[Stoves] Energy supply and use in a rural West African village
rongretlarson at comcast.net
rongretlarson at comcast.net
Sun Jun 3 19:14:22 CDT 2012
Ken:
Welcome to the USA!
This is to pick up on only one paragraph from your yesterday's message (I have snipped the rest below).
Ron
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Boak" <ken.boak at gmail.com>
To: "Discussion of biomass cooking stoves" <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Sent: Saturday, June 2, 2012 10:10:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Energy supply and use in a rural West African village
Mark and Nathan,
Thank you for a fascinating and important study into the energy usage of a rural Mali village.
<snip (I have yet to read it, but I heard the presentation at ETHOS. I think maybe more on stoves in the next paper coming.>
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.
[RWL: 1. I am a strong proponent of making and using charcoal - but almost never only for its energy value - rather insisting on use of the char for soil improvement and carbon sequestration and the pyrolysis gases for energy. So I am all for using wood for shea oil processing - but with char as a by-product. Here's hoping that in your new position you can bring more attention to the BEK:
(http://www.biochar-international.org/AllPowerLabs/BEK)
2. I haven't the time to positively determine if char sales are illegal in Mali - but I think so. Regardless, I think the char sales price is likely way under its value. There is a lot of information on how badly charcoal production is hurting all/most of the African (and other) countries. Here is one from about 2008 that makes that point:
http://www.inbar.int/publication/TXT/Charcoal%20conference%20proceedings_final_29Decjw.htm
3. There are a growing number of ways that wood can be utilized much more sustainably with char as a co-product (see for instance
www.coolplanetbiofuels.com
Both today's char makers and cooks in Mali and elsewhere will be happier with a char-making stove economy than a char-using stove economy. The former can prepare wood for the char-making stoves - almost certainly by trimming rather than cutting down trees. The users can make, rather than spend money, as they cook.
I can't tell from your single paragraph above whether you would agree - but if not, I hope we can discuss this more at the (now) nearby Sonoma Biochar conference at the end of July. Perhaps you can bring along a BEK.
Ron
<snip>
regards
Ken Boak
_______________________________________________
Stoves mailing list
to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org
for more Biomass Cooking Stoves, News and Information see our web site:
http://www.bioenergylists.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20120604/b98e1731/attachment.html>
More information about the Stoves
mailing list