[Stoves] 4 Charcoal production, improved

[Richard Stanley]

Crispin ety al.,
Having just completed a 24, (it turned out to bemore like a 50)   
person training project up here in Mbale Uganda, we have found yet  
again a different twist to the mentioned preference for charcoal.
Although as you say, it is  often preferred,  Charcoal is about  
double the cost of the biomass hollow core briquette but the latter  
is not introduced in apposition to charcoal: Rather it utilises the  
wastes or fines (4mm to powder accumilation around every seller. With  
the hollow core shape and a 30 to 40% powder/fines mix (by weight) ,  
the burn rate and heat output is as great or greater than 100%  
charcoal in its original shape.  Since about 25% of the charcoal  
content is wasted in its handling at the sellers stall in the locla  
market,   we are effectively able to find a market for more users  
than the actual charcoal seller.
Where this leads to is a zero sum game intellectually, but it is   
anybody's guess in practical market terms ..Will be repeating the  
training exercise in Lushoto Tanzania over the next three weeks: Stay  
tuned ...
Tulabagane
Richard Stanley
www,legacyfound.org


On Mar 31, 2007, at 18:55, CEDESOL Foundation wrote:

> Another point that must be taken into consideration is the user's
> willingness to change fuel.  Although direct biomass conversion  
> into heat
> for cooking may be desirable, many users in Africa and India prefer  
> to use
> charcoal.  The sheer numbers of those users offsets the difference  
> in energy
> gains from using direct biomass instead of charcoal.
>
> Having recently returned from the PCIA conference in India i must  
> confess
> that my position has been turned around to the point of considering  
> user
> wants over energy potentials. Taking into consideration that I am a  
> "rocket
> stove" biomass preferring person, this is a big position change for  
> me.
>
> Almost everyone from Africa and India reported the difficulty of  
> changing
> charcoal user's preference.
>
> On 3/22/07, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> 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
>>
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>
>
>
> -- 
> David Whitfield V.
> Executive Director
> CEDESOL Foundation
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