A very quick response. I got to run.
I've been looking at localised small scale production here in the UK and
think the same dynamic often comes into play.
Also, I think it was a friend in Denmark (?)who described, the same
thing happening with the wood pellet market. Once the market took off
large energy companies joined, cut their prices to below cost until all
the small producers failed then, once they dominated the market,
increased pricing significantly.
I think that some kind of community enterprise which produces outside
the normal market is a possible solution to this dynamic. I'm thinking
something like community supported agriculture. Interestingly there are
some community supported forestry schemes that produce firewood.
I guessing that a community would see the value of supporting such an
enterprise, be that with money or time. I'm interested in projects
where the enterprise is governed by the community, particularly where
there are low/no barriers to participation. Other threads can be tied
to such an enterprise to make it stronger - alternative currency,
education etc.
Basing community enterprises on collaborative production of basic needs
(food and/or fuel) should provide a robust platform from which to build
a resilient local economy.
Best
Darren
On 02/12/2011 08:36, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott wrote:
Dear Richard
All points noted. I think you will have to accept that the heat
content of the fuel is limited by the chemical composition. Grasses
are a bit high in ash so they are not as energetic as wood. But that
is a quibble.
The wood substitution is a great achievement on any scale. Sweeping up
the otherwise wasted charcoal dust and chips is a Good Start, as they
say. What usually ruins a host of small businesses processing a
resource found in a concentrated area is the entry of a moneyed
businessperson into the market with his own transport and vending
outlets. It is only a matter of time in Dar if putting a price on the
raw material will kill it. As you know I spend decades trying to work
out how to protect the tiny business from such moves. In the bread
baking industry (small local wood fired bakeries) in the Eastern Cape
this played out to a very bad end.
The small bakeries will doing so well and the profits so secure that
it began to affect the sales of large bakeries in East London who sold
over a huge area including eGcuwa (Butterworth) in the Transkei.
Seeing the writing on the wall, and wanting to prevent the local
industry becoming so important that it would receive political/legal
protection, the bakeries dropped the wholesale price of bread below
the cost of the raw materials /for a year/ until all the local
bakeries were out of business. Having killed them, and all the
equipment being repossessed from them, they raised the price again
higher than before and made all the money back. To them it was just an
investment. The population went back to eating 'square bread' from
several hours away.
I provoked a similar reaction with the sales of diamond mesh fence
making machines. The wire industry realised we had a winning
combination of technologies and they had no future in shipping fence
from a centralised point. They could not get past the transport
inefficiency (compared with bulk plain wire).
The response was to raise the price of plain wire and cut the price of
fencing. The total income for them was the same, the viability of the
diamond mesh makers was run to the wall. One can make fence and make
money, but the profit that would have been made by the central
producers selling finished fence was earned from the plain wire. They
are big and omnipresent enough to destroy the entire small producer
market, even though production technology was demonstrably viable
under normal circumstances.
The fuels businesses are in the same boat, potentially. Someone
working out where the real market is (say, Europe) for the torrefied
or charcoaled or briquetted fuels made from 'waste' will step in and
pay enough to get it. End of short story. Raw material producers will
benefit, no one else.
The same thing is happening with scrap sheet metal. It is harder and
harder to get enough because it is being shipped to China for
reprocessing, even from central Zambia and Liberia. Even the DRC
though I suspect there is cobalt and diamonds mixed in there with it.
In order to make a large number of metal stoves -- enough to satisfy
the whole market, it is not possible to do this without using new
material. That has to be addressed sooner or later. One option is clay
which is why I spent so much time working on clay material theory and
processing in Maputo. It can compete with metal on a local producer
scale if the materials are right. It is easier to make high tech
ceramics than metal from ore, that's for sure.
There is yet much to be done and plenty of room for everyone.
Regards
Crispin
++++
Your points taken Crispin,
On the 50% values Insitu --of course: You have a solid point. No lo
contestare ! In the form of a hollow core briquette its another story.
The heat values we are getting run more in the low 20mjs. The reason
has to do with infra red reflectance within the core durign the burn.
Look at the burn again in the holey briquette rocket stove of rok
Oblak It is very near to a gassifier flame.
On charcoal drying up...that would be worse than beer produciton
halting out here. (have seen the latter in the 70's with near riots
nationwide..) Thats why Paal and Otto Formo's solution of burning
biomass and making char out of it is such a good idea.
Whomever pays for paper or charcoal dust, will almost assuredly kill
their briquette business (at least the wet process hand production,
microenterprise-based type): It's all very contingent upon getting /
adapting blending FREE resources.
I am yet to be convinced that much more than 20% (by dry weight) of
waste charcoal is needed in a biomass briquette, though.
One can be otherwise pyrolising, charring and gassifying a biomass
briquette all in one go-- during its actual point of application,
especially if the mentioned pre drying pre heating technique is
followed. Nor is paper necessary where you have chopped and well
retted field grasses and straws to do the work of binding..
Based on reports from the producers and trainer teams whom we know of
here in Tanzania, the direct consequence of briquette production is
replacing demand for about 2000 tons of wood fuel this year--in the
going local combination of wood or charcoal. last year it was 298 tons.
We started training producers in 2007 and from them, trainers in 2009.
Kind regards,
Richard Stanley
Dar
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