The Charcoal Project

Jumaa, charcoal retailer, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

We just couldn’t resist preempting Steve Jobs‘ announcement of the next hot Apple gadget with our own launch today, the world’s first:

Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. California

Global Biomass Index

As we indicated before, the index will track the price of biomass and related fuels around the world.

The Charcoal Project Global Biomass Index

The tool is a work in progress and you can expect to see greater functionality with each new version.

Ultimately, however, the index will only succeed if you help us by contributing information from wherever you are.

You can email your data to: index[at]charcoalproject[dot]org

Please make certain you contribute at least the fields in red!

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 aproximative as possible as the units will be standardized later.)

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 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)

As always, we welcome your suggestions as to how we can make this resource more useful to the end user.

A very special thank you to Christina, our Chief Technology Goddess, for making this happen!

And thank you for supporting The Charcoal Project in our effort to build the global network of biomass energy stakeholders.

— The team at The Charcoal Project

This table shows only some of the categories tracked by the index.

One of the startling facts I refer to when discussing the dire biomass situation facing a number of  Sub-Saharan countries is Uganda’s announcement last year that the country is set to run out of woodfuel by the end of the decade.

The report from Uganda’s Ministry of Water and the Environment said: “At the present rate of deforestation, it is predicted that Uganda is likely to be importing fuel wood by 2020.”

The report also notes that Uganda’s woodland cover declined from 16.5 per cent to 11.5 per cent of the total land area between 1990 and 2005. [Water and Environment Sector Performance
Report 2009, report released: October 2009]

The country derives 93% of its energy needs from biomass.

In a bold move, Uganda three years ago adopted a policy on renewable energy aimed at increasing the population’s access to power from 4% to 61% by 2017.

Well, it looks like someone in the German government thinks this is a goal worth supporting.

Today’s edition of Uganda’s New Vision Online reports that the German government is investing “10m euros to promote renewable energy in order to alleviate poverty.”

However, the news item makes several points that are worthy of further scrutiny.

1. “There is compelling need of going for biomass technology to produce combustible gas.” I wonder what this means. Will Uganda convert biomass to combustible gas in some type of largescale operation? Or are they talking about small gasifiers? What’s the plan here? Anyone know?

2. “Biogas technologies can also offer an opportunity to tackle the waste management problem in the country and wood fuel conversion technologies such as wood stoves and brick kilns.” I think the reference to waste management must be about discarded agricultural matter. The rest of the statement is nebulous.

Interesting factoid: “In addition, biomass fuel trade employs close to 200,000 people and saves the country foreign exchange equivalent to $160m per annum in terms of oil products which would otherwise be imported.”

Is there anyone in Uganda who can comment on this story? Thanks!

Tracking the price of charcoal within a country or region can provide valuable insight for researchers and entrepreneurs.

Such information could help inform the pricing of briquettes, the relative cost of biomass in a region, and much more.

In a few days we will post a section on our website’s homepage where you can track the values of charcoal from reporting countries. The information will be plotted using Google Earth and will also be available in a tabular format.

But in order to do that, we need your help!

Please send us an email with the following information:

1. Location, Country, Date. Multiple locations within a country or region are encouraged.

2. Unit of measure (wt. or volume). We’ll do the conversion on this end.

3. Cost in local currency

4. Optional information: cost of competing biomass fuel. For example, woodfuel or briquettes. And, if at all possible, cost of LPG, kerosene, or whatever the next superior fuel option available locally by volume or weight.

Here’s an example from my native Nicaragua:

1. Location, Country: Granada, Nicaragua

2. Unit of Measure: “Quintal” bag (I think this is roughly 1 bushel (bu) = 2150.42 cu in = 4 pk ≈ 30.283 L)

3. Cost in local currency: C$ 10 Cordobas

4. Not available

Thank you for helping us build this new public feature!

