Biomass Briquettes - Use in Developing World

Use in Developing World

The Legacy Foundation has developed a set of techniques to produce biomass briquettes through artisanal production in rural villages that can be used for heating and cooking. These techniques were recently pioneered by Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, following the massive destruction of the Mountain Gorilla habitat for charcoal.

Pangani, Tanzania, is an area covered in coconut groves. After harvesting the meat of the coconut, the indigenous people would litter the ground with the husks, believing them to be useless. The husks later became a profit center after it was discovered that coconut husks are well suited to be the main ingredient in bio briquettes. This alternative fuel mixture burns incredibly efficiently and leaves little residue, making it a reliable source for cooking in the undeveloped country. The developing world has always relied on the burning biomass due it its low cost and availability anywhere there is organic material. The briquette production only improves upon the ancient practice by increasing the efficiency of pyrolysis.

Two major components of the developing world are China and India. The economies are rapidly increasing due to cheap ways of harnessing electricity and emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide. The Kyoto Protocol attempted to regulate the emissions of the three different worlds, but there were disagreements as to which country should be penalized for emissions based on its previous and future emissions. The United States has been the largest emitter but China has recently become the largest per capita. The United States had emitted a rigorous amount of carbon dioxide during its development and the developing nations argue that they should not be forced to meet the requirements. At the lower end, the undeveloped nations believe that they have little responsibility for what has been done to the carbon dioxide levels. The major use of biomass briquettes in India, is in industrial applications usually to produce steam. A lot of conversions of boilers from FO to biomass briquettes have happened over the past decade. A vast majority of those projects are registered under CDM (Kyoto Protocol), which allows for users to get carbon credits.

The use of biomass briquettes is strongly encouraged by issuing carbon credits. One carbon credit is equal to one free ton of carbon dioxide to be emitted into the atmosphere. India has started to replace charcoal with biomass briquettes in regards to boiler fuel, especially in the southern parts of the country because the biomass briquettes can be created domestically, depending on the availability of land. Therefore, constantly rising fuel prices will be less influential in an economy if sources of fuel can be easily produced domestically. Lehra Fuel Tech Pvt Ltd is approved by Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA), is one of the largest briquetting machine manufacturers from Ludhiana, India.

In East Africa, work on biomass briquette production has been spearheaded by a number of NGOs with GVEP ( Global Village Energy Partnership) taking a lead in promoting briquette products and briquette entrepreneurs in the three East African countries namely Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. This has been achieved by a five year EU and Dutch government sponsored project called DEEP EA (Developing Energy Enterprises Project East Africa) . The main feed stock for briquettes in the East African region has mainly been charcoal dust although alternative like sawdust, bagasse, coffee husks and rice husks have also been used.