Folks,

We’re back from Labor Day, the long weekend that marks the unofficial end of summer and the start of the rest of the business year here in America.

Before we launch into a new, fresh round of stories about energy poverty alleviation and energy efficient biomass combustion solutions, we want to share with you a roundup of stories that caught our attention on the Twitterverse over the week-end.

UN researchers say its 15-year anti-poverty plan fails to address jobs, income equality. – “The United Nations is ignoring the critical role of jobs and income equality in its 15-year strategy to fight world poverty and hunger — to the detriment of developing nations, the world body’s own researchers said in a surprising critique released Friday.” The report’s authors rightly point out that rural people giving up agricultural work for low-wage urban jobs does not indicate upward economic development. We still think the absence of energy poverty alleviation as a key strategy is a glaring omission.

New UN website to track climate aid & build trust. Cash is “golden key” to Cancun climate talks. – A website launched on Friday will help track whether rich countries are keeping a pledge to come up with $30 billion in climate aid for the poor, seen by the U.N. as a “golden key” to progress in talks on global warming. The United Nations-backed site (www.faststartfinance.org) so far lists cash promises by 6 European donors including Germany and Britain and 27 recipients from Bangladesh to the Marshall Islands. Many of the developing nations have blank entries on the amount of aid received.

Atlas of the Biosphere: Mapping the Biosphere – We thought this was a neat resource. We hope you like it, too.: The Atlas of the Biosphere was created as a Masters Thesis project of the University of Wisconsin’s Nelson Institute Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE). The project goal was to provide information about the environment and human interactions with the environment.

Economist article about energy in the developing world : A growing number of initiatives are promoting bottom-up ways to deliver energy to the world’s poor - This is an interesting article and it’s especially good on showcasing a couple of social enterprises that are actually succeeding in bringing energy efficiency to the bottom of the pyramid. Sadly, where the article falls short is in its overview of technological solutions. The authors chose to focus on things like LEDs and PVs and made no mention of energy efficient stoves, improved kilns, and sustainable, alternative biomass fuels.

For those of you thinking about developing credits for sale on the carbon market, this serialized explanation of how the market works should come in handy: Making a market for pollution: First in a three-part series on carbon trading.

At The Charcoal Project we like to consider thought-provoking questions. This one comes to us via Vuthisa in South Africa which asks: ” Is it better to burn wood or charcoal?” Here’s part of their answer: In China, India and Sub Saharan Africa, up to 80% of urban households use biomass fuels for cooking. Wood fuel usage is the most predominant with charcoal a close second. What is their respective influence on global warming? Sorry, but this post will not attempt to discuss this complex issue, because the reality is that for most people struggling with energy security, saving the environment is not exactly high on their list. The following paragraphs will instead focus briefly on the burning characteristics of wood and charcoal, because in many cases availability and affordability of the fuel type will dictate which fuel type is being used.

Reserves of Forest Carbon May Be Significantly Overestimated, Study Says -  Turns out that the amount of carbon stored in the world’s tropical forests varies widely according to underlying geology and other factors.

Finally, The X-Prize Foundation and the Government of India team up to find the best cookstove EVAH! In response to our query about the rules and the purse prize, we received the following response. We’ll keep you posted!

Rgds,

Kim & Nina

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We’ve received the following announcement:

X PRIZE, Govt. of India & IIT Delhi Announce Partnership to Create Global Competition to Develop Clean-Burning Cookstove

Initiative would combat the serious problem of indoor air pollution, which kills more than one million people each year

August 30, 2010 (PLAYA VISTA, CA) – The X PRIZE Foundation, an educational non-profit that designs and administers competitions with prizes of up to $30 million, the Government of India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi have formed a partnership to create a global competition to develop and deploy clean and efficient cookstoves. The competition will focus on the development of affordable and clean-burning cookstove technologies (and possibly delivery models) and is a part of the MNRE’s National Biomass Cookstoves Initiative, which was launched in December 2009. Details of the competition, including the announcement of the launch date, prize purse and competition guidelines are forthcoming.

A study conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that indoor air pollution was responsible for more than 1.6 million deaths worldwide in the year 2000, making it the second largest environmental contributor to ill health, behind unsafe water and sanitation. Additionally, the study found that when households are filled with smoke from inefficient stoves, exposure to these emissions increase the risks of developing pneumonia, cataracts, and tuberculosis. Furthermore, cookstoves generate products of incomplete combustion that are contributors to climate change.

