Biochar and the Quest for Sustainable Home Fuel

Haiti and Latin American countries are becoming a case study for successful transition of communities to biochar as a sustainable alternative to firewood and charcoal, says The Epoch Times in an article on "Biochar: A Panacea for Global Warming Issues".

Use of Biochar has the power to restore soil productivity, provide energy for domestic, agricultural and even industrial purposes, and mitigate climate change through carbon storage.

Nathaniel Mulcahy, the founder of non-profit organisation World Stove, says “Biochar-producing stoves save fuel, reduce both emissions of greenhouse gasses and indoor—and outdoor air pollution,” he said. “In this way, we improve soils, preserve forests and bring better health and economic independence to people.”

Biochar can be produced from urban, agricultural and forestry residues or biomass – from sugar cane waste and coffee hulls to palm fronds and paper mill pulp. It removes the need to harvest trees for firewood and charcoal by generating syngas and bio-oil for cooking, heating and drying, and even electricity generation. Biochar’s co-product is applied to soils with many carbon sequestration benefits including increased bio-available water and organic matter, enhanced nutrient cycling, and reduced leaching. It can also be used to filter water.

Mr. Mulcahy recently joined the Haitian “building back better” recovery effort by introducing his patented Lucia stove to help locals produce “biochar” pellets. Its unique design incorporates venturi holes for negative pressure plus a Fibonacci spiral-styled flame cap to keep oxygen out of the pyrolisis chamber.

According to The Epoch, "By respecting and maintaining cooking traditions, Mr. Mulcahy says the stove is more readily accepted in different cultures. He believes it is vital the developed world offers the world’s poor a clean efficient stove that fits their needs, rather than the other way around. Allowing users to cook on a gas flame as in “modern” kitchens, they can maintain cooking customs without environmental damage."

Illustration from the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station
(See Rising from Haiti's Quake: Cookstoves Adapted to People's Needs)

Powering Change With Micro Finance

Grameen Financial Services says that it plans to reach 200,000 members across the districts of  Karnataka and Maharashtra by the end of financial year 2010 to promote usage of improved cookstoves to combat indoor air pollution. Grameen Financial Services has so far extended the  campaign to 30,000 members of Grameen Koota in the  Bagalkot, Davangere, Gadag and Haveri districts of  Karnataka, India.

A report in the May GFS newsletter titled "Clean Air Campaign" says, "Grameen Financial Services has been instrumental in playing a pivotal role in issues related to environmental pollution. Grameen Financial Services has taken a major initiative to address the issue of indoor air pollution in  partnership with Navya Disha and Shell Foundation. So far 30,000 members from Grameen Koota have benefited in 4 districts of Karnataka. By the end of this fiscal year, we plan to reach 200,000 members across the districts of Karnataka and Maharashtra state."

Shell Foundation has partnered with  Grameen Koota, a micro-finance institution, for a  village level  awareness  campaign on Indoor Air Pollution (IAP). This brings to the doorstep of villagers new, improved stoves and micro finance. Together, these address the three big 'A's of the challenge of Indoor Air Pollution: Awareness, Availability and Affordability.

Along with field coordinators from a local NGO, Navya Disha, loan officers from Grameen Koota travel across villages to talk to people about the issues of IAP, the Shell Foundation IAP Awareness campaign, the availability of improved cook stoves and loans from Grameen Koota to facilitate the purchase of stoves.

Names of members from the audience, who attend the demonstrations, interested in purchasing stoves are passed on to stove vendors by field coordinators and loan officers. The stove vendors then deliver the stoves to the customers.

Read an earlier report: "Shell Foundation Partners MFIs to Tackle the Affordability Challenge"

Paradigm Shift Makes For A Better Second Chance

Improved cook stoves have been internationally accepted as the most effective solution for tackling indoor air pollution. That said, the challenge  has been to both drive adoption as well as sustained usage. The Indian government's distribution of over 20 million stoves in the decade of the 80s and the 90s is a good example of a program that did not result in either.

William Martin, Associate Director at the National Institute for Environmental Health Making it Better to Breathe Worldwide Sciences, says in an article "Making it Better to Breathe Worldwide" in the COPD Digest that while the exposure to indoor air pollution is involuntary and driven by a limited access to cleaner fuels and stoves, there is also the issue of tackling mindsets which are part financial, part traditional.

