[Stoves] Biomass cooking: users and growers (Re: Andrew, Ron)

Nikhil Desai pienergy2008 at gmail.com
Mon Sep 25 11:49:59 CDT 2017


Dear Ron: (changed the subject line)

Yes, "quelled" was to be "fuelled"; maybe I was unconsciously thinking of
making char by quelling a fire. :-)

Off-topic, I agree in principle with your last statement  "*I contend that
larger (commercial) users of biomass stoves should be the ones most likely
to want char-making (cleaner, safer, more efficient, and income-generating)
stoves.*" This is a market to target, as also commercial char-making with
food, feed, and fertilizer as a side-activity.  Go for it.

A. You may be correct that users depending on biomass are pre-dominantly
growers, but not on the strength of the evidence you cite (see between ***
below).   "Growing" one's biomass - trees or animal manure - is an issue of
ownership, something that the stover movement has very little idea of on a
national or global level. Why, biomass cookstove is not just fuel and stove
ownership but the primary sources and logistical paraphernalia (carts,
etc.).

B. If users grew their own biomass, I wouldn't be hearing about
deforestation or "free collection".  I rely on first-hand observations and
cross-check data, going back to mid-1980s work of Gerry Leach and Marcie
Gowen on "Household Energy Databook" for The World Bank. Gerry and his
daughter Melissa quite convincingly shattered the myth of "fuelwood
crisis". What Crispin referred to in Rwanda and what has been found in
differentiated national surveys over and over again is that when people
have land rights, they manage to grow their fuel sustainably. They also
know that while the collection may be "free" due to access rights,
nurturing and protecting tree stock takes quite a bit of work. That leaves
the blame for forest loss on i) clearance for higher value use (which is
perfectly logical) and ii) managed or illegal "collection", of which we
hear a lot over and over again. Arguably, if people are *collecting *wood
from lands they do not own, they cannot be said to be "growers".

C. My point about charcoal making was simply that persons who depend on
charcoal-fuelled stoves (for own use) are not growers. Let's use IEA figure
of 36 million tons of charcoal in Sub-Saharan Africa. Looks like quite a
bit of it is exported even to Europe, but that doesn't matter at the global
level. Assuming an average "household equivalent" (300 kg per year), this
is some 100 million "households".  Add rest of the world (see dated figures
from FAO here
<http://www.charcoalproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/1_Ghilardi_Steierer_Global_stats.pdf>)
and net out non-cooking use (pig iron in Brazil, for instance), and my
guesstimate is that some 150-200 million households use charcoal for
cooking. (Higher end of the number for situation where charcoal is only
partly used and where charcoal from non-wood biomass is available.)

So, assuming that people collecting from lands they do not own (for own use
or firewood sale) number about 100 million and charcoal users, users of
purchased biomass (wood, branches and twigs, dung-cakes) 200 million, we
are more than half way to the aggregate number of some 550 million biomass
users for household cooking.

Yes, these are guesses, but based on a lifetime spent in household energy
statistics. While buyers of fuelwood and charcoal switch to LPG and
electricity or purchased foods, more and more people are leaving land-based
livelihoods. Population growth, urbanization, agrarian crises, feminization
of poverty have all tended to increase the share of the landless in most
economies that I have ever worked on or visited. There is no reason to
think that of the supposed 500 million heads of households who depend on
biomass fuelled stoves, any more than a half are growers for own use. (I am
excluding coal stove users.)


4. Data on non-household cooking are not directly available. It is both
on-site meals as well as pre- and partial cooking, canning, fish drying,
etc. One may look up commercial reports and news stories on "food services"
market in India and such, and some industrial energy statistics reports do
publish by SIC or ISIC codes for "food and beverages".

More below.

Nikhil


On Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 5:34 PM, Ronal W. Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net>
wrote:

> Nikhil:
>
> See below.
>
>
> On Sep 22, 2017, at 10:07 AM, Nikhil Desai <pienergy2008 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ron:
>
> What makes you believe that users of biomass-quelled stoves are
> predominantly growers (of biomass)?
>
> *RWL:   Replace “quelled” with “fueled”.  I’m sure I based my comment
> mostly on twenty plus years on this list. *
>

> *  But looking around a bit, I found that confirmed sort of in general and
> specifically in Ghana in this recent paper:  *
> http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7036.
>

*** This is a small survey in two districts and talks about "availability"
which can mean anything. Says nothing about growing own wood or making own
charcoal. ***


> *My Google search found this one for Paraguay - which (only skimmed) seems
> to agree:
>  http://depts.washington.edu/sefspcmi/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Johnny-Bruce-Case-Study-Final2.pdf
> <http://depts.washington.edu/sefspcmi/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Johnny-Bruce-Case-Study-Final2.pdf>*
>

*** This again is a small survey and says nothing about growing own wood
vs. collecting from freely accessible lands - e.g., "One household
collected once per year and spent eight hours and another spent an hour
collecting every day. Many purchased firewood due to lack of time, oxen and
an oxcart, and/or available woodland. .. Generally, I noticed that those
that used firewood had free access to a source."

