[Stoves] SPAM Re: SPAM Re: SPAM Re: SPAM Re: SPAM Carbon credits for briquettes that replace charcoal in Africa

Mon Jan 29 13:14:21 CST 2024

Kevin,

I think most of the confusion that is preventing us from making biochar in
the global South, at the scale we know is possible, is our failure to
understand the possibilities of how carbon credits can be used to finance
our efforts to reduce, avoid and remove carbon emissions.

ISO-compliant carbon credits verified by LCA are transferable financial
instruments representing the underling commodity. The underlying commodity
is the reduction, advoidance or removal of one tonne of carbon dioxide or
its carbon dioxide-equilivent (CO2e).

Financial instruments representing a commodity are essentially privately
issued money that derives its value from the underlying commodity.

The underlying commodity represented in an unverified carbon credit is an
offset for countries to meet their Nationally Determined Contributions
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationally_determined_contribution> (NDC)
commitments to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement>.

The latest carboncredits.com voluntary carbon market price quoted for
nature based carbon offsets is $1.27 a metric ton. On the other hand carbon
credits that have been verified by an ISO-compliant LCA are trading for
around $200 a metric ton, and in 2022 87% of all LCA verified carbon
credits in the world were for carbon removed and sequestered in biochar.
Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, there still are no registries
that will issue carbon credits for the ISO-compliant verification of
reduced or avoided emissions.

The problem we face for ISO-compliant verification of carbon removals in
biochar is so expensive and time consuming that small biochar producers can
not afford to verify what they produce.

To me the obvious solution is that the big biochar producers, or would be
producers, enter into negotiated partnership  arrangements with city
dwelling cooks, who need the excess heat for cooking, to provide the labor
and stoves necessary to make the biochar for the producer, essentially in
consideration for the big producer aggregating and delevering suitable crop
waste feedstock  for the cooks.

The bad news is that to address climate change we need to avoid and reduce
emissions by a factor many times greater than can be removed in biochar.

Nevertheless, when cooks uses the excess heat generated by removing and
sequestering carbon in biochar to avoid or reduce the emissions that would
have otherwise be generated by the fuel they would have used, they are
avoiding more emissions than are being removed in the biochar.

The ISO-compliant LCA used to verify the carbon removals in the biochar,
so th carbon credits can be issued to the producer, verifies that the cooks
have reduced and avoided emissions to the same standards as the removals
are verified.

If the fuel being replaced is artesian charcoal then, as Kevin has just
noted, 10 tonnes of CO2e emissions will have been avoided for each tonne of
charcoal that is replaced with the excess heat from making biochar.

Unfortunately, there are no registries that I am aware of that will issue
ISO-compliant financial instruments (carbon credits) for the LCA verified
reduction and advoidance of carbon emissions.

Bill

On Sat, Jan 27, 2024, 11:40 PM Ronal Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net>
wrote:

> List:  2 cics
>
> I don’t disagree with anything Kevin is saying, but would much prefer that
> the cook  (urban user of charcoal lumps) instead receive the farm ag
> residue (corn stalks as an example) and make her own char in one of Kevin’s
> all brick cookstoves (that are super cheap).  She makes money that way, and
> all illegally made char lumps would disappear from the market - because the
> cooks are better off making their own carbon negative char.to go back to
> the farms supplying the stalks/residue (or to dozens of groups needing
> biochar for other non-ag reasons.
>
> The middle “men” in getting the ag residues in and the char out can be
> enterprising women handling maybe 10 to 100 of their neighbors.  More local
> jobs.  And same women can handle implementation of Kevin’s almost free
> stoves (which are MUCH cleaner(healthier)  than the present stoves -
> whether using wood or char).  Also safer and time savers..
>
> Ron.
>
>
> On Jan 27, 2024, at 9:24 PM, K McLean <kmclean56 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear Crispin,
>
> This does not involve cooking with maize stalks.  Char out from maize
> stalks.  The char is then made into briquettes.  The briquettes are sold to
> charcoal users to replace charcoal.
>
> Kevin
>
> On Sat, Jan 27, 2024 at 11:04 PM Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
> crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear Kevin
>>
>> That helps a lot. Ok. You have to show that there is a reduction in
>> emissions when you analyse “the system”. As far as I understand what you
>> described it is that people are - pretty indirectly - cooking with maize
>> stalks instead of…. Wood?
>>
>> Is the charcoal briquette a wood fuel substitute?
>>
>> If so you can claim you have reduced net biomass loss by the local fNRB x
>> mass of wood fuel not burned x 0.48 x 44/12 = n
>>
>> Because the corn stover is normally a 100% loss any wood saved by the
>> char is creditable as above.
>>
>> With some trouble and measurements you should be able to get some
>> additional credit for burning the stover with lower emissions of gases and
>> PM. You have to quantify the emissions for both cases. It is probably worth
>> it.
>>
>> I hope this helps
>> Crispin
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Stoves <stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org> on behalf of K
>> McLean <kmclean56 at gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Saturday, January 27, 2024 8:32:00 PM
>> *To:* Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <
>> stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Stoves] ***SPAM*** Re: ***SPAM*** Carbon credits for
>> briquettes that replace charcoal in Africa
>>
>> Hi Crispin,
>>
>> I was unclear, I'm sorry.  In East Africa we make char using the top down
>> burn of piles of maize stalks.  These farmers traditionally burn
>> their maize stalks by lighting the pile on the side.  Here is a video
>> <https://youtu.be/YJYDyRkK-Qg> showing the difference between the
>> traditional burn (left pile) and the top down burn of maize stalks (pile on
>> the right).  There is obviously a reduction in emissions by lighting the
>> pile on the top.  To make char for briquettes, the embers are quenched with
>> water when the fire starts to go down.  I think it is clear that there is a
>> reduction in emissions in making char this way compared to the traditional
>> method of burning maize stalks.
>>
>> So the question then is the CO2e emitted in making charcoal in an earthen
>> mound.  The FAO determined it to be 10 tonnes of CO2e per tonne of charcoal.
>>
>> Kevin
>>
>> On Sat, Jan 27, 2024 at 10:16 PM Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
>> crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Kevin
>>
>> That figure represents the emission of CO2 and the gases with a CO2
>> equivalent. It does not represent a net reduction available. Charcoal is
>> made from biomass which is made almost entirely from CO2 originating in the
>> atmosphere.
>>
>> A carbon credit is available for a documentable permanent reduction in
>> emission of one ton of CO2. It the wood is harvested from a sustainable
>> source there is no credit available because everything harvested is going
>> to regrow. If only a fraction of the harvested biomass grows back (which
>> varies within regions and locales) then a “fraction of non-renewable biomass ”
>> (fNRB) can be calculated from assessment(s).  The available credits are 10
>> tons x fNRB = n.
>>
>> If the fNRB value is 5% the answer is 0.5 tons credit per 10 tons of
>> avoided charcoal production.
>>
>> If you are making briquettes as the alternative, there are two added
>> considerations. One is the energy used to make the briquettes and the other
>> is the efficiency of the substitute fuel. In general charcoal stoves are
>> more efficient than briquette stoves.  The 0.5 ton credit will be factored
>> by methods of Article 6.2 and 6.4 of the Paris Agreement for the lower fuel
>> efficiency of the briquette stove if it is indeed lower. If it is higher,
>> then there is a credit gain.
>>
>> Under Article 6 many or maybe all countries had their fNRB values reduced
>> considerably. Under CDM many were pretty arbitrary. And high. Not anymore.
>>
>> Let’s look at the FAO's number:
>>
>> One dry ton of wood is about 48% carbon, or 480 kg. Traditional charcoal
>> production is ~12%-15% yield these days. It does vary so check because
>> there is a big difference between 8% and 20%. At 15% yield the carbon is
>> ~81% of 15% of 1000 kg. That is 121.5 kg of carbon. The difference between
>> that and 480 was emitted: 385.5 carbon emitted as 1314.5 kg CO2. That's a
>> lot less than 10,000 kg.
>>
>> They must be counting the PM mass with a large multiplier. I have no idea
>> what numbers they will use for that. Remember they should be using a 100
>> year calc because it says CO2e.  We can't prove how they got to ten tons.
>>
>> So all said and done that is how credits are generated.
>>
>> Best regards
>> Crispin
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Stoves <stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org> on behalf of K
>> McLean <kmclean56 at gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Saturday, January 27, 2024 6:07:04 PM
>> *To:* Stoves and Biofuels Network <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
>> *Subject:* [Stoves] ***SPAM*** Carbon credits for briquettes that
>> replace charcoal in Africa
>>
>> Is anyone getting these?
>>
>> FAO <https://www.fao.org/3/i6934e/i6934e.pdf> says that 10 tonnes of
>> CO2e are caused by the production of 1 tonne of charcoal in the typical
>> earthen mound kiln common in Africa.   If this is correct, one tonne of
>> briquettes should fetch 10 carbon credits.
>>
>> Kevin McLean
>> Sun24
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[Stoves] ***SPAM*** Re: ***SPAM*** Re: ***SPAM*** Re: ***SPAM*** Re: ***SPAM*** Carbon credits for briquettes that replace charcoal in Africa

[Stoves] SPAM Re: SPAM Re: SPAM Re: SPAM Re: SPAM Carbon credits for briquettes that replace charcoal in Africa