Dear Stovers, Apologies for the delayed response to this thread. Yes, we began collecting charcoal and other biomass prices from spot locations around the globe with a view at making it available to stakeholders. We are in the process of making the prices uniform as Rogerio suggested in his comment below.
We will make another push shortly online for more submissions. The more data we collect, the more accurate the picture. Also, you should know the info presently visible online does not reflect all the information we possess. We're still fine tuning the categories worth sharing. The second issue is approximating a uniform measure. For example, when folks submit prices for the equivalent of "a coffee can full of charcoal" sold on the side of the road in Port-au-Prince, it then becomes tricky to get a real measure of price/volume of charcoal. Since the most useful measure is probably, as Rogerio suggests, a metric ton, it is best that submission be made using some type of standardized measure, like a 100-lb burlap bag you would use for potatoes. From photographs, it seems this type of bag is the preferred measure in sS-Africa. Finally, a reminder that we are always open to ideas about how to improve this tool! Rgds, Kim As a reminder, here are the values we are requesting from the field: *Location: *(Province, district, town, city, etc. Multiple locations are encouraged!) *Country:* *Date:* *Type of biomass:* (Please be as descriptive as possible, ie: heavy/light charchoal, briquettes type, wood type, etc.) *Local unit of measure:* (kg, sack, pound, coffee can, jug, etc. Please be as descriptive or approximative as possible as the units will be standardized later.) *Sale Price in local currency: * (Is the price wholesale or retail?) *Conversion rate of local currency to Euros & USD:* (We can do this on our end if you don’t know. Click here <http://www.google.com/finance/converter>for Google’s handy online converter.) *Information about alternative fuel of choice*, if available: (Charcoal vs LPG, or charcoal vs woodfuel, or charcoal vs briquettes, or briquettes vs LPG, or charcoal vs kerosene, you get the idea…) *Unit of measure:* (100lbs cylinder of LPG, for example, or one gallon/liter of kerosene, etc.) *Local cost of alternative fuel per unit of measure:* *Person or organization submitting and email*. (Emails will be kept confidential and will only be used for corroborating information) > Message: 7 > Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2010 05:12:58 +1300 > From: rogerio carneiro de miranda <[email protected]> > To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [Stoves] Summary of cost of charcoal? > Message-ID: > > <[email protected]<aanlktinjmmlgdlrknogtfzfhns57qy2y2u%[email protected]> > > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Hello everyone: > > I suggest that we make an effort to gather standard data on charcal price > around the world. We should be aiming to report it as US$/metric ton, so > that we can compare how charcoal prices vary from country to country, and > use to use. > > Obviously there are diferences from large urban to small urban and rural > areas, as well for resale versus wholesale. > > This past week I based on the charcoal index available at > http://www.charcoalproject.org/resources/charcoal-index/ I calculated > that > roughly resale price in a couple of urban areas of Africa must be around > US$400/ton, while here in Brazil wholesale industrial charcoal is about > US$300/ton. As expected, poor people are paying more for charcoal than the > industrial users. > > Lets agree on a format in how to report these data, and ask the stove list > menbers to report it, so that we can built a matrix with global charcoal > data. > > Rogerio > > -- *J. Kim Chaix* CEO & Founder <http://charcoalproject.org> Green Spaces NYC 394 Broadway, 5th fl. New York, NY 10013 USA (+1) 917.378.8670
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