Via Kenya’s Daily Nation — (16/04/2013) Investment in private forestry is becoming profitable, in Western Kenya due to increased demand for wood fuel by textile and food processing industries.
Grain farmers who have invested in commercial forestry are recording huge profits as a result of the high demand for wood products that has outstripped forest plantation establishments.
Think of it as the Higgs Boson of energy poverty alleviation.
Seriously, though, this blog post comes to us from Harvest Fuel Initiative-partner, ARTI-Tanzania (a type of Large Hadron Collider on its own) and tells the whole story of how ARTI, The Charcoal Project and the Scale-Ups program at MIT’s D-Lab are coming together to help address one of the root causes of various social and environmental problems in the developing world: the dependence on wood and charcoal for cooking and heating in the developing world.
This is a Public Service Announcement brought to you by the good people at Winrock and USAID:
The United States Agency for International Development and Winrock International are soliciting Expressions of Interest (“EOIs”) in support of a possible 18-month, $1 million USD (maximum) grant award (or awards).
There is evidence that bamboo charcoal burns cleaner than wood charcoal and with comparable heating and energy values. Charcoal production is another way for families to diversify their livelihoods and earn some additional income, and the relatively limited investments required for the simple charcoal-making process make it an income source that is accessible to many.
We received this announcement from our alcohol-brewing friends at Project Gaia, and which we are happy to pass along! I’d like to let you know that PGI and partners are holding a workshop in Antananarivo on Nov 12-14, 2012 focusing on small-scale alcohol production for fuel. It is funded in part by the World Bank and follows up on the results of the Practical Action-led 2009-2011 study Ethanol as a Household Fuel in Madagascar. The workshop will have a technical focus and include interactive models provided by Colombian distillery company EcoEnergy. Project Gaia will focus on policy issues of regulating ethanol as a fuel. Continue reading