Cristina, I just noticed your comment on the statement to Paul O:"Are we not concerned about global warming each time that we switch on a modern gas stove?" " Are you saying that poor people shouldn't be allowed to use fossil fuels?" Do you realy consider biomass not suitable for the low income households?? I am using firewood from the nearby forest and considering instaling a pellet boiler, approximate 30 YEARS after the first Swede started to use his pellet and wood chip burner.Well, some people say Sweden has been better off, since VOLVO has moved to China, but still..............:) Norway is exporting 99% of LPG produced to US and Europe. Thanks Otto Date: Sun, 5 May 2013 01:41:33 -0700 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Stoves] The price of bottled gas Hi Paul, Yes Guatemala does have a fair amount of agricultural residues. We worked on designing briquetting models and had a hard time with some of the available types of biomass. I am sure Richard could comment on this more since he started working here with some groups on designing a mix with the kinds of biomass that we have available. Also the infrastructure requirements for LPG and natural gas are different. Here is the FAO breakdown for Guatemala:http://faostat.fao.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?PageID=339&lang=en&country=89 The most abundant biomass available here is with sugarcane and banana growers. When we talked with a large company growing bananas they expressed that they were investigating ways to turn the flower plams (I think that is what they are called) into electricity. Again, the sugar cane growers I think are using the biomass for the same kinds of things. So Guatemala's two largest sources of biomass are or are in plans to be utilized for energy. Coffee husks might be one of the more available types. I remember reading something a year ago about coffee husks giving of a urine smell when gasified. Is this still true? Maybe someone can comment onthis. Richard might be able to comment some more since he has worked here with biomass. You say " Are we not concerned about global warming each time that we switch on a modern gas stove?" Are you saying that poor people shouldn't be allowed to use fossil fuels? I thought we already talked about this. I think its not fair to expect poor people to adopt ONLY biomass because we are concerned about global warming. We need to stop treating poor people with the expectation that they should shoulder the burden of adopting ONLY renewable fuels. We need to let these families have an affordable option to use what they perfer whether it be gas, biomass, etc. I think the work you are doing in Vietnam is great, but I urge you to be conscious of the differences in countries. Guatemala is not Vietnam...Guatemala is not India...China is not Tanzania. Best, Christina On Sunday, May 5, 2013, Paul Olivier wrote: Christina, How available is natural gas in Guatemala? Is it not made available to the people by oil and gas companies? No doubt it takes an incredible infrastructure to make it available to them in bottled form. I would imagine that Guatemala generates fairly important quantities of agricultural residues. Perhaps what you are really saying is that the infrastructure needed to make predictable biomass fuel available to the people of Guatemala is not yet in place. It is precisely such an infrastructure we should be working on. Whenever and wherever possible, in rich or poor countries alike, we should look for every opportunity to replace bottled gas with syngas. Why burn non-renewable fossil fuels, especially when agricultural residues could be transformed into predictable fuels that are thoroughly renewable? Are we not concerned about global warming each time that we switch on a modern gas stove? Thanks. Paul Olivier On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 9:15 AM, Christina Espinosa <[email protected]> wrote: In Guatemala, the current price to refill a 25 lb tank is $14 (no subsidy). A 10lb tank refill would cost $5.60. 5lb tanks are not permited in the market. Every country is going to have a different market, regulations, etc....and not every country has an abundance of readily available biomass. Not every customer might want to produce char or have access to biomass. LPG is still an alternative for many families who only purchase wood. Christina Espinosa On Saturday, May 4, 2013, mtrevor wrote: Just curious. What size bottle costs USD $21.00 Here in the Marshall Islands the standard US 20 lbs bottle is $37.50 and the small pressure cans in the stores run from $0.96 up to $2.00 plus. Michael N Ttvor ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Olivier To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2013 11:28 PM Subject: Re: [Stoves] The price of bottled gas Philip, Here in Vietnam bottled gas costs more than $21.00 US per bottle. There is no distribution problem here at all. Some households use up a bottle in less than one month. When the monthly wage is not more than $120 US per month, the situation is extremely dire. In many parts of Vietnam, rice hulls and coffee husks are often dumped in rivers and valleys. Sometimes they are uselessly burned as a means of disposal. With the right type of stove, these agricultural residues put out a beautiful blue flame that rivals that of bottled gas. When we derive energy from fossil fuels, there is nothing of value left behind. But when we gasify or pyrolyze biomass, a valuable biochar remains. When incorporated into the soil, biochar promotes plant growth and sequesters carbon. Why derive energy from fossil fuels when we can get it from renewable biomass? Are you not, in any way, concerned about global warming? Thanks. Paul On Sat, May 4, 2013 at 5:56 PM, Philip Lloyd <[email protected]> wrote: Paul Oliver commented " The price of bottled gas is a huge problem throughout most of the developing world." Part of the problem is poor models of distribution. Locally, we are seeing the entry of a supplier who a) has found a way of filling 5kg bottles rapidly at a central plant and b) distributing them directly to the retailer at minimal cost, with a growing chain of retailers chosen so that the householder can resupply within 500m. The net result is a halving of the street price of bottle gas, and it is now the cheapest way to cook. The advantage of filling at a central plant is that safety is greatly enhanced; and the discovery of a way of filling small cylinders rapidly means high throughput and low costs. Most big bottlers of gas don't like the really small cylinders because they couldn't fill them rapidly enough to get throughput - it was cheaper (and far less safe) to refill them at the retailers. Regards to all _______________________________________________ Stoves 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 -- Christina Espinosa University of the Pacific '10 School of International Studies [email protected] _______________________________________________ Stoves 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/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org for more Biomass Cooking Stoves, News and Information see our web site: http://stoves.bioenergylists.org/
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