[Stoves] stoves and credits again

[Nikhil Desai]

Philip:

It is not that the use of charcoal has nothing to do with the environment.
The question is, whose environment and when?

1. From a user's perspective, it is most definitely his "human environment"
that matters - charcoal stoves are cleaner than traditional woodstove. It
is also much more convenient. Of course, the geography of urban areas
influences the cleanliness and convenience of charcoal v. direct wood. My
wanderings in Lilongwe, Blantyre, Maputo, Kigali, Addis, suggested that
they did not have sizable "core" of middle-class row-houses small
apartment-buildings as in, say, Mumbai or Ahmedabad, the city I am most
familiar with. To this day, some very rich homes with large gardens around
have wood-burning water heaters out in the yard, and some apartment
balconies have a bit of charcoal, but otherwise wood and charcoal are both
pushed out to the peripheries. (Yes, there are charcoal shops in posh
areas; mostly for commercial users.)

Why, back in 2002/3, before Kirk Smith sold to WHO the idea that all solid
fuels are "dirty" by assumption, I remember a World Bank consultant putting
out a figure for deaths attributable to biomass cooking in India, but he
treated charcoal as a "clean fuel" - much like coal electricity is, at user
end - so I quipped, "Cut trees, save lives."

2. From the producer or primary supplier's perspective, it is a question of
property rights, unless there are restrictions on tree-cutting (as in some
Indian cities and even villages and forests of various kinds). Some of
these restrictions may in principle be motivated by the government's
considerations on "the environment", but many because trees have multiple
products and uses, fuel being the least value, including when converted to
charcoal. However, "more efficient" charcoal kilns and charcoal stoves,
combined with "more efficient" tree growth, can compensate for any such
"environmental damage". From an economist's point of view, if trees are
being cut for charcoal, evidently there are "too many" trees. One doesn't
have to go to that extreme, but just recognize that trees are being cut,
and forests cleared, for a number of reasons, and that a stable charcoal
market can co-exist with "sustained primary production".

FAO <http://www.fao.org/3/a-i6935e.pdf> says sub-Saharan Africa produced
32+ m tons of 2015. My rough guess is that if used all for household
cooking, that would cover some 100 million households (average 1 kg
charcoal per household; could be for commercial cooking in small food/meal
suppliers as well.)

I don't see anybody bothering to collect and analyze charcoal price data
for even five countries and 25 urban centers, though in many countries such
data are collected and published (if only because charcoal price goes in
the computation of Consumers Price Index for urban dwellers).

>From what I remember, urban retail prices for charcoal go up and down with
kerosene and LPG prices but there is no case of a sustained real price
increase except when temporary shortages are created due to logistics
problems or control (e.g., Lilongwe around 2000-2, I believe).

In the absence of evidence of rioting over charcoal price increases, I am
inclined to assume that there is no looming supply crisis due to
"deforestation for charcoal".

Erik Eckholm's Other Energy Crisis was marketed well to New York Times
readers, Worldwatch Institute, and all such folks who promised "more
efficient charcoal stoves" would solve the deforestation crisis.

Not yet. But that is only because "more efficient charcoal stoves" have
succeeded, and made it cheaper to cook with charcoal for the growing urban
populations who are starved of LPG and electricity.

If household charcoal use for cooking in the developing countries is 20% of
the total "solid fuel cookstoves" market, arguably charcoal production and
use "cause" nearly one million premature deaths per year (20% pf 5 million
total from indoor as well as ambient PM2.5).

WHO will validate and refine that number for a $2m research grant. I give
it to  you free.

Nikhil

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


On Sun, Sep 24, 2017 at 11:50 AM, plloyd at mweb.co.za <plloyd at mweb.co.za>
wrote:

> Just a thought on Sub Saharan charcoal use. As Africa urbanizes, so it
> needs energy to cook. Wood takes up too much volume, and the roads are
> primitive. So it makes sense to use charcoal. A bicycle load will keep ten
> homes cooking for a week.
> The use of char oal has everything to do with logistics and nothing to do
> with the environment.
> Philip
>
>
>
> Sent from my Huawei Mobile
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [Stoves] stoves and credits again
> From: Nikhil Desai
> To: Ron Larson
> CC: Andrew Heggie ,Crispin Pemberton-Pigott ,Discussion of biomass
> cooking stoves
>
>
> Ron:
>
> What makes you believe that users of biomass-fuelled stoves are
> predominantly growers (of biomass)?
>
> Saw the figures for urban charcoal markets in Sub-Saharan Africa lately?
> Or looked at non-household cooking (in my view roughly 50% of cooking
> energy consumption worldwide)?
>
> Nikhil
>
> On Thu, Sep 21, 2017 at 10:54 PM, Ronal W. Larson <
> rongretlarson at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> Andrew and list:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> There appears to be a win win situation here and I gather there is
>> still a vast part of equatorial Africa where annual burning  takes
>> place. However it brings me to another reason I like the idea, though
>> not the practicalities, of a householder-subsistance farmer being paid
>> a subsidy funded by the developed world. The trouble is I have a
>> parochial view and not a good worldview of what types of persons
>> depend on biomass fuelled stoves. Are they also predominantly growers?
>>
>>
>> *[RWL9:  Yes to Andrew’s last question.  I disagree with Andrew calling
>> himself “parochial” - when he supports (as do I) the ethics of “a subsidy
>> funded by the developed world”.*
>>
>>
>> *[RWL10:   Agree totally.  And I think this is what will eventually kill
>> the geoengineering technology that is often placed ahead of biochar -
>> BECCS.  In BECCS, as with “clean coal”, the CO2 from combustion (never
>> pyrolysis) is placed, as  liquid, deep underground.   Major expenses needed
>> to protect the world’s soil are not needed for biochar.  Soil quality is
>> closely linked to carbon content - and biochar does this with no penalty -
>> while apparently being the cleanest and most efficient of all possible
>> solid-fuel stoves.*
>>
>> *`Andrew - thanks for your above rebuttal to Crispin.*
>>
>>
>> *Ron*
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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