[Stoves] (stoves) Haitian cooking

[Richard Stanley]

Paal, 
I could not agree more with your figures. 

Briquette consumption is similar: It hovers in around 2 - 3 bqs a day 400 - 450 grams per person per day in the coastal to say 4000 ft tropical climes. (depends a lot on blend and processing skills). The briquettes according to ex-president Clinton in Haiti a year ago, were the One Cent solution meaning one cent per briquette.  

The big joke was that the real cost was probably about 3 times that if you were to pay real wages there, unsubsidised by the good UNDP which had jumped in totally ignorant of the process and impact and real market in which the "beneficiaries" were to  function.

Since 2000 when Ben Bryant and I first introduced it there, Haitians have been producing bqs on their on and training others to do so, albeit in small and often very isolated groups. We are seeking a way to return to try to help them to network together as their own a Haitain Briquette network for  their access and contribution to R&D, training techniques and market promotion, etc, as we have in east Africa.  Some of the most ingenious presses have come out of Haiti thru Haitian engineers and entrepreneurs. The people are clever and resourceful. We do not need to cook up ways to import more solutions.  We can help unveil what they have already and help them show their face there  and regionally, as viable cost effective as training resources . Can we add something by way of technology and quantitative testing and emissions and thermal data? Sure but only in the context of what they have to work with, if you want to see sustained impact.  
 

Paal, you asked what the price of pellets was. I don't have a clue but I can tell you what  hand produced briquettes need to cost to make it a going concern: Their production cost will almost always settle out at between 10 and 15% of one worker's daily wage no matter which press (of the 25 odd different designs out there) is used .  Thats for the 'garden variety' (thats appropo eh), 130~140 gram, 10cm Ø  x7cm tall cylinder with a 1.25 to 1.4"Ø hole in its center. The cost of production is well over 90% dependent upon labor cost. Two to three of these (per above) will be needed per person per day--in the typical family cooking environment.   In a wage rate setting of $2 USD a day, the cost per bq is 2 to 3 cents or, 6 to 9 cents per person per day x ? 6 , or,  36 to 54 cents per family per day. Its pretty much linear in this range so...
If a briquette is being made for one cent by manual processes, on a continuing basis, it is usually either being subsidised or done by some form of indentured labor.

Don't know why I went off on all this but your  question about the price for pellets got me thinking about the development game and real development, Paal. 
And in all this if it can be burned in-situ without going to the trouble of briquetting all the better ! 

Thanks,

Richard
Ashland,
 NW Obamaland


 
On Jun 29, 2011, at 12:10 AM, Paal wendelbo wrote:

> If the consumption of charcoal is 2,27 kg a day will that represent about 15-16 kg of firewood
> ( 7kg  wood gives 1kg charcoal) and that’s more like the consumption in African countries for a household of 5,  about 450gr. per person a day. No doubt the mention 2.18 kg consumption of fire wood must be per person per day.
> An other thing is, if the wood had been made into pellets and used in a good TLUD-ND .it wood have been possible to make the daily cooking for the a household of five on 2,5 kg pellets, and what is the prise of pellets at Haiiti? 
> Regards Paal W      
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