Approximately 70% of Indian households — more than 160 million households, comprising about 770 million people – are estimated to depend on simple but polluting cookstoves that burn solid fuel, mainly wood or coal. It also is estimated that approximately 400,000 to 550,000 people – primarily women and children – die of the resulting indoor air pollution each year in the country. This makes the cookstoves problem in India and the potential market for cleaner cookstoves amongst the largest in the world.

The cookstoves competition falls under the X PRIZE Foundation’s Education & Global Development prize group, which tackles major challenges in areas such as learning, hunger, health and water. Addressing the grand challenges of our time, the X PRIZE Foundation generates innovation through incentivized competition. Through the strategic design of ground-breaking competitions with significant, multi-million dollar prize purses, X PRIZE spurs collaboration among the world’s most brilliant minds to tackle the most pressing issues and create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity.

The competition is also an integral part of the MNRE’s National Biomass Cookstoves Initiative, which was launched in December 2009 after extensive deliberations and input from a range of domestic and international experts. The Initiative builds upon an earlier program that disseminated 35 million cookstoves. The National Biomass Cookstoves Initiative aims to develop next-generation cookstoves; establish state-of-the-art testing, certification and monitoring facilities; strengthen research and development programs in key technical institutions; and create and implement innovative large-scale delivery models. All of these activities are to be assessed by an independent monitoring unit, and implemented through public-private partnerships.

MNRE believes that the technologies and delivery models that will be developed through this Initiative will be useful in India as well as in other developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America whose populations also suffer from health and other problems related to biomass use in household cooking. The cleaner combustion in the contemplated devices will also greatly reduce the products of incomplete combustion, which are greenhouse pollutants, thus helping combat climate change. Therefore, the success of the Initiative and the prize competition could well have a transformative impact for the energy poor in developing countries around the world while also helping tackle the important problem of climate change.

About the X PRIZE Foundation
The X PRIZE Foundation is an educational nonprofit prize institute whose mission is to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. In 2004, the Foundation captured world headlines when Burt Rutan, backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, built and flew the world’s first private vehicle to space to win the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE. The Foundation has since launched the $10 million Archon X PRIZE for Genomics, the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE, and the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. The Foundation is creating and conducting competitions in four prize groups: Exploration (Space and Oceans), Life Sciences, Energy and Environment, Education and Global Development. The Foundation is widely recognized as the leader in fostering innovation through competition. www.xprize.org

About the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy
The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) is the nodal Ministry of the Government of India at the Federal level for all matters relating to new and renewable energy. The Ministry has been facilitating the implementation of a broad spectrum of programs including harnessing renewable power, providing renewable energy to rural areas for lighting, cooking and motive power, using renewable energy in urban, industrial and commercial applications, and developing alternate fuels and applications. In addition, it supports the research, design and development of new and renewable energy technologies, products and services. In recent past, MNRE has undertaken many new initiatives for mainstreaming renewable energy in the national energy mix. www.mnre.gov.in

About the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi
The Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD) is one of the fifteen national Institutes of Technology created as centers of excellence in India for training, research, and development in science, engineering, and technology. The IITs have been designated as Institutes of National Importance by the Parliament of India. IITD, one of the five original IITs, was founded in 1961, and soon thereafter designated as an IIT. It is consistently ranked as one of India’s top science and engineering educational institutions – its faculty members have won national and international recognition and its graduates have become leaders in both scholarship and practice in science, engineering, economics, finance, business management, and entrepreneurship across the world. www.iitd.ac.in

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First the good news:

Jeffrey Sachs Charts the Way Forward for MDGs Ahead of UN Summit

World-renowned economist calls on leaders to arrive at the New York meeting next month “with the agreed plans, partnerships, and financing to accelerate our progress.”

Professor Jeffrey Sachs has outlined eight “major gaps” which need to be overcome if the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are to be achieved. These unmet objectives are in smallholder agriculture, education, water and sanitation, health, climate financing, empowering girls and women, infrastructure, and strategies and goals at the local level.

His comments come ahead of the MDG summit, taking place in New York next month. “The MDG Summit this year gives us the opportunity to scale up the best thinking and experience,” the world-renowned economist recently wrote in The Commonwealth Ministers Reference Book 2010. “The world has the crucial opportunity to innovate, by creating new institutions and new ways of doing things, in both the public and private spheres.”

