[Stoves] No subsidies in TLUD char peoduction

Wed Dec 6 02:31:32 CST 2017

Congratulations Julien on your progress to date which has been meteoric.

For those new to the list, Julien has been working hard on developing TLUD’s at his home and reporting here his results for comment and input, which has been from all corners.

Julien: I suggest it is worth looking into how to use the char to make fertiliser rather than treating it as if it is. Here in China there are large facilities producing organic fertiliser with biochar as an input along with other things that surely are available in Bangladesh.

There is an immediate market for ‘packaged fertiliser’ and of course you can tune it to the local conditions.

I am happy to hear that you only need funding to accelerate adoption. What will the money be use for? Having a clear picture of what and where is helpful for discussing with third parties as is already happening with the West Bengal project.

Question: when it says “25%” fuel saving, how is that figure determined? Does it mean 25% of the input energy, or 25% less raw fuel placed into the stove compared with the baseline? This distinction is very important for me.

Thanks
Crispin

From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Ronal W. Larson
Sent: 6-Dec-17 14:21
To: julien at gmail.com; Discussion of biomass <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Subject: Re: [Stoves] No subsidies in TLUD char peoduction

Julien, cc List:

               A wonderful website and success story.  I don’t think there is a better advertisement for the combination of TLUDS AND biochar.

               Four questions I don’t see answers for at your website:

                              1.  The cost and payback period considering all aspects - higher fuel costa and the sale/use of the char?

                              2.  Whether users are preferring to keep and use the char or selling it?   (The photos all showed saving and using the char - for improved NPP reasons and/or savings on commercial fertilizer)

                              3.  Can you say more about the outer cylindrical insulating segments?  Fired or cast?  Available from some other application or special for these stoves?
               I ask, wondering if the interior metal cylinder might be replaced by this cement or ceramic piece.   Bill Knauss and Gordon West have been experiment with cast cement with char (formerly paper) in the “bricks”  (which could be cylinders).  Being called “charcrete”.

                              4.  Are you looking for additional funding or have enough?

               Again,  congratulations on really fine work. (especially including the web site).

Ron

On Dec 5, 2017, at 9:26 PM, Julien Winter <winter.julien at gmail.com<mailto:winter.julien at gmail.com>> wrote:

Hi Folks;

Mahbubul Islam and myself have designed a TLUD-biochar intervention in Bangladesh.  We believe the technologies will be (have to be) successful without subsidies.  TLUDs and biochar have to survive on their own merit.  What subsidies can do is help to speed up the dissemination of the technology and scaling-up.

Our first step was to design a culturally appropriate TLUD called the "Akha".  All of the components can be made locally without importing materials (which are very expensive).  The stove is not fragile, because its outer body is made of light concrete, so you can stand on it, or bounce a child off it.

We have just completed a prototype survey of 110 households, and the users are very enthusiastic about the stove, despite having to size fuel, and occasionally reload to keep cooking.  Their main reasons for liking it over a traditional stove are (1) a 25% saving of fuel, (2) low smoke emissions and 'clean' cooking, (3) ability to turn down by half, (4) ability to stand whilst cooking, and (4) greater comfort with cook experiencing less radiant heat.

The stove has already cause one proposal of marriage.

They also state that making biochar is a necessary condition for recommending the Akha, but I am not completely sure if the interviewers and respondents fully grasped the meaning of 'necessary', given their enthusiasm for the stove's performance.  It was our expectation that biochar could be the critical facilitator in cookstove acceptance.

Biochar is causing some excitement among farmers as they see the results of their own field trials.  They see biochar as a means to increase yields whilst being able to reduce expensive fertilizer inputs.  These trials are ad hoc, and not good for making general recommendations.   In the mean time, however, biochar from the Akha Biochar Project has been sent to a couple of local universities, and graduate students are using it for their thesis research.

The impact of biochar will be affected by local soil conditions.  If the soil is fertile, but low in organic matter, then biochar could have big impact on soil quality, and crop yield.  Much of the agricultural soil in Bangladesh is low in soil organic matter.

We have had one household broken into with the thieves making off with the biochar, and nothing else.

Carbon credit funding would be helpful for expanding the Akha-Biochar Project, but it involves measuring household production, and record-keeping.  Being able to provide evidence that char is being made, and used as biochar has a cost.  However, if the data is combined with other socio-economic information, it can be very useful to see who is benefiting from biochar, and the effects on food security and economic welfare.

Videos of the Akha can be found at www.biochar-bangladesh.org<https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.biochar-bangladesh.org%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cd03df58051ee481b4e3908d53c71f321%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636481382456880440&sdata=Rsr%2FzPfj%2BTBYj%2B8M7VohWaYtTOa4Z%2FDN1oIdO%2BFt4aQ%3D&reserved=0>
I will be presenting the results of or preliminary survey at the ETHOS conference in January.

The Akha-Biochar pilot project is being funded by ICCO-Cooperation, Netherlands, and run through the facilities and staff of the Christian Commission for Development in Bangladesh.

Cheers,
Julien.

Cobourg, ON, CANADA
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