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

Tue Jan 30 16:17:28 CST 2024

Dear Teddy

Charcoal movement (distribution) has been banned since 2017 and it may in fact be illegal to make it, I am not sure, but in the beginning it was movement that was traceable and banned.

https://www.the-star.co.ke/sasa/lifestyle/2023-11-03-why-kenya-cannot-do-away-with-charcoal/

It is important to understand why national bans on a popular fuel are important.  When it is illegal to make or move charcoal, the charcoal mafia benefits, often including elected or influential officials and enforcement actors.

In a Sahelian country charcoal was illegal. It was unbanned and the forests were placed under the control of the villages whose land it was. The illegal traders were immediately put out of business unless they paid for the resource they were stealing, and the management of the supply of trees immediately benefitted the community as a payment had to be made to the village. This continued with great and well managed success. The villages conserved and sold their resources and the "overheads" disappeared.

After 4 years the President declared the whole business illegal again (through protesting salvationists?) and the illegal trade resumed.  It transpired that the head of the charcoal mafia, all along, was the president's wife.

Charcoal is big, big business.  Removing carbon from the land and burning it 100 km away depletes the soil.  Char created on the land and buried in it depletes the soil carbon because it goes from a soluble form to an insoluble form.  Should the composted stover be ploughed into the land for next year's crop?  We have to hear from botanists.

As trees are cleared for farming, it dries the air and rainfall decreases.  That has been known for over a century, but it will of course be blamed on global warming.  Afforestation in Kenya was proposed in the 1930's by Dr St Barbe Baker, famed for his Men of the Trees organization.  And he attempted it in the NW using peach trees.  Kenya could use afforestation and reforestation as well as sustainable supply management.  People are going to continue to cook with charcoal for decades or centuries in Africa.  We should arrange our affairs that it is possible and profitable.

BTW charcoal making is one of the few activities in Africa that generates cash income for rural farmers.  Banning it effectively means banning them as viable farmers.

Regards
Crispin

From: Stoves <stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org> On Behalf Of Cookswell Jikos
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2024 7:10 AM

Here is an interesting idea to utilize highly invasive woody plants to make biochar you might like Kevin, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI1uN1EFhUI&ab_channel=PlantVillageTV

Wonders never cease to amaze in the woodfuel industry in Kenya, I went to a salt factory a few months ago and they said they use 30 tons of almost wet (!!) wood per day sourced by clearing land for pineapple farmers to force dry the salt (co-fired with TZ coal) and almost every other large industry that uses steam in Kenya seems to be switching to biomass boilers these days that are mostly using agri-waste (alot of which is grown on farms that were once forested not so long ago). Agroforestry is growing in popularity but not as fast as trees are being felled https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/deforestation-continues-in-kenyas-largest-water-capturing-forest-satellites-show and meanwhile watch out for your maize stalks, they might be next ;)  https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/enterprise/eldoret-family-turns-maize-cobs-into-jet-fuel-addictive-3700610

I sure hope that this new industrial demand for biomass and unplanned agricultural expansion doesn't wipe out any forest saving gains all the various cookstove projects have had in Kenya over the years. Speaking of, might anyone know how many donor funded 'cookstove projects' have there been in Kenya in the last 40 years?

Teddy

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