[Stoves] Energy supply and use in a rural West African village

[Ken Boak]

Mark and Nathan,

Thankyou for a fascinating and important study into the energy usage of a
rural Mali village.

As you state early in the report that many "water projects" have failed to
deliver to sub-Saharan Africa - it is important that future village energy
projects are systematically engineered - and thus stand a better chance of
overall success.

It appears that just the harvesting and transportation of the primary wood
fuel - is a significant time and labour burden on the women and children.
Much of this wood is then burned in 3 stone fires - at minimal efficiency.

As motorcycles are already used by some villagers - perhaps a motorcycle
based cart, capable of hauling say 250 kg of wood, would be an appropriate
investment in technology.  Wood harvesting and hauling could then be set up
as a micro-business.

As all stovers on this list will know - the successful introduction of a
decent wood stove will significantly reduce this wood consumption -
posssibly by as much as 40%, freeing the women-folk to engage in economic
activity and the children to attend more schooling.

The processing of shea oil/butter appears to be not only labour intensive
but energy intensive. Perhaps a co-operative could be formed - with
additional equipment, such as large appropriate stoves, to enable this work
to be carried out more efficiently.

A conversion from a wood energy economy to a charcoal energy economy, would
allow an increase in energy efficiency, provide employment, and produce a
sellable product. Whilst charcoal is already being used in the village -
it's production is likely to be inefficient, and investment in a larger
scale charcoal producing facility/enterprise could lead to a greater
efficiency of wood use. Combining charcoal production - and it's waste heat
and gas production, with shea oil processing could lead to a possible
synergy.

Finally, the use of 340 litres per year of diesel fuel, to run the diesel
grinder must represent a significant outlay of money - for a
near-subsistence based economy. Conversion of the diesel to spark ignition
and fuelling from a wood or charcoal gasifier could produce a major
reduction in expenditure on diesel, and give the village a source of
mechanical power, for agri-processing, power generation and water pumping,
which is fuelled from local biomass and not wholly reliant on costly
petroleum.


regards



Ken Boak
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20120603/64bed2b2/attachment.html>