[Published by Commonwealth News and Information Service (London) -  August 25th, 2010]

We are, of course, thrilled that Professor Sachs continues to hang on tight to his mandate as the UN’s SG’s Chief MDG Chearleader. He’s done a tremendous job keeping the spotlight shining on this issue than many others have forgotten. His mission is especially relevant to the hundreds of millions of sub-Saharan Africans who have not seen measurable progress on a number of MDGs compared to other parts of the developing world.

Now the not-so-good news:

We are however sadden that Professor Sachs chose not to make energy efficiency a higher priority on this summit’s agenda. This oversight is especially piercing for the more than 90% of SSA population dependent on biomass as their primary source of fuel. 

This is a glaring omission considering that the UNDP states:

“Energy is central to sustainable development and poverty reduction efforts. It affects all aspects of development — social, economic, and environmental — including livelihoods, access to water, agricultural productivity, health, population levels, education, and gender-related issues. None of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) can be met without major improvement in the quality and quantity of energy services in developing countries.”

The UNDP’s statement above is one important reason why energy poverty alleviation is sometimes called the missing MDG.

In fact, the Opec Fund for International Development has gone so far as to say:

OFID is of the opinion that the alleviation of energy poverty – although not a goal on its own – is central to the achievement of the eight internationally embraced Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Many of us involved in development cooperation are persuaded that the alleviation of energy poverty is a “missing,” ninth MDG.

[We never thought we'd turn to OPEC for support on this, but there you have it.]

We feel this is a great missed opportunity by Mr. Sachs. Luckily there is still time to redress this oversight.

The Editors

The Charcoal Project

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Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’s has famously focused his philanthropic efforts on big, bold ideas, like eradicating infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis.

Now, fresh from his success in convincing several dozen billionaires to donate big chunks of their fortunes to charity, Mr. Gates is taking on the greatest challenge of our times: the quest for a sustainable energy revolution that won’t jeopardize life on Earth.

In a recent interview granted to MIT’s Technology Review, Mr. Gates ranged far and wide on a host of issues, including energy poverty, the lessons learned from his focus on public health solutions, and the search for clean, cheap, sustainable energy.

At The Charcoal Project we’re always looking for new ways of thinking about energy poverty alleviation, which is why we’ve chosen to share excerpts from the interview and, in some cases, provide our own thoughts in response to Mr. Gates’ views. (Excerpts are in italic.)

Taken from Technology Review: Q&A: Bill Gates. The cofounder of Microsoft talks energy, philanthropy and management style. By Jason Pontin

You are a member of the American Energy Innovation Council, the AEIC, which calls for a national energy policy that would increase U.S. investment in energy research every year from $5 billion to $16 billion.

Right.

I was stunned that the U.S. government invests so little.

Yeah, particularly when you look at the DOE budget, and it looks so big–but the biggest part of that by far is dealing with the legacy of nuclear weapons production at various sites around the country. I was stunned myself. You know, the National Institutes of Health invest a bit more than $30 billion.

The Gates Foundation is in that health area, and when we pick a disease to work on, we pick a disease where for some reason the market is not working. Like malaria: rich people don’t need a malaria vaccine. They are rarely in malarial areas, and when they are, they can take prophylactic drugs and not worry about it. And yet for the people who live there, over a million a year, mostly kids in Africa, die. When we did our first $50 million grant for malaria, about a decade ago, we more than doubled the amount of money going into malaria research at the time. It’s a horrific disease, but there’s not a market reward for coming up with a malaria vaccine.

So you made a market.

Yes, you can create a market where there’s no natural market. The biggest project, the one that’s furthest along, is where GlaxoSmithKline is doing a vaccine called R2SS, which is now in phase 3 [trials]. It’s not a perfect vaccine. It reduces mortality a bit more than 50 percent. And then we’re funding a lot of other things that aren’t as far along that–either by themselves or in combination–would get us a perfect vaccine. There are some very novel ideas in the early stages.

It occurs to us that Mr. Gates’ description above of how the market treats (or not) infectious diseases could easily apply to energy poverty and the 3 billion people who depend on biomass as their primary fuel. For one, the socio-economics of the victims are similar. Second, there is no natural market for clean cookstoves.

So, could a Gates-ian approach to combating infectious disease work for poverty alleviation? Maybe, but there are major, maybe irreconcilable differences, between the two. For one, a vaccine or a bednet will work just about anywhere in the world. Not so for clean cookstoves which require infinite adaptations and tweaking to ensure end-user adoption. Additionally, we still lack standards for what would constitute success. Is it less fuel consumption? Less emissions? By how much? What should the targets and standards be?