“Sometimes they rather spend their money on other things,” Martin says. “Or they might say that their mother or grandmother cooked like this. It is very challenging to change how the world cooks. You must consider many cultural and social factors.”

However, there has been a resurgence in the attempts to drive conversion to improved cook stoves since they offer currently the best chances of reducing pollution. Among the global campaigns that are seeking a major breakthrough in finding a route to market is the Shell Foundation campaign that is aimed at creating a large base of ICS users.

The question is are the chances better this time around for a more sustained adoption of improved cook stoves? Simon Bishop, Head, Room to Breathe, Shell Foundation feels that there is good reason why new attempts to provide ICS at scale are more likely to succeed this time around.

“First, the growing link between indoor air pollution and climate change helps because it’s getting a lot more people—and therefore resources—directed to the sector,” Bishop is quoted as saying in the report.

“Secondly, several major commercial players have come into the ICS market. Historically, it was the domain of NGOs and governments who gave away stoves that focused on reducing deforestation and not the health impacts of indoor air pollution,” he says. “These new players have the potential to provide health-benefiting ICS at scale. Together, these elements suggest a paradigm shift is beginning to take place in the sector.”

Read The Full Story at COPD Digest

Photo: Shell Foundation's Simon Bishop in Shimoga, Karnataka, India discussing smoke in the kitchen and new stoves. View here a You Tube report

Making Room To Breathe

An article "Shell Foundation: The Room to Breathe Campaign," published in the Hedon describes the growth of the Room to Breathe campaign in India as a key ‘Social Marketing’ tool within the wider tool-box that makes up the Foundation’s efforts to tackle IAP.

It is a tool that was developed with a clear eye on tackling ‘A’ - Awareness but has expanded to help tackle the other three ‘A’s’, namely Affordability, Availability and Accountability, says the report.

Authors Simon Bishop, Jeroen Blum, Pradeep Pursnani, and Anuradha Bhavnani of the Shell Foundation say a two pronged strategy is being used to get the message to market.

First, focuses a blitz of communications activities in one district of Karnataka, Shimoga, designed to convince the population to adopt ICS. A layered objective is to create a ‘demonstrator effect’, illustrating how such a blitz could be replicated in other parts of India – and hopefully attracting others to the table. The second leg of the strategy involves Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) – to keep the campaign cost per ICS-sale to a minimum and simultaneously address affordability.

The authors note that while the jury is out, "On a Local level, Room to Breathe has firmly launched. Backed by 18 months of planning and trials we hope it will play a significant role in tackling not just the ‘Awareness’ challenge but also a large part of the ‘Affordability’ challenge too. Crucially, we need to get the cost of the campaign per ICS sold down to an absolute minimum – ideally US$1.5-US$2 per ICS; we are not there yet. On National and Global levels there are two areas where the Room to Breathe campaign is making a difference. The first, is the expansion of the current India-based local campaign to IAP-affected households in other countries, of course allowing for different local cultural characteristics. The second, is to target national and global key opinion leaders through niche advocacy campaigns with the aim of attracting more interest and resources (both financial and non-financial) to the IAP sector as a whole."

Read the Full Article here.

Beating the drum for Cooking Stove Offsets

 Lisa Ashford, global head of voluntary and new  markets at carbon offsetting specialist EcoSecurities, has argued that the carbon market has a part to play in helping accelerate the roll out of improved cookstoves through capacity building, acting as investment support and a market primer and making the stoves more affordable.

Writing in BusinessGreen.com, she says "offsets enable this switch in technology that not only creates emission reductions, but has real and tangible benefits in terms of improving health and living conditions, allowing more money to be spent on other basic services and commodities like education and food."

In the article "Making the case for cooking stove offsets", Ashford says "I want to bang the drum about energy-efficient cooking stoves."

Drawing attention to the challenges of enabling transition to improved stoves in countries with high incidence of indoor air pollution, she points out that while most cookstove projects do start small, "they have the ability to scale up after the first couple of years. The proof of the concept is more convincing as an increasing number of households start to use them. This dissemination is also largely bolstered by budding entrepreneurial networks that manufacture the new stoves and those which distribute and sell them."