Uganda mudslide

(BBC) More than 300 people are feared dead after heavy rain caused a series of landslides in the mountainous eastern region of Bududa in Uganda. A trading centre in a village was flattened, leaving shops and houses buried under the mud, officials said. Rescuers are digging in the mud with hand-held tools as mechanical diggers cannot reach the affected villages. President Yoweri Museveni visited the affected area, and criticised residents for settling on a floodplain. The president also said the disaster could be partially blamed on local farmers for stripping the land of thick plant life. Some 86 deaths have been confirmed, with local officials saying at least 250 people remain missing. (More…)

What will it take?

What will it take to tip the scale in favor of a global crash program to swap out three-stones-and-a-pot for energy-efficient stoves, kilns, and sustainable alternative biofuels?

Port-au-Prince

Will Haiti be to bioenergy what Katrina was to climate change?

New Orleans

How long before Al Gore, Angelina, or Bono take on bionergy as the next big inconvenient truth? The Charcoal Project’s intelligence services tell us there is already a film in the works.  Will Bono embrace the rocket stove onstage to his fan’s delight?

Perhaps it will be the lure of a multi-billion dollar global market in carbon offsets from stoves, kilns, and briquettes programs that will do the trick. Or maybe it will be the on-the-ground realities of  implementing REDD that will undo the Gordian knot.

And the point is…?

Actually, there are four points and they boil down to this:

1. Is there a need for a global stove, kilns, biomass program?

2. Is the bionergy/biomass community ready to step up to the global challenge or will it cling to its small-scale, silo-ed, buckshot approach?

3. Is the world, especially the development community, ready to recognize and embrace the issue with the same furious passion it has correctly championed clean water, HIV/AIDS, climate change, malaria, and the eradication of polio, to name a few?

Getting the message across in Lagos

4. What will it take to move the world’s needle in the direction of a global effort to swap out three stones and a pot for better stoves, kilns, and fuels?

So?

Here’s what I think.

I response to the first question, my gut tells me there is a need but I’m not a scientist or development expert. I realize that there is not a one-size-fits-all approach in the way condoms, sex ed, and retrovirals come to mind when combating HIV/AIDS. Or the the mosquito net for malaria. This is perhaps the most difficult question to answer.

However, if the answer to the above is in the affirmative, then I am confident that practitioners and champions of bioenergy/biomass technology can rally around a unified goal. Whether you care about indoor air pollution, climate change, environmental degradation, or poverty alleviation, low-cost technological fixes and clean, sustainable biomass fuels exists to solve these overlapping global challenges. We might differ on how to get there exactly but I’m certain the likes of Hedon, PCIA, Aprovecho, Canada, Uganda, Brazil, Haiti, USAID, EPA, DOE, World Bank, UNEP, WHO, WFP, Berkeley U, MIT, and so many other organizations in so many countries can find enough common ground to rally around a shared vision. We have a choir, now all we need a hymn sheet, to answer question 2.

My answer to number 3 is an unequivocal yes. We know what the problems are and we have the technology to fix them. All this at a very low cost compared to, say, the financing of clean coal development or even a single nuclear power plant. When I explain the magnitude of the problem, its impact on half the world’s population, and the existence of readily available solutions, people I speak with invariably get excited about solving this problem. I’m certain you all get the same response wherever you are.  In the words of Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a leading climate change scientist at the University of California San Diego, solving the charcoal/woodfuel problem is the “low hanging fruit” for climate change…. and, I would add, environmental degradation… and indoor air pollution… and energy poverty.

So what will it take? Three things: marketing/communications, lobbying, and resources. Launching global marketing and advocacy campaigns is not rocket stove science:

Nike ad in spanish

Marocco

"Yes. One dozen rocket stoves, please."

Nike, Coca Cola, IBM have managed global campaigns. As Tuyeni Mwampamba mentioned in our interview last month, there’s a real disconnect when the poorest of the poor can afford to have a cell phone (Nokia? Sony?) yet still use inefficient stoves and biomass. Maybe a free cell phone with every stove?

Perhaps Haiti will help us get the ball rolling. Either way, let this be a call to all in the bioenergy field to start thinking global, not just local.

I know not everyone will agree with our views on this but let the discussion begin and let’s hammer out a consensus because the stakes are high and the time to act is now.

Kim & Nina

The Charcoal Project