Biomass Energy and the Poor in the Developing World.

AuthorBarnes, Douglas F.

With the recent negotiations surrounding the Kyoto Protocol and the growing awareness of the limits of traditional approaches to energy, the urgent need to develop more climate-friendly energy technologies is becoming keenly appreciated worldwide. Renewable energy technologies are receiving heightened attention, and modern biomass-based energy--the use of wood, crop residues and dung as fuel--is increasingly seen as an important component of the transition to a low-carbon energy future. Several recent long-range sustainable energy studies, including the 2nd Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations Development Programme's Energy After Rio and Shell Petroleum's Energy for Development, have all suggested that large-scale modern biomass might contribute to global energy supplies in the next century to a degree comparable to the use of fossil fuels today.

As a renewable energy source, biomass has several compelling features. Biomass can provide electricity on demand rather than intermittently like solar and wind power. It can be turned into liquid fuels such as alcohol or transformed into gaseous fuels through gasification. In addition, the production of biomass can be integrated with wasteland restoration through programs for rural economic development. These benefits could be realized over the next decades if sufficient research is devoted to promoting the development of related technology; such as direct combustion generation of electricity and gasification. It would also be necessary to lower the current costs of these technologies so that markets for biomass energy could expand.(1)

While several prominent global energy analyses suggest that the future prospects for biomass are bright, others have been more skeptical. They have highlighted the environmental and socioeconomic constraints, questioning whether widespread reliance on such a source would be sustainable. Advanced biomass strategies are very land-intensive compared to other energy resources,(2) creating the risk that other critical land-use options will be sacrificed, resulting in long-term adverse environmental impacts. Yet the most efficient biomass energy cycles for electric power and transportation offer substantial improvements in terms of end-use energy services per unit of land.

The wide divergence between optimistic and pessimistic views of biomass systems reflects the prevailing uncertainties about how they relate to the larger energy picture. Technological, ecological and socioeconomic uncertainties make it difficult to develop and commercialize biomass in a sustainable manner. However, the significant environmental pressures to redirect the global energy economy away from high carbon-based fuels encourage policy choices and institutional commitments that give greater importance to modern biomass solutions in the near-term.

In addition to the potential use of biomass energy as a modern energy source, it is equally if not more important to recognize that whatever its merits, biomass is a major source of energy for people in developing countries today. More than two billion people around the world, predominately the rural and the urban poor in the Third World, use biomass fuels to meet their daily needs. In many countries--especially Sub-Saharan Africa--biomass fuels account for over 80 percent of a country's total energy consumption.(3) Much of this "unnoticed" energy is collected rather than purchased in rural areas. However, unofficial figures on the commercial trade of fuelwood and charcoal in Africa estimate it at about $5 billion a year.(4)

Fossil fuel consumption does have its share of drawbacks. While an important source of energy for the rural poor throughout the developing world, biomass fuels burned in indoor stoves without proper ventilation, for example, cause significant levels of indoor air pollution--a major cause of disease and even premature death. In India alone it has been estimated that indoor air pollution causes about 400,000 to 500,000 premature deaths per year.(5)

Nevertheless, it is clear that biomass is--and will remain--a major source of energy for many people in developing countries, and consequently energy specialists should accept this reality by seeking to improve the policies and technologies associated with biomass. This paper examines the implications of this growing body of evidence and presents the conclusions of much of the most recent research in three parts: a review of the several types of modern biomass use, an examination of the uses of biomass energy by urban and rural households in developing countries and a consideration of the prospects for using biomass energy in more modern and efficient ways.

BIOMASS AS AN ENERGY RESOURCE

About 25 years ago, spurred by an influential paper by Erik Eckholm, the international development community focused much attention on the "other energy crisis."(6) This crisis was defined as the growing and predicted shortages of biomass fuels in the Third World. At that time, oil shortages in other parts of the world left people waiting in line for hours to obtain gasoline. Oil prices shot skyward, surpassing $30 per barrel. Between 1972 and 1981, in fact, the price of OPEC oil increased by more than a factor of ten.(7)

Predictions were made that prices would continue to rise, as oil was a finite resource and its supply rapidly continued to diminish. Based on these predictions, the United States started pumping oil into strategic reserves. Eckholm argued that energy shortages were equally serious in the developing world, but merely involved different fuels. Shortages of wood for cooking meant that women and children had to spend many hours in search of fuels. The growing populations in developing countries were harvesting trees for use as cooking fuels at unsustainable rates--threatening, according to Eckholm, significant deforestation problems.

Just as the Western world has recovered from the 1970s energy crisis, dire predictions that the developing world would run out of biomass energy proved similarly overstated. In fact, some of the earlier proposed solutions to the fuelwood crisis were wide off the mark. The misdiagnosis of these problems led to unsuccessful solutions, such as the development of fuelwood plantations near cities to satisfy urban energy demand. The work of Eckholm and others, however, did make a significant contribution by focusing attention on the use of biomass energy, the main fuel used by people in the Third World, especially by rural and poor people.

THE USES OF BIOMASS

Biomass has traditionally accounted for a significant proportion of total energy use. In developing countries, biomass is quite commonly used for cooking, and well over 90 percent of energy use in rural areas is attributed to biomass. Yet in addition to its traditional uses, biomass energy can serve more modern purposes.

Electricity generation: Biomass can either be burned directly to produce steam or transformed into a gas for power generation.(8) In fact, biomass from one hectare of land could provide enough electricity to power forty 100 watt light bulbs day and night.

Transportation services: Alternatively, biomass can be used to produce hydrogen. A fuel cell vehicle operating on hydrogen would have an estimated fuel economy of 72 miles per gallon. Accordingly, a hectare of land would be able to support about 15 vehicles. In contrast, the amount of cropland currently under food cultivation is approximately one hectare per four people.

Agro-industrial residues and energy crops: These resources are used very inefficiently. They include bagasse and barbojo from sugar cane production, mill wastes and forest residues from the timber industry black liquor and wood residues from the paper industry, municipal solid waste and a range of farm residues such as corn stalks, wheat straw and rice husk. The use of biomass energy on a large scale would necessitate the production of energy crops on dedicated plantations.

Biogas: The use of energy from animal and crop wastes has been promoted in many developing countries for years. The largest programs are in India and China, where the population pressure on land is very high. Methane is produced from agricultural and human wastes, providing high-quality fertilizer for crops and an excellent cooking and lighting fuel. Yet even though biogas has the potential to solve energy problems in rural areas, biogas programs have encountered problems. Three to four animals are necessary to sustain a "family" biogas digester. In many countries this is not a feasible option for about 90 percent of the rural population, because people do not have the requisite number of animals. In addition, collecting manure, running it through the digester, disposing of the output and keeping a constant flow of materials through the system to maintain gas pressure has proved difficult. Nonetheless, biogas will continue to be used with great benefit as an alternative in many rural areas.

REASONS FOR THE SLOW ADOPTION OF TECHNOLOGIES

There are several reasons to explain why, despite the benefits biomass offers, this energy source has not been adopted more systematically and on a larger scale. Historically low oil and gas prices have made alternative energy sources less competitive. Also, agro-industrial crops are seasonal and their availability is sporadic. The physical and chemical characteristics of biomass residues for fuel are poor (i.e., low density and high ash content) and most require special handling and combustion equipment. Finally, logistical costs such as handling, transport and storage can be high due to the remoteness of production sites from potential markets, while the lack of information, familiarity and experience with residue conversion technology is also a problem.

The economics of substituting unprocessed residues for hydrocarbons in industrial or commercial combustion systems differ...

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