According to Ashford, "Exchanges in skills have taken place between Asia and Africa in terms of the lessons taken on board and I am hopeful that carbon finance can continue to facilitate the expansion of this new technology into other geographies and markets. There are a number of cookstove projects in the development cycle from a carbon perspective, but the projects are complex and it is not a quick process to get them up and running either, both in terms of carbon (ie registering the projects) or of their on-the-ground-operation."

Read here the article "Making the case for cooking stove offsets"

12,000 Nigerian Schools Transition to Efficient Stoves

An efficient wood stove project initiated by ICEED and supported by the Swiss Embassy and GTZ has been kicked off in Bida, Niger State in June 2010, reports the Daily Independent in a report that covers the slew of initiatives being implemented in Nigeria over the past few months.

According to the report, the project seeks to develop technical standards and advocacy on replacing the inefficient three stone method of cooking with wood in secondary schools with modern and efficient woodstove technology.

According to the Independent, "By switching to this new technology, respiratory diseases as result of indoor air pollution will be reduced. It will also result in the reduction of the cost of wood, deforestation and green house gas emissions.  When completed, the project will provide the basis for advocacy to ensure that Nigeria’s over 12,000 secondary schools now use this efficient stove."

The institutional woodstove project will be an important addition to already existing efforts by Nigerian N.G.O’s such as Development Association for Renewable Energies (DARE) in disseminating efficient woodstove technologies, says the report.

Read the full report in the Daily Independent here.

Arunachal's Locally Developed Cookstove Saving Forests in the Global Bio-diversity Hotspot

People in the villages of Arunachal Pradesh's West Kameng and Tawang Districts have developed a new energy-efficient cookstove to reduce firewood consumption, in response to a decrease in firewood availability and high local market prices. This indigenous energy-efficient stove was developed from a technology adopted from Bhutan. The local people of India's North Eastern states have gradually learnt to manufacture it at a cheaper cost.

The cookstove is made of iron and costs between Rs 1500 and Rs 3000 in local markets and Bhutan.

According to a paper by J S Rawat, Dhruba Sharma, G Nimachow and Oyi Dai from the Department of Geography and Department of Botany, Rajiv Gandhi University, in Doimukh, Itanagar and published in Current Science, the stove is user friendly and has multiple features that meet the needs of the local climate. According to the researchers in the paper titled "Energy efficient chulha in rural Arunachal Pradesh", the stove consumes 50–60% less firewood per family per year compared to the traditional chulha (cookstove). According to the authors, "the improved chulha, with higher thermal efficiency of 60% compared to 6–8% in traditional ones, has potential to conserve firewood, thereby saving forests. It has longer life and can serve for 20–25 years if used judiciously."

The new stove has an iron body which emits sufficient heat to keep households warm in a state which has severe winters. The stove has features that reduce fire risk which is fairly high during the dry season in Arunachal Pradesh, according to the paper. The knob and safety lead help retain fire for longer periods. The ash tray at the bottom of the fire chamber prevents ash from falling on the floor and keeps the room clean and safe. The enclosed structure keeps the fire chamber warm which helps fuel to reach its combustion point rapidly and burn efficiently.As a result, it produces sufficient heat with far lesser use of firewood.

The indigenously developed improved cookstove has very significant implications in this Eastern Himalayan biodiversity hotspot which is among the 25 identified hotspots worldwide. With more than 500 plant species of medicinal and pharmacological significance, this area is considered as a major ethno-botanical hotspot3–5. The state has 81.25% of area under forest cover inhabited by 26 major tribes.

More than 90% of the population use biomass as primary source of energy. This high dependency on firewood for cooking, water heating, space heating, lighting and livestock rearing, etc. is a major cause of forest destruction. According to the paper, the average per capita firewood consumption in the northeast is higher than the Indian national consumption level with rural–urban gap ranging from 17 to 52 kg. The consumption in rural areas of Arunachal Pradesh is about 61 kg per month which is almost three times higher than the national consumption rate.

The improved chulha, say the authors, has proved to be a boon to rural women, as it saves about 300 kg of fuel wood equivalent per year, besides reducing health hazards. This model, says the paper, is however, more suitable for the colder regions where room heating is needed during most part of the year and hot water is necessary round the clock.

