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

Fri Dec 2 09:20:42 CST 2011

A very quick response.  I got to run.

I've been looking at localised small scale production here in the UK and 
think the same dynamic often comes into play.

Also, I think it was a friend in Denmark (?)who described, the same 
thing happening with the wood pellet market.  Once the market took off 
large energy companies joined, cut their prices to below cost until all 
the small producers failed then, once they dominated the market, 
increased pricing significantly.

I think that some kind of community enterprise which produces outside 
the normal market is a possible solution to this dynamic.  I'm thinking 
something like community supported agriculture.  Interestingly there are 
some community supported forestry schemes that produce firewood.

I guessing that a community would see the value of supporting such an 
enterprise, be that with money or time.  I'm interested in projects 
where the enterprise is governed by the community, particularly where 
there are low/no barriers to participation.  Other threads can be tied 
to such an enterprise to make it stronger -  alternative currency, 
education etc.

Basing community enterprises on collaborative production of basic needs 
(food and/or fuel) should provide a robust platform from which to build 
a resilient local economy.

Best

Darren

On 02/12/2011 08:36, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote:
>
> Dear Richard
>
> All points noted. I think you will have to accept that the heat 
> content of the fuel is limited by the chemical composition. Grasses 
> are a bit high in ash so they are not as energetic as wood. But that 
> is a quibble.
>
> The wood substitution is a great achievement on any scale. Sweeping up 
> the otherwise wasted charcoal dust and chips is a Good Start, as they 
> say. What usually ruins a host of small businesses processing a 
> resource found in a concentrated area is the entry of a moneyed 
> businessperson into the market with his own transport and vending 
> outlets. It is only a matter of time in Dar if putting a price on the 
> raw material will kill it. As you know I spend decades trying to work 
> out how to protect the tiny business from such moves. In the bread 
> baking industry (small local wood fired bakeries) in the Eastern Cape 
> this played out to a very bad end.
>
> The small bakeries will doing so well and the profits so secure that 
> it began to affect the sales of large bakeries in East London who sold 
> over a huge area including eGcuwa (Butterworth) in the Transkei. 
> Seeing the writing on the wall, and wanting to prevent the local 
> industry becoming so important that it would receive political/legal 
> protection, the bakeries dropped the wholesale price of bread below 
> the  cost of the raw materials /for a year/ until all the local 
> bakeries were out of business. Having killed them, and all the 
> equipment being repossessed from them, they raised the price again 
> higher than before and made all the money back. To them it was just an 
> investment. The population went back to eating 'square bread' from 
> several hours away.
>
> I provoked a similar reaction with the sales of diamond mesh fence 
> making machines. The wire industry realised we had a winning 
> combination of technologies and they had no future in shipping fence 
> from a centralised point. They could not get past the transport 
> inefficiency (compared with bulk plain wire).
>
> The response was to raise the price of plain wire and cut the price of 
> fencing. The total income for them was the same, the viability of the 
> diamond mesh makers was run to the wall. One can make fence and make 
> money, but the profit that would have been made by the central 
> producers selling finished fence was earned from the plain wire. They 
> are big and omnipresent enough to destroy the entire small producer 
> market, even though production technology was demonstrably viable 
> under normal circumstances.
>
> The fuels businesses are in the same boat, potentially. Someone 
> working out where the real market is (say, Europe) for the torrefied 
> or charcoaled or briquetted fuels made from 'waste' will step in and 
> pay enough to get it. End of short story. Raw material producers will 
> benefit, no one else.
>
> The same thing is happening with scrap sheet metal. It is harder and 
> harder to get enough because it is being shipped to China for 
> reprocessing, even from central Zambia and Liberia. Even the DRC 
> though I suspect there is cobalt and diamonds mixed in there with it.
>
> In order to make a large number of metal stoves -- enough to satisfy 
> the whole market, it is not possible to do this without using new 
> material. That has to be addressed sooner or later. One option is clay 
> which is why I spent so much time working on clay material theory and 
> processing in Maputo. It can compete with metal on a local producer 
> scale if the materials are right. It is easier to make high tech 
> ceramics than metal from ore, that's for sure.
>
> There is yet much to be done and plenty of room for everyone.
>
> Regards
>
> Crispin
>
> ++++
>
> Your points taken Crispin,
>
> On the 50% values Insitu --of course: You have a solid point. No lo 
> contestare ! In the form of a hollow core briquette its another story. 
> The heat values we are getting run more in the low 20mjs. The reason 
> has to do with  infra red reflectance within the core durign the burn. 
> Look at the burn again in the  holey briquette rocket stove of rok 
> Oblak It is very  near to a gassifier flame.
>
> On charcoal drying up...that would be worse than beer produciton 
> halting out here. (have seen the latter in the 70's with near riots 
> nationwide..) Thats why Paal and Otto Formo's solution of burning 
> biomass and making char out of it is such a good idea.
>
> Whomever pays for paper or charcoal dust, will almost assuredly kill 
> their briquette business (at least the wet process hand production, 
> microenterprise-based type): It's all very contingent upon getting / 
> adapting blending FREE resources.
>
> I am yet to be convinced that much more than 20% (by dry weight) of 
> waste  charcoal is needed in a biomass briquette, though.
>
> One can be otherwise pyrolising, charring and gassifying a biomass 
> briquette all in one go-- during its actual point of application, 
> especially if the mentioned pre drying pre heating technique is 
> followed.  Nor is paper necessary where you have chopped and well 
> retted field grasses and straws to do the work of binding..
>
> Based on reports from the producers and trainer teams whom we know of 
> here in Tanzania, the direct consequence of briquette production is 
> replacing demand for  about 2000 tons of wood fuel this year--in the 
> going local combination of wood or charcoal. last year it was 298 tons.
>
> We started training producers in 2007 and from them, trainers in 2009.
>
> Kind regards,
>
>  Richard Stanley
>
> Dar
>
>
>
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