On the other hand, the investments necessary to come up with the appropriate technology for solving biomass energy efficiency for the energy poor is relatively modest compared to the funding required for a malaria or HIV/AIDS vaccine.

So why couldn’t huge, regular, dependable investments from your foundation make a difference?

In energy, we might have some involvement where it’s connected to things that wouldn’t happen for poor people otherwise. There may be some particular biomass approaches for getting local energy out where there’s no roads and infrastructure-there might not be a market signal for that type of innovation. You know, the poor people are the ones who are going to suffer the most from climate change. It’s unfortunately the poor people of the world who live in tropical zones, and there’s a variety of reasons for that. But that’s where agricultural productivity is already barely good enough for survival. Think of people in places like Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan. There, climate change will clearly reduce productivity without some big innovation in the seeds and the approaches.

Why the Gates Foundation has not zeroed in on biomass combustion energy efficiency as a priority is a mystery considering the multiplying effect that these would have on public health, poverty alleviation, climate change, and local environmental services.

Let’s talk about poverty. What is the minimum amount of energy that a person in a developing country should have access to for a reasonable standard of living?

Well, a level that’s about half of current European usage, which is a quarter of current U.S. usage. The room for efficiency–I’m saying it’s probably a factor of four. And then I’m saying the rest of the world should be allowed to live at that energy level. Now, the aggregate energy therefore for nine billion people, which is about what the peak population is expected to be, is dramatically greater than what we have today, and that’s why when you multiply that big E by the CO₂ per E, that number better be pretty damn small, because you’re not just trying to stay where you are today; you’re trying to get 90 percent down from where you are today. So wow, that number has got to be approaching zero.

Energy obesity vs energy starvation: they are both undoubtedly related and undoubtedly bad to society and our environment.

You’ve talked about the need for “energy miracles.” But we’ve been waiting for such breakthroughs for decades. TerraPower is a traveling-wave reactor, a design that dates back to the 1950s. We’ve been working on energy miracles–and we’ve seen nothing. Wouldn’t we be better off making the energy technologies we have more efficient?

Well, no, we haven’t been working on those things. The nuclear industry was effectively shut down in the late ’70s. And so evolutionary improvements on those so-called Gen 3 designs really didn’t happen. And more radical designs that were measured according to their economics didn’t happen. There’s a lot of paper designs under the heading Gen 4, but most of those are going to be very, very expensive. They’re kind of cool science, but they’re very, very expensive.

But let me get back to the main thrust of your question. The CO₂ problem is simple. Any amount you emit causes warming, because there’s about a 20 percent fraction that stays for over 10,000 years. That’s the way the ocean equilibrates with the air on this planet. So the problem is to get essentially to zero CO₂ emissions. And that’s a very hard problem, because you have sources like agriculture, rice, cows, that are single-point sources out with the poorest people. So you better get the big sources: you better get rich-world transport, rich-world electricity, and so on to get anywhere near your goal. And so when people say, “Shouldn’t we do X or Y or Z?”–well, if X or Y or Z gets you a 20 percent reduction, then you’ve just got the planet, what, another three years? Congratulations! I mean, is that what we have in mind: to delay Armageddon for three years? Is that really it? A 20 percent reduction is interesting, and it’s on the way to a 40, 60, 80 percent reduction, but most things that are low-hanging fruit are not scalable. The U.S. uses, per person, over twice as much energy as most other rich countries. (Put Canada and Australia aside, because they are almost as bad as us.) And so it’s easy to say we should cut energy use by building better buildings and higher MPG and all sorts of things. But even in the most optimistic case, if the U.S. is cutting its energy intensity by a factor of two, to get to European or Japanese levels, the amount of increased energy needed by poor people during that time frame will mean that there’s never going to be a year when the world uses less energy. In other words, there is absolutely no hope if you just say the world should use less energy. The only hope is less CO₂ per unit of energy. It may feel good for people to use less energy, and they should–if individually they can delay Armageddon for about one microsecond, everybody should do that–but you ought to save the political will and the money to make sure you’re doing the thing that really has a chance of solving the problem, and that’s CO₂ intensity. And no, there is no existing technology that at anywhere near economic levels gives us electricity with zero CO₂.

Then what kinds of energy miracles do we need?

