Ron,
I very much agree in your comments and just to finelize this discuession about
efficiency and alternatives to charcoal:
If we should compare wood and charcoal, in terms of efficiency, we better use
woodchips.Both types are prepared and a result of man made activties, not just
collected from the forest, like most firewood.
On the other hand we should use a gasifier unit and an "improved" charcoal
stove, which are the most suitable units for this types of fuels. By producing
chopped wood by hand and used in a gasifier, you have a much more efficient
enrgy process, than traditional charcoal production and char used in an
"improved charcoal stove.
That cant be difficult to see for "anyone". - "Just bring the "Micro" kiln into
the kitchen and produce your own char while cooking".
Have a nice weekend.
Otto
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2013 19:23:37 -0400
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Last? Alternative to Charcoal
Dear Ron I do not think you will find the project that I was thinking of on
line. The issue in Chad was the unsustainable drawing of the resource from
areas controlled by village chiefs who were not a) doing anything to protect
the resource and b) not replanting or conserving the trees. The reason was
there was no money in it for them. A plan was introduced to have the villages
trained in the management of the tree resource and a price put on charcoal so
that the trees, the source of it, had to be bought so it became something worth
protecting. Once implemented this worked very well. It ran for 4 years. For the
first time, there was an income stream for the village from taxes on the
sourcing of charcoal instead of just letting some individual haul off the trees
for their personal benefit. The trees became protected as a revenue source and
there was for the first time a reason to plant and care for them. It was a new
income stream. Everyone was happy, almost. The whole thing came to a sudden
halt after 4 years because the wife of a certain highly placed individual, who
was previously in the charcoal business, found herself having to pay fees for
the charcoal she previously got basically for nothing. The ‘cure’ was to have
her husband ban the sale of charcoal ‘to conserve the forests and preserve the
environment and anything else that needs to be said to kill the competition and
remove the tax’. I assure you there is lots of charcoal being traded but it is
only possible if you are one of the anointed who can avoid prosecution. The law
applies to stay the hand of those would tax the resource. If that is not blunt
enough, the purpose of the ‘ban’ was to put things back to the way they were
before. Not everything that happens, happens for the reason stated. Some people
are above the law. The tax plan was invented and implemented by someone who
occasionally reads this list. It was one of the most successful and innovative
charcoal interventions ever and was brought to a halt by vested interests. I
can name several other countries where similar things are happening right now.
When there is no ‘return’ for the people whose resource is being pillaged, the
maximum return is gained for the individuals involved by taking as much of it
as possible. This is a well-known phenomenon in the cattle grazing sector. Prof
Bembridge from the University of Fort Hare developed a formula for the
economics of cattle grazing in which the cost of grazing was a variable. When
the cost was zero, the system maximised benefit by having the largest possible
number of cattle standing on the denuded land each close to death from
starvation. That is akin to the trees all being chopped down and a few guys
getting a little for the privilege of taking off the whole resource. As soon as
there was a cost to grazing, akin to the cost of getting those trees, the
benefit was maximised at having a particular number of cattle of high value on
land that was lush. This was demonstrated one the municipal commons in the
Eastern Cape in the 1980’s when I live there. Bembridge proposed charging for
grazing, per head, and the money going to the community as an income stream
from commonly held lands, shared equally. That put everyone in a position to
benefit and thereby being willing to protect and enhance the resource.
Eminently sensible. Unless you have more cattle than average. If someone was
paying nothing and benefitting enormously from the commonly owned resource by
being the only person with cattle, they have a strong interest in banning all
grazing, then bribing their way through the guards onto the grasslands.
Logical, yes? Better to pay a couple of guards than the whole village. Whether
it is trees cut for building materials and firewood or trees cut for charcoal,
the principle remains the same. Until there is a managed resource, it will
disappear. Faster or slower makes no difference. In the end it will be gone
because the arrangement is such that taking it as fast as you can maximises the
benefit for you who have access to it. Biomass production and distribution
issues are not solved by ruminating over a cup of tea. These things are
complicated and involve multiple social dimensions. Whinging about tree cover
won’t bring back the local tax. I do not know where the tree line is at the
moment in Chad, but the grass line has moved into the desert 500 km over the
past 30 years. As we have roughly 60 year climate cycles perhaps for the next
30 it will move south once again as we go into the next cooling cycle because
cooling means drier conditions. That is bound to affect the availability of
trees in the Sahel. RegardsCrispin Crispin and List
I gather (after very little googling) that, after outlawing char in Chad,
the price is up and more illegal material is coming in than ever (because the
price is up).
The key word "sustainability" is, apparently, still elusive in Chad.
See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/journalismcompetition/longlist-chad-s-charcoal-challenge
and
http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/agro-charcoal-in-chad-as-vocational-enterprises/
and lots more from googling.
The offered solution (from the little googling I did) s apparently to make
charcoal briquettes from various straws. But again a good bit of energy is
wasted in the pyrolysis process that could be saved with making pellets from
straw and then using any char-making stove to make the char (possibly making
money while cooking). Of course, I think the char-making stove can be so much
easier to use than a char-using stove, that the char can become biochar - with
all the soil productivity and climate advantages of biochar.
Were you thinking of still making char this way in the field when you said
" Innovative changes to the charcoal market, as were tried very
successfully in Chad, can dramatically change the entire market into a
sustainable, profitable and effective system for provision of non-fossil
cooking fuels."
Or if not that, what was the "innovative" technology you were envisioning?
Do you agree that the past system for Chad (with annually decreasing forest
area) was unsustainable and had to be stopped?
Can you agree with Paul M, that there might be better economics with the
transport of fuel pellets than char briquettes (which entail as much wasted
pyrolysis gas energy as if working with trees)?
Ron
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