The state of Arunachal Pradesh in north-east India is uniquely situated in the transition zone between the Himalayan and Indo-Burmese regions. Arunachal falls within the Eastern Himalaya global biodiversity hotspot and is also among the 200 globally important ecoregions. It harbours the world’s northernmost tropical rainforests and is estimated to contain nearly 50% of the total flowering plant species in India.

Upfront Public Investments Key to Developing Capacities: UNDP Nepal Report

Expanding access to modern energy services is critical for poverty reduction and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). But, overcoming substantial gaps in local and national capacities and strengthening governance is required to deliver, manage, operate and maintain the solutions to providing energy access, says a recently published UNDP/Government of Nepal report, "Capacity Development for Scaling Up Decentralised Energy Access Programmes: Lessons from Nepal on its role, costs, and financing" authored by Elisabeth Clemens, Kamal Rijal, Minoru Takada with contributions by Adonai Herrera-Martinez, Megha Shukla.

The report argues that public investment must be mobilised upfront to remove such capacity barriers. It shows that, while considerable upfront public investment is needed to develop local and national capacities for scaled-up rural energy service delivery, once made these investments can help drive down the cost-per-output and attract substantial financing from private sources at later programme stages.

For both the Nepal programmes, funding from public sources played a dominant role at the very beginning (well over 90 per cent), much of which was dedicated to capacity development. The share of public financing gradually declined to about 50 per cent at a later stage, suggesting that the pivotal role of public investments in developing national and local capacities subsequently attracted private financing.

The report takes lessons from two decentralized energy projects in Nepal that brought modern energy services to almost a million people in remote rural communities. The projects enabled 250,000 people to be reached by micro hydropower supplying electricity for lighting and mechanical power for agro-processing and other productive activities; and 580,000 people with access to improved cooking stoves.

According to the report, the key to the programme’s success was early public investment in capacity development, which developed local and national capacities required to deliver, manage, operate and maintain the solutions to providing energy access in rural areas.

Once made, these investments can help drive down the cost of utilities and attract substantial financing from communities and the private sources at later stages, as is the trend in Nepal.

According to the report, decentralized energy-access plans and budgets often do not adequately take into account the capacity development activities required for adoption of off-grid energy technologies by poor and rural populations, especially in areas where traditional delivery mechanisms, such as central utilities, are limited by geographical remoteness and small and/or fragmented markets. In such circumstances, national governments, local authorities, private entities, civil society organizations, and communities, all need substantial guidance regarding assessment of opportunities, mobilization of financing and resources, and design, implementation, and monitoring of energy access programmes.

Key capacity development efforts for the two Nepal programmes have focused on: (1) planning, oversight, and monitoring; (2) policies and regulations; (3) situational analysis; (4) stakeholder dialogues, communication, and community mobilization; (5) setting up and enhancing institutions; (6) training programme implementers and community members; and (7) implementation and management. Developing capacities in all these areas is essential for making the scale-up of rural energy access a reality.

Capacity development costs represent a significant portion of the overall costs of decentralized energy access programmes, especially in the initial stages, and must be fully taken into account in planning programme budgets.

Capacity development costs amounted to well over half of the total programme costs for both the Nepal programmes. Total programme costs for the Micro-Hydropower Programme over the study period (i.e., 1996–2006) were USD 14.3 million (at USD 110 per beneficiary, on average). Capacity development costs represented 56 per cent of the total costs. For the Improved Cooking Stoves Programme, total costs were USD 1.5 million between 1999 and 2004 (at about USD 2.6 per beneficiary, on average). Capacity development costs accounted for 68 per cent of the total.

According to the report, reductions in per-unit programme costs over time were driven by progressive declines in capacity development costs. For the Improved Cooking Stoves Programme: the cost per stove fell by about 60 per cent during the study period (from USD 27 in 2000 to USD 11 per stove in 2004), with a decline in per-unit capacity development costs of 70 per cent, compared with a reduction in hardware costs of only 20 per cent.

Time for Less-smoke Chulhas

On World Environment Day,India's leading newspaper, Times of India devoted its edition to examining various issues and initiatives around environment. Noting that polluting chulhas are finally finding alternatives in efficient, less-smoke chulhas that reduce health and environmental risks, the Times of India reported on the efforts by Shell Foundation and Envirofit to make a difference through sustained campaigns in South India and Karnataka.

