[Stoves] ESD Special Issue Notes

[Ronal W. Larson]

Hi all

     I have read a few more of the ESD papers and will be glad to report on any that anyone has an interest in.  But basically I found very little on the current charcoal markets around the word that is helpful to either the stove or biochar lists.  There are some papers on costs and who is making the money (the producers are getting only about 20-25% of the final sales price for products that are mostly illegal, it seems).  The whole charcoal business looks very sad and is getting worse - as more charcoal is demanded from an ever growing population.   The reasons that charcoal is so widely used is that it is cheap (often a better deal than wood) and the fossil alternatives are expensive and not always available (even though heavily subsidized often).  Plenty of calls for more subsidization of fossil fuels to hep save both forest degradation and increasing deforestation.

    The charcoal conference in 2011 seems to have had no-one aware of either charcoal-making stoves nor of biochar.  At least I couldn't find it.   Lots of belief that  there are ways to improve, especially through wood lots closer to the cities.  The char producers are themselves rarely using char - which mainly goes to cities.  So the chance for helping through improved char-making stoves and biochar appears at this time to be in rural areas - at least until the policy makers in heavy char-using regions learn about what we on these lists are doing.

   I found nothing to say that either char-making stoves or biochar are ideas that won't work.  But also nothing to prove they will, except for our approaches are of course putting much less pressure on the threatened forests.  The evidence we have for future success isn't to be found in this special issue or in the conference that preceded it..  We will have to rely on the success we hear on these two lists.

   One paper that showed up several times was from the World Bank

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTAFRREGTOPENERGY/Resources/717305-1266613906108/BiomassEnergyPaper_WEB_Zoomed75.pdf

Another was   http://www.unredd.net/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=3311&Itemid=53   

or

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PV8DnA44NRAJ:www.unredd.net/index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_docman%26task%3Ddoc_download%26gid%3D3311%26Itemid%3D53+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

   An interesting (and dismal) model is shown in Annex 2.  at the end of which is  statement that the growth rate they assumed in a managed Eucalyptus plantation was 20 times  (50 m3/ha-yr) that from a natural forest in Tanzania. Unknown weight of their m3.   Shows there are better ways to make char than illegally from natural forests.
2.5 m3/ha/year CHAPOSA 2002, Luoga et al. 2002Growth rate of planted 
2.5 m3/ha/year CHAPOSA 2002, Luoga et al. 2002Growth rate of planted trees50 m3/ha/year Based on growth rates of fast-growing eucalyptus plantation


Ron




On Aug 17, 2013, at 4:08 PM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net> wrote:

> 
> 
>> Hi all
>> 
>>   This one on #9
>> 
>>   First though,  I previously inadvetertently copied an address for REDD as EDD.  A lot of good free material on charcoal at a 2011 meeting, found at http://redd.ciga.unam.mx/index.php/events/8-difusion/11-presentaciones2
>> 
>>   Also,  ESD is Energy for Sustainable Development.  See http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09730826/17/2

          
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