Rajesh Bajpai

India, like many other developing countries, is facing an acute energy crisis. This crisis has two major implications.

On one hand, a majority of people living in rural areas still depends on fuel wood and other biomass resources for meeting the cooking energy needs. Forests are declining rapidly because of their multiple use for industrial purposes and the population pressure on land. Depletion of forest resources has caused a significant rise in serious environmental problems, culminating in soil erosion and loss of biological diversity.

On the other hand, India has been forced to overexploit its fossil energy resources to meet the increasing demand for commercial energy. For example, large-scale exploitation of coal adds to greenhouse emissions, overall pollution and the resultant global warming.

The energy crisis faced by India and other developing countries could only be solved through the utilisation of alternate energy resources. The potential for Renewable Energy resources is tremendous. These resources include hydropower, solar energy, wind energy, and bio-fuels. Unfortunately in India, these resources are classified as non-commercial fuels that include wood, biomass, cow dung and biogas. At present, over 90 percent of rural households depend on these resources for their energy needs.

Biomass Energy Potential
Globally, the solar energy input globally is 12000 times greater than today’s commercial energy supply. Further, the world wide photosynthesis activity is estimated to store 17 times as much energy as it consumes. Unlike fossil fuels that take millions of years to form, biomass is a truly renewable resource with plant life renewing itself every year. Biomass energy has a bright future as a sustainable energy resource.

Biomass is basically organic matter produced by plants through the process of photosynthesis. It mainly contains cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin; with an average composition of C6H10O5 and its variation, depending upon the nature of the biomass. Biomass combustion is CO2 neutral and the biomass energy does not contribute to GHG emissions.

In rural areas, the energy used for cooking stems mainly from firewood, cattle dung cakes and agricultural residues/forest residues. There is, however, an increasing trend towards utilizing coal, kerosene and LPG since households prefer a clean and reliable fuel. India produces over at least 200 million tonnes of agricultural residues per annum that, in terms of energy, is equivalent to nearly 100 million tonnes of coal. If we add the forestry wastes and the wild weeds, the increase in biomass would be significantly greater. Utilization of these residues can meet most of our household requirements for cooking and heating purposes. Direct burning of wood or biomass is highly inefficient as hardly 10% of useful energy is actually utilized. The emissions contain toxic volatiles that are injurious to health (especially to lungs and eyes). Incomplete combustion adds Carbon Monoxide gas, which is poisonous and pollutes the atmosphere. A safer, convenient and far more efficient method is to convert the agriculture/ forestry waste into a smokeless briquetted fuel. Most biomass materials (such as leaves, twigs, land/water weeds, rice husk, rice stalk, cotton stalk, bagasse, pine needles, saw dust, groundnut shells, mustard husk, soyabeen waste, seed pods, coffee/tea waste, coconut shell and pith, coir waste, fruit waste, foliage, small wood chips) could be converted into briquetted fuel. While powdery biomass materials such as rice husk, mustard husk, groundnut shells and saw dust could be directly converted into biomass briquettes; other woody materials could be easily converted to charcoal briquetted fuel. (The specific heat of some of the locally available biomass is provided in Table 1 at the bottom of the page.)

Income Generation Opportunities
Charcoal briquetting fuel manufacture could be run as a successful micro enterprise. A family or a group of persons could easily run this unit as a sustainable livelihood venture.

The Process
Charcoal Briquetting involves the conversion of biomass waste into a cleaner fuel through the process of Charcoal Production, followed by Briquette Production.

Charcoal Production
In this process, thee persons are engaged for supplying char. For the first two days, each person harvests the biomass. On the third day, one drum is provided to each of the three persons for chopping and firing the biomass. The daily average yield of char (after firing) per drum is 30 kgs. Hence, a total yield of 90 kgs per day. As the three persons are engaged at a daily wage of 50 rupees per day, they earn a total of 150 rupees per day to produce a total of 90 kgs of char. This amounts to an average of two rupees per kg, including the transportation cost.

Briquette Production
A proportionate mixture of char, clay and cow dung is grind in a grinding machine with a capacity of 70 kg per hour. Two persons are required to operate the briquetting machine to produce as much as 600 kg of briquettes per day.

Two activities are involved in making the wet briquettes. This engages 3 person days, resulting in a total production of 600 Kg briquettes per day. Considering the salary of each person at Rs.1100 per month, amounting to a total of Rs.3300 per month, the labour cost could be calculated by dividing this figure with 15000 kg briquettes produced monthly. This gives the average cost of 22 paise per Kg on site, excluding transportation.

The production cost of one tonne of briquette fuel amounts to a total of 2770 rupees. (See Table 2). This means that the production of 1 kg of charcoal briquette is even less than three rupees (i.e. Rs.2.77).

Conclusion
This surely proves that charcoal briquetting is not only a technologically feasible but also an economically viable proposal. This project has certain unique and interesting features as it is based on renewable resources that have no conflict in terms of their usage. The project is not sensitive to the cost of inputs and is based on very high inputs of manpower. The benefits can accrue to the marginalised and landless families engaged in the production of char.

It is very significant to note that in this enterprise, the material cost is nil and all conversion costs are actually earnings, which depicts that charcoal briquetting is a truly unique sustainable livelihood venture.   q

For further enquiries, contact 

Rajesh Bajpai (Energy Unit)
Development Alternatives,
1077 Civil Lines, Jhansi – 284001
Tel : (0517) 330892,  Fax : (0517) 440557
E-mail : energy_raj@yahoo.com