The report quotes Shell Foundation's Room to Breathe Campaign head, Simon Bishop, saying, "A new impetus is required to get the government and agencies to spread awareness on the ill-effects of firewood-inefficient stoves"

The Times of India story, "Use Less-Smoke Chulhas" says: "Which chulha would you prefer this Environment Day? Firewood chulhas are on their way out. After decades of using inefficient chulhas that lead to indoor air pollution (IAP), now the market has some models of efficient, less-smoke chulhas that can minimize the health and environmental risks.

IAP is the kitchen fume released by the burning of wood and biomass. Black carbon, a major environmental issue, is also the main component of soot, a product of incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, the burning of biomass in rural cook stoves. However, now villagers have an option. The firewood consumption can be cut by 80% in case of fuel-efficient stoves.

“We are working in all four southern states. In Karnataka, we are in Gulbarga, Bidar, Chamarajnagar etc. Shell Foundation and Envirofit are particularly doing a lot of awareness activities in Shimoga. We have sold 1.20 lakh stoves already. So it’s clear that people are interested. But the user is usually the woman in the house but decision maker is the man. They often fail to understand what kind of health impacts the woman is facing,” says Envirofit MD Harish Anchan.

Various options like micro-finance partners are being used to make it easily affordable for villagers. The price range is around Rs 850 to Rs 2,500 for single and double pot stoves.

According to Simon Bishop who is leading the IAP campaign of Shell Foundation, internationally the campaign against IAP through efficient cooking stoves will pick up as it is one of the main ways to deal with carbon emissions.

Several organizations have already prepared a draft report on the initiative for development and deployment of cook stoves and action plan will be submitted to the ministry of new and renewable energy. “A lot of government resources had gone into the National Programme on Improved Cookstoves between 1985 and 2004 but the results were mixed. A new impetus is required to get the government and agencies to spread awareness on the ill-effects of firewood-inefficient stoves,” he said. 

RTI Launches Multi-Disciplinary Research Programs on Biomass Cookstoves

RTI International has launched a multidisciplinary research effort to understand and address the adverse health and environmental impacts related to the use of biomass cook stoves in developing nations, according to a RTI International News Release.

This effort will fill some technology gaps as well as help RTI better integrate and apply the huge range of Institute technical and societal research programs, staff and skills.

RTI International is one of the world’s leading research institutes, dedicated to improving the human condition by turning knowledge into practice.

As part of this program, four different research teams, funded through the RTI Fellow Program, are exploring the scientific, societal and policy challenges associated with the stoves and their use.

RTI’s four projects are diverse but integrated, addressing concerns that include the following:

First, an assessment of biomass stove use in Sri Lanka. RTI researchers, working in partnership with a researcher with the Sri Lanka National Institute of Health, will review data on respiratory diseases and characterize stove use in-country. Incorporating comparative international research, the team will develop a comprehensive profile of risk factors and stove use, drawing attention to ethnic, gender, urban, rural and district characteristics of the issue.

Second, an effort to design cleaner biomass cook stoves. A cross-functional team of engineers and scientists will investigate existing stove designs and performance and explore innovative approaches toward improvements. In addition to considering overall combustion efficiency, the researchers will examine the links between stove design and operating conditions and the subsequent personal exposure concentrations.

Third, research to characterize emissions and exposure. This team will apply RTI’s 40 years of research on environmental contaminants to better understand the personal exposure and health effects of black-brown carbon emissions. The team will characterize emissions and resulting exposure using two different technologies—RTI’s MicroPEM™ and Optical Reflective Method.

Fourth, physical collection of dried blood spots to assess black carbon emissions. Specifically, the team will analyze blood samples for the presence and level of PAH-hemoglobin adducts, which indicate levels of black carbon exposure. This method will also use a baseline measure to assess the effectiveness of improved cook stove designs.

RTI began the “Grand Challenges” initiative last year to fund areas of research that are complex and require multidisciplinary but thoroughly integrated approaches and solutions to succeed.

“The work we are funding represents thinking at many levels,” said Lead Fellow Edo Pellizzari, Ph.D. “As part of our mission to improve the human condition, we at RTI are seeking to apply our wide-ranging scientific and policy research to real-world challenges in a manner that is culturally appropriate and sustainable.”

Photo: An RTI biomass stove design