By Amanda Wheat Although Somalis are no strangers to devastating droughts, uncertainty about weather patterns are rising with the temperature. As the climate changes and crops dwindle, many Somalis are forced to find alternate means of income. The result is an increase in charcoal production, which further compounds the degradation of Somalia’s forests and livelihoods. Read more. Continue reading
Fuels
Various types of fuels
BBC: Life-saving stove in the Congo
First the FT mentioned it. We blogged about it in December. Then CNN’s Anderson Cooper did a piece. Now it’s the BBC’s turn to take a whack a it, albeit with a twist. Whatever the case, I always learn something new from this story. In this case, it’s the alarming statistic that 90 percent of the women who travel to the forest for fuel reported been harassed, raped, or experienced violence while collecting woodfuel. Continue reading
New feature: Charcoal Price around the world
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, Continue reading
WHO: Boosting improved cookstoves by 50% by 2015 would yield $105 billions/year for energy poor
Equipping 50 percent of households that burn biomass with improved stoves by 2015 would cost about $2 billion upfront but would almost immediately yield $37 billion in fuel savings, leaving a net gain to the world’s energy poor of some $35 billion.
Over a ten year period this would generate an economic return of U$105 billion.
MONGOLIAN Capital grapples with smog problem from IAP
At two to 10 times above Mongolian and international air quality standards, Ulaanbaatar’s PM rates are among the worst in the world, according to a December 2009 World Bank report. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates that health costs related to this air pollution account for as much as 4 percent of Mongolia’s GDP.