You know, take wind: it’s actually not that far from economical when it makes up the last 20 percent of the energy supply. But almost everything called renewable is intermittent. I also have another term for it: “energy farming.” The density is very low. We have no idea how to take those intermittent sources up to 50, 80, 90 percent. You can see this in microcosm in the Texas grid. When wind was like 2 percent, they would let the wind guys bid low and then fail to deliver, with no penalty. Well, now wind is up to about 8 percent of the Texas grid. And so the guys who are maintaining the standby power, which is mostly natural gas, are saying, “Hey, when the wind guys fail, shouldn’t they pay at least a penalty? Because most times they don’t fail, and yet we’ve always had to maintain this backup for them.” It just points up that without a storage miracle, you cannot take intermittent sources up to large numbers. In fact, not only do you need a storage miracle, you need a transmission miracle, because the intermittent sources are not available in an efficient form in all locations.

Now, energy factories, which are hydrocarbon and nuclear energy–those things are nice. Well, they have some nice things and some not-nice things. You can put a roof on them if you get bad weather: most coal plants have been built to withstand the 20-year hurricane. But energy farming? Good luck to you! Hail, wind, dust–what is your lifetime? Energy factories can be anywhere. They can withstand tough conditions. Unfortunately, conventional energy factories emit CO_2, and that is a very tough problem to solve, and there’s a huge disincentive to do research on it. People are willing, but until society decides that the government’s willing to certify storage locations and take the long-term risk and do the monitoring of trillions of cubic feet of CO₂, it can’t happen. The complexity of managing, say, 50 years of U.S. carbon emissions–it makes Yucca Mountain look like the most trivial exercise ever contemplated. I happen to think that if you have the political will, the technical problems could be solved.

We look forward to the day when Mr. Gates makes energy poverty alleviation one of his top priorities!

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We published last month an interview with Dennis Tessier of ARTI-TZ, a Tanzania-based non-profit working to promote the manufacturing and marketing of briquettes made from the char produced in improved charcoal kilns.

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Tanzania’s forests are disappearing at a whopping rate of 4,200 square kilometers (1,620 sq. miles) annually. That’s about four times the size of New York City or  half the size of Virunga National Park in the DRC.

In our Q&A with Dennis he mentioned ARTI-Tanzania’s Waste to Wealth (W2W) project and we wanted to find out more.

Below are highlights taken from the project description.

The fundamentals of the Waste to Wealth (W2W) Project

Since its formation in January 2007, ARTI-TZ has conducted over 20 training sessions in different locations, funded by various organizations and individuals.

Over 150 Tanzanians have been trained so far. This technology, developed by ARTI- India, being promoted has received the Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy in 2002. Some of the trained individuals are using the knowledge to make briquettes using the abundantly available dry biomass around them but others are not able to use the learning due to the lack of funds to procure the equipment.

The experience from the trainings done in the Mkange village and Kerege village clearly demonstrate that existing wood charcoal producers are keen and willing to adopt the ARTI-TZ method of making char powder and briquettes if provided with the initial cost of equipment and an assured market.

They are willing to convert from the forests to the fields for the following reasons:

1 . The ARTI method is less labourious and simpler than the traditional method of making charcoal.

2 . The required raw material (dry biomass) is available abundantly in close vicinity so they do not have to travel long distances into the forests.

3 . By using the ARTI method, they are producing about 100 kg of char powder and 30 – 40 kg of briquettes per day and do not have to go through the 2 -3 weeks long process of making the same quantity of charcoal from trees.

4 . Joint Environmental Techniques Limited, (JET) ARTI-TZ’s commercial partner guarantees to buy every kilogram of char powder and briquettes produced by them at a price of TSh. 100/kg ($0.075) and TSh. 300/kg ($ 0.22) respectively.

5 . Some of them who own large farms but are not able to cultivate on them due to lack of resources for clearing the existing scrubs and bushes have been able to now clear their farms, using the scrubs and bushes to produce char powder and briquettes. Their land use has improved.

6 . Others have started taking contracts from wealthier land owners to clear their farms of scrubs or of agricultural remains after harvest, at very low costs as they utilize the raw materials to make char powder and briquettes.

7 . They have been able to increase their incomes enabling them to improve their living standards as well as saving to increase the number of kilns and charring drums to enhance their production capacity.

Others from their villages are also ready to follow them provided they are supported to start–up.

However, just these two villages are not sufficient to have any impact on the rate of deforestation for charcoal production.

The Waste to Wealth (W2W) project aims to empower rural inhabitants, especially existing charcoal producers with the knowledge and the equipment to divert them from the forests to the fields. The project area will cover villages from the 4 districts surrounding Dar Es Salaam as they are the major suppliers of the charcoal to the city.

No villages have been identified yet but contacts can be established and agreements signed as soon as the funding for the project is in place.

 

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