Dear Kyle and David, Thanks David for more clarifications. The more you look into this cupboard, more the skeletons fall out. I was hoping to simplify the calculations for Kyle. I strongly agree it is important to know why one would like to carry out these estimates. Else the tussle between a researcher's conscience and simpleton "followers" convenience is immense. Especially if you attempt to dig into the assumptions behind these numbers.
I was involved at the early stages of country level estimates in the late nineties and could not accept these generalizations as a researcher and therefore moved out. For example few non-woody or partially woody agro-residues herbaceous biomass have about 32-35% as C. For that matter even most fuel wood species under normal usage conditions of 10-15% moisture do not cross 40% C. Yet, convention is to assume 50%C in biomass. An even greater conflict with me was the methane emission from an average rural Indian cow which is assumed to be 50kg per annum. With this assumption, One could calculate to show that such a pasture grazed rural Indian cow /bullock (120-150kg) that barely consumes 3kg dry matter (avg/d) sends /belches out 300L biogas a day. Skeletons indeed tumble out. Yet as David has put it these numbers are convenient when you are not a researcher and want to give a modest /humble estimate of emissions avoided. Best wishes Chanakya -- Dr. Hoysall Chanakya Centre for Sustainable Technologies (Assoc. Faculty at Centre for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transport and Urban Planning (CiSTUP) and Centre for Contemporary Studies) Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012 ph 91-80-2293 3046; fax-91 80 2360 0683 -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. _______________________________________________ Digestion mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/digestion_lists.bioenergylists.org for more information about digestion, see Beginner's Guide to Biogas http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/ and the Biogas Wiki http://biogas.wikispaces.com/