Incidentally, this is a very informative report. I can easily extract 10
items of relevance to biomass cookstove design and use. Thank you for the
reference. ***


> * Also this from FAO -(not as much on urban-rural) - was new to me,  has
> some DALY data:  http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0789e/a0789e09.htm
> <http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0789e/a0789e09.htm>*
>

*** Ditto. Says nothing about ownership of the wood resource. I am glad to
point out, though, that Kirk Smith said in this FAO piece: "Wood and other
biomass fuels can be burned cleanly with the right technology and thus can
have a long-term role in sustainable development where they are renewably
harvested. Thus programmes for the modernization of woodfuel use for
household and cottage industries in the poorest areas of developing
countries should be part of the development agenda. "

I can't tell what the biomass stovers community has done in this regard.
 ***

>
> * Not sure if you disagree, but if so - why?*
>

**** See above. ***

> Saw the figures for urban charcoal markets in Sub-Saharan Africa lately?
>
> *[RWL:   Not sure of your point - but yes char-use if predominant in urban
> areas.  And in many of those cases, the production is illegal.  Char-use in
> any setting is my main reason for being on this list.   I still believe
> wood use is appreciably larger than char use globally.*
>

*** Illegal or not, charcoal users rarely grow their biomass. You are
correct; woody fuels direct use is appreciably larger than char use, even
including non-cooking use as in Brazil and elsewhere. ***

>
> * This had some interesting comparison data:  *
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK385522/table/p45_T1.1
> /?report=objectonly
>

*** Yes, but I find 5 GJ useful energy per household per year a bit high
for cooking. There is considerable variation of course. Do you have
different numbers? ***

* I also believe that most charcoal is made by folk who are also “growers”
>  (meaning they are not living in urban areas)*
>
> *** What has living location to do with ownership of biomass? So long as
the user is not growing the biomass for charcoal, does not address Andrew's
question.

* You believe what on this topic?*
>

*** No beliefs, just suspicions and hunches via triangulating lots of
disperse data. I think about half of the users who depend on solid biomass
for household cooking do not grow their own fuel. I have queried people
wherever I go, and I know many cases like mentioned in the Paraguay study.
Landowners may use the biomass they grow (unless they live elsewhere and/or
use LPG or electricity) but if the legend of "free biomass" by collection
from other people's or public lands has any value, it must be that biomass
cookstove users are NOT predominantly growers. I will change my mind when I
get evidence to the contrary.***

> Or looked at non-household cooking (in my view roughly 50% of cooking
> energy consumption worldwide)?
>
> *[RWL:  apparently I am to believe (re Andrew’s question below)
> that “non-household cooking” which uses biomass as its fuel ARE NOT also
> growers?  (My saying yes to Andrew’s question would say the opposite*, *I
> agree).  First I strongly doubt your 50% worldwide, but especially so for
> those using biomass.*
>

*** You may believe so if you wish. There is a difference between % of
users and % of cooking energy market share in terms of PJ useful. I Anyway,
the "50% worldwide" is about something else, not biomass alone and not
cooking alone -I once computed (back of the envelope) that roughly 50% of
the total energy use in food delivery (from primary production to meals,
including beverages) worldwide occurs outside of households. It is TOTAL
energy, not just thermal, for all food products, and all countries. My
basis? Some food and beverage industry SIC codes data on energy consumption
in Europe and US some years back (has only increased), and adding all the
logistics refrigeration. Refrigeration has improved efficiencies
remarkably. ***


> * I have given up looking for data on this.  This site didn’t help:
>  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking#Home-cooking_and_commercial_cooking
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking#Home-cooking_and_commercial_cooking>*
>
> * My guess is that world wide, less than 25% (half of your 50%) of meals
> are non-household, and where the fuel in the non-household is biomass, the
> number would drop below 10%.    Now adding the conditional about the supply
> of fuel also being growers to my 10% guesstimate - I pass.  My guess is
> that most such entrepreneurs do some growing but a majority of their
> biomass fuel is purchased from suppliers of wood and charcoal who are
> non-urban (therefore also likely also growers of biomass).  This has gotten
> too deep into qualifications and definitions.  But I still stand by my
> “yes” in answering Andrew’s query. (rephrased) “Are the persons who depend
> on biomass-quelled stoves also growers?"*
>
> **** Please, sir. I did not say 50% of the MEALS are non-household. I
looked at some USDA statistics for the US and also "food industry" and
"food services industry" (Sysco, and the like) over many years to make a
guess. I only meant energy use in the food delivery chain (i.e., not in
fishing and farming or animal husbandry per se). Nor did I have anything to
say on biomass. I would pick biomass use in commercial, institutional
cooking as more than 10% of the total energy use in food delivery, but  you
are counting meals. Sir, we don't have a definition of a meal, and very
little in household energy literature says anything about meals at home or
outside. But then again, in my view, the whole business of "cookstoves" is
in the grip of physicists who have not bothered what cooking is and what
meals are. ***

* I look forward to your differing and supporting citations.  But also what
> difference it makes in improving stoves - and (in my case) charcoal-making
> stoves?  For this last category,  I contend that larger (commercial)
> users of biomass stoves should be the ones most likely to want char-making
> (cleaner, safer, more efficient, and income-generating) stoves.*
>
> *** I absolutely  agree, but with a twist -- char-making should be a
commercial activity, with cooking use on-site as a side business. ***

Ron
>
>
> 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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