[Stoves] Intermediary Base [Was: China and cookstoves)

[Nikhil Desai]

Crispin:

I think you mean the Inyenyeri stoves in Rwanda. They obtained C-Dev money
from upfront purchase of ERCs (to be verified later) for a large number of
users. That's a good way to provide initial and working capital for a
product proven in the marketplace, not for untested ones carrying just ISO
certificates.

What intrigues and interests me in Gordon's approach is the char part,
which we all agree changes the usual value chains and financing calculus.

All said and done, it is not a technically superior (as judged by experts)
product but a commercially viable delivery chain that has the technical
capacity and is capable of meeting any regulatory demands that may arise.
The best lesson to learn from Gordon's work is not technical but how a
comparable enterprise -- cooperatives or companies, I don't care -- can be
fostered close to the people the technology is meant for.

>From what I gather from the public domain on Envirofit, Biolite, ACE, and
several other distributiors of new products (including Paul's Champion
TLUDs) is that the "intermediary base" - someone who imports or produces,
then transports, stores, markets, and serves these products - is the
binding constraint in sustainability and scaleup.

Such an intermediary base can be spun from an existing institutional base
of companies and NGOs active in other issues, or can be started from the
ground up, seeded and nurtured. That is the process I would like to develop
conceptually. A lot of upfront technical and market research is warranted
for specific contexts and market segments to select the right product,
procure and sell competitively, engineer financing structures so that the
enterprise is "bankable" from very start, and has a very strong chance to
succeed as an enterprise.

This can be done with initial corporate capital requirement of $10,000 and
can be done at larger scales, just that the cost of "technical assistance"
- studies, advice, business development assistance - are high, and some
financing sweeteners (like what you seem to have tried in the CSI pilot in
Indonesia, but can be expanded to equity and debt by other sources of
funds) have to be part of the same mix, otherwise nobody is going to risk
own equity.

To combine money and knowledge. Investment banks do that all the time, and
use non-recourse finance blended with balance sheet finance. In various
forms, this has been the basis of trade - in India and Europe, North
America and Africa - for centuries and is today.

The question simply is, how to miniaturize financing of Walmart/Starbucks
or large solar/wind firms to the levels that distinct, discrete markets
with unique contexts of fuels and cuisines can be exploited.

Sorry if this sounds gobbledygook. I am just trying to answer your other
question about use of public funds. Procedures for the use of public funds
and accountability for them is the central problem with the recent GACC/EPA
approach.

Clinton/Kerry had a good idea (from GACC or given to GACC to implement) of
using OPIC money. Why, Ivanka Trump's fund for women entrepreneurs can help
tackle this "intermediary base" challenge. There are proven solutions for
how to do this. How to engineer finance for another layer at the top -
stove R&D and advisors who can give trustworthy advice on forming local
distributors - is the first question. (If I had a few million dollars, that
is what I would spend on, not "international standards" for "truly health
protective" emission rates.)

Nikhil



On Wed, Dec 6, 2017 at 3:31 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:

> Dear Gordon
>
>
>
> “We plan to give the micro-producers *free dried and densified feedstock*
> in trade for their char. “We”, in this case, will be a regional biochar
> cooperative that will handle technology distribution and operation, biomass
> processing and feedstock distribution, and biochar aggregation and
> marketing.”
>
>
>
> There is a project in Rwanda that operates on a similar basis. People
> bring wood fuel to the pellet mill and trade it for pellets which they use
> in their pellet stoves.
>
>
>
> People find the fuel and deliver it when convenient, bringing enough to
> trade for a month of cooking fuel.
>
>
>
> Am I correct in understanding you are looking at something similar?
>
>
>
> There is no char involve, it is a wood fuel from end to end. The idea is
> that rural homes will operate that way and urban families will but the
> pellets to use instead of charcoal.
>
>
>
> Thanks
> Crispin
>
>
>
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