The Charcoal Project

Environment

Why solar cookers are not a viable option for the energy poor

Posted on by Jean Kim Chaix

Solar cookers do not work as reliable substitutes for traditional biomass cooking.

That’s in part because rural inhabitants in developing countries are often small plot farmers who must get up when it’s still dark out to get things going on the farm. Breakfast, the key meal of the day if you’re a farmers, is impossible to prepare before sunrise using a solar cooker.

The working urban poor have a different problem. If a family is out all day and doesn’t return until after dark, how can they prepare dinner? Also, where can you safely leave your solar cooker with food cooking when you live in a shanty town?

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Charcoal: A Fuel in Urgent Need of Solutions

Posted on by Jean Kim Chaix

Sub-Saharan Africa today produces about the same amount of greenhouse gases from charcoal production and consumption as all of Europe’s transport combined.

If nothing changes, emissions are likely to triple by 2030.

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A personal report and appeal on the devastation in Pakistan

Posted on by Jean Kim Chaix

We found this letter from Acumen Fund’s CEO, Jacqueline Novogratz, poignant and important, which is why we’ve chosen to share it with you. Pakistan needs all the help it can get. Please do what you can to help. Kim & Nina Dear Kim & Nina, I just spent five days in Pakistan with my husband, Chris Anderson, invited by Acumen’s community to see for ourselves what is happening on the ground regarding the floods that have displaced 20 million individuals and destroyed 1.2 million (and damaged 4-5 million) homes. Over 5,000 miles of roads have been washed away, and some Continue reading→

Once-Lowly Charcoal Emerges as ‘Major Tool’ for Curbing Carbon

Posted on by Jean Kim Chaix

From Greenwire/ NYT By Paul Voosen of Greenwire Published: September 7th, 2010 …Inspired by ancient Amazonian soils, researchers have found that buried charcoal resists bacteria’s attempts to break it down. And thanks to its porous geometry, it has a knack for improving land in ways still being revealed. “Once we get serious about climate change, this information is available now,” said James Amonette, an environmental geochemist at the Energy Department’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “[Biochar] is one of the major tools we can use to fight climate change, if we decide to do so.” Charcoal’s status may be comparable to Continue reading→

Madagascar: Drought forces farmers into charcoal devastation

Posted on by Jean Kim Chaix

(WWF) Toliara, Madagascar — Two years of drought and late arrival of the rainy season in south western Madagascar have forced hundreds of farmers into charcoal producing which is devastating forests, according to WWF field staff at Tollara.

“Charcoal production in the South of Madagascar is particularly unsustainable as people cut the natural spiny forest, a unique ecosystem which exists nowhere else” says Bernardin Rasolonandrasana, Spiny Forest Eco-regional Leader for WWF in Toliara. “We are horrified to see the amount of charcoal currently coming out of those forests.”

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