[Stoves] 4 Charcoal production, improved

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Friends

Robert emphasizes a good point: transport costs v.s. energy content.

Having just done this calculation for a paper, I can report that in
Mozambique at least, the cost in foreign exchange to buy fuel for
trucks is equal to the local purchase cost of charcoal when the
charcoal has to be transported 500 km or more.

This means that to access $1000 worth of local biomass-sourced
charcoal, they have to spend $1000 on imported fuel to move it from
Inhambane province to Maputo.

This is another way to look at energy costs.

I would caution, Penn, that while charcoal is ordinarily though of as
coming from trees, there are many useless (for most purposes) sources
of biomass that can be easily turned into charcoal to make a high
quality fuel from something people refuse to burn in a stove as a
biomass fuel.  Bullrushes come to mind immediately.

So your argument is valid for wood, but weaker for non-standard biomass.

I feel there is an indefinite future for charcoal because it is a high
quality, predictable fuel that can be packaged and marketed over a
wide area from a single source.  These are the characteristics of a
good product.

Best regards
Crispin in Matsapha