that discusses the impact of a large scale fuel switch and some comparison between the performance of the TLUD-type stoves and the improved charcoal stoves. It is quite legitimate to ask what the cost effect on the city will be if the fuel was changed. Because the questions have not been answered (at all, as far as I can tell) the impact remains unknown.
> 
> At this time the best sure-win is to promote the TLUD-type stoves and others that burn a variety of biomass to those with easy access to the fuel(s) and a low income. Cecil Cook found that the people most likely to have problems buying fuel are those recently arrived from the rural areas, often driven there by poverty, death in the family, lack of opportunity at home and any of a host of other reasons. They are more likely to scrounge fuel (wood). They also tend to live at the periphery, at the peri-urban peri-rural interface. They have at least some direct access to the biomass.
> 
> The other group with immediate potential is of course rural families who can use the plentiful resource. A question is, will they prefer to do that and then turn the wood they used to harvest into charcoal to raise some cash? If the cost of getting biomass to the urban customers, or if those customers refuse to deal with the product, the urban charcoal market will persist and probably grow. This strategy is not a crazy one. Fuel switch where the resource is plentiful and sell the savings into a transport-efficient cash economy in the form of efficiently produced charcoal.
> 
> Producing charcoal efficiently and reducing losses in the system would release a huge amount of biomass (raw resources) at the producer end of the chain. What should be done with that fuel? Should it be left to rot? It might be 50% of the current consumption so it is a huge amount of material.
> 
> An alternative strategy is this: improve production of charcoal 30% and use only inputs that are not needed locally (local to the producer who has switched to a bulk biomass burner). Improve the charcoal stoves in the urban area by 30%. That results in a 30% drop in consumption by the cook, a 30% saving on fuel cost, a similar drop in transport traffic, and a 60% drop in the off-take of trees/branches (combination of 30% more production per ton and 30% less demand). That leads to only a 30% drop in income for the producer.
> 
> If the producers absolutely need the cash income, how will they respond? Will they lower the price and  produce more to compensate? Will they live on less? Can they? Although Paal’s macro view of the energy supply is valid, like AD Karve’s, individual responses to a loss of income will lead to unexpected consequences.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Crispin
> 
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