[Stoves] Chinese biochar projections [formerly Re: Calculating cooking costs and char costs ----Re: [biochar] Where to discuss STOVES AND CARBON offsets and drawdown

Tue Sep 19 10:20:40 CDT 2017

Ron:

I didn't look into the details of your calculation, but yes, there is
indeed a counting by the ten thousands in Chinese. See
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Big_numbers_in_Chinese
.

Most Indian languages I know also have counting in 100,000 (lakh, from
Sanskrit Laksha) and 10,000,000 (crore).

I now don't remember the reason, but as a child I also learned counting by
three and a half. Just for fun. I was told those computations were last in
use in some trades during the 19th Century .

Nikhil

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nikhil Desai
(US +1) 202 568 5831
*Skype: nikhildesai888*

On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 4:40 AM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net>
wrote:

> Tom and stove list (and adding the biochar list).  Note thread title
> change.
>
> I have reviewed the IBI “8858” message below and suggest these are the two
> key sentences:
>
> *“The ambitious plan of the cooperative enterprises on straw biomass and
> biochar technology is to upscale up to 5M tones of straw recycled per year
> and 100 enterprises converting biomass to biochars, reaching a total market
> value of 10 billion CNY (Chinese yuan) by 2020. *
> *With this mode so far, up to 100,000 tons straws were carbonized while
> some twenty thousand tons straw biomass biochar fertilizer produced with
> additional 20 thousands tons biochar sold, giving a reduction of GHGs over
> 0.6 Tg CO2 equivalent.”*
>
> These numbers don’t hang together!
>
> I am now inclined to believe the total annual 2020 market value (10
> billion Yuan per year) and the .6 Tg CO2 equivalent reduction to date.
> Only if I increase the quantity scales by a factor of 10 (both “to date”
> (meaning 2015) and in 2020) can I get a future char price to be $150/tonne
> char and a 3:1 weight ratio of CO2 to biochar.  As the weights are now
> stated, we would get $1500/tonne char (seems way too high for China in
> 2020) and a (ridiculous) 30:1 ratio.
>
> I can get their factor of 50 increase (1 million t char/yr) / (20,000 t
> char) [or my preference that is ten times larger in both numerator and
> denominator] if I assume a five year  period (all of 2016-2020) AND I
> assume that all of the stated past values were from only 2015.   Then I
> need an annual growth rate of about 119% for five years.  So we might be
> able to justify an annual bit-more-than-doubling of output - that is six
> annual *relative *numbers for 2015 - 2020 like 1, 2.2, 4.6,10, 22, 50.
> Their computations were probably more like an annual doubling of output at
> each site when we factor in growing from about 50 sites to 100.
>
> This annual growth factor is still huge (but probably well less than that
> seen for hand-held phones).
>
> Is it possible that the Chinese have a weight unit that is 10 times larger
> than a kg or tonne?  (that got lost in the translation?)
>
> The first key quantity to check could be whether the Chinese could have
> produced 200,000 tonnes char in 2015 rather than 20,000?  With 50 companies
> this is 4000 tonnes per year per machine, so a bit more than 1/2 tonne char
> per hour.  This looks possible with the machine shown at the IBI site given
> below by Tom.  They appear to be going from 50 such machines to 2500 such
> machines over a 5 year period.  To say that (looks big) machine can only
> produce less than 1 kg char per minute doesn’t seem reasonable.
>
> Anyone else see a major opportunity here for pushing biochar? (via the
> Chinese goals).  Or maybe I have just made an error?   I have intentionally
> not shown all the computations, but they are quite obvious, and better to
> have independent confirmation.  Glad to comment off line with anyone.
>
>   It is exceedingly important in our world (of selling biochar) to get
> this (double) factor of ten sorted out!
>
> Tom - thanks for this important lead.  I am sorry to report that I see
> this factor-of-10 error.
>
> Ron
>
>
> On Sep 18, 2017, at 1:54 PM, tmiles at trmiles.com wrote:
>
> In the last couple of years biochar has become a national priority in
> China. We have seen substantial research and several production facilities
> but it is difficult to get a clear picture of actual production and use.
> IBI china provided us with a map and description earlier this year:
>
> “Straw biomass biochar and biochar-based organo-mineral compound
> fertilizers approved as one of the Top Ten viable systems for recycling
> agricultural residues by China's Ministry of Agricuture”
> http://www.biochar-international.org/node/8858
>
> Tom
>
> *From:* Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org
> <stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org>] *On Behalf Of *Crispin
> Pemberton-Pigott
> *Sent:* Monday, September 18, 2017 12:21 PM
> *To:* Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.
> org>
> *Subject:* Re: [Stoves] Calculating cooking costs and char costs ----Re:
> [biochar] Where to discuss STOVES AND CARBON offsets and drawdown
>
> Dear Paul
>
>
> <deleted as not being on Tom’s “8858” topic>
>
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