A study of biomass briquettes potential in the Gambia.

A Study of Biomass Briquette Production potential in The Gambia, Taiwan New Bonafide Company as the best practice model for the Gambia to follow using SWOT analysis. The need for alternative sources of energy becomes a fast necessity against the backdrop of decreasing trends of availability of fuel wood and charcoal for cooking in the country and also high price of petroleum products. The world economy is dominated by technologies that rely on fossil fuel energy (petroleum, coal, and natural gas) to produce fuels, power, chemical and materials. While the use of conventional energy like oil, coal and electricity has grown enormously in the last half century. This heavy dependence on imported oil leads to economic and social uncertainties. Biomass have the ability to substituted for fuel and the conversion technologies are well developed which can transformed biomass to solid and liquid for heating, cooking and electricity generation. In the Gambia there is ample availability of biomass for efficient energy conversion and production of briquettes is both economic and financial viable and there’s no legislative barriers for the conversion biomass into briquette, currently the non participation of private individual or companies in the sector prevent it from reaching its full potential.CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1: Motivation of the Study 1 1.2: Energy Sub-Sector 3 1.3: Importance of the Different Energy Sub-Sectors in the Gambia 4 1.4: Energy and Biomass from Agriculture: an important Policy issue for the Gambia 4 1.5: Objective of the Study 6 1.6: Organization of the Thesis 6 CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND OVERVIEW OF THE ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS OF BIOMASS BRIQUETTE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION 8 2.1: General Overview of Economics and Business of Biomass Briquette Production and Consumption 8 2.2: Global market for biomass production and consumption 11 2.3: Uses of Biomass Briquettes 14 2.4: Biomass Power Generation in developed nations. 15 2.5: Biomass Advantages Compared to Renewable Energy 16 2.6: Cost Comparison of Energy Sources. 17 2.7: PRICE OF BRIQUETTE. 18 2.8: Biomass Densification in Africa. 19 2.9: Raw materials for biomass Densification in different regions. 21 2.10: Benefits from biomass briquettes production 21 CHAPTER 3: Biomass Briquette Technology and Uses in Different Countries. 25 3.1: biomass and bio-energy 25 3.2: Biomass Power Generation Technologies 26 3.3: How Briquetting Work. 28 3.4: Biomass Briquetting Technologies 29 3.5: Economic analysis of briquetting technologies 33 3.6: Densification technologies in different countries. 34 3.7: Biomass briquetting processes. 36 3.8: Pretreatment Technologies to Improve Quality Attributes. 37 3.9: Common binders used in biomass densification. 38 3.10: Factors Affecting Densification/ Briquetting 39 3.11: Applications of briquette 39 CHAPTER 4: METHODOLOGY and CASE STUDY ON TAIWAN EXPERIENCE OF BIOMASS BRIQUETTE 41 4.1: METHODOLOGY 41 4.2: Data Collection Methods. 43 4.3: Data Analysis Method 44 4.4: Introduction on Taiwan. 44 4.5: Background Information of New Bonefide Machinery Company. 45 4.6: Operational Model. 47 4.7: Cooking stove. 48 4.8: APPLICATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF BIOMASS ENERGY TECHNOLOGY. 49 4.9: Amount of biomass needed to keep the different machines operational for 320 days 51 4.10: SWOT ANALYSIS. 52 4.11: The role New Bonafide Machinery Company can play. 53 CHAPTER 5: FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS OF BIOMASS BRIQUETTE PRODUCTION IN THE GAMBIA 54 5.1: Overview of the brief history of the first briquette plant in the Gambia 54 5.2: The Plant 55 5.3: Economic, Social & Environmental Impact of the Briquetting Plant 57 5.4: Successes 58 5.5: Survey of the Main Crops in Relation to Biomass Production 58 5.6: Analysis of Calorific values and ash content, the Biomass Materials Available in The Gambia. 63 5.7: Major Determinants of Biomass Production in The Gambia 63 5.8: Analysis and discussion of the results off the current period from 2003-2013. 64 5.9: Current status of biomass briquetting plant in The Gambia. 69 5.10: Biomass use in The Gambia 70 5.11: GREENTECH COMPANY 72 5.12: Political and Institutional support 76 5.13: SWOT Analysis for Briquette Production in The Gambia 76 5.14: Comparative Advantages between New Bonafide Company and Green Teach Company. 78 5.15: Potential investment areas in the Gambia. 79 5.16: Impacts of biomass briquettes production 80 5.17: Out Come of the Study. 82 CHAPTER: 6 -CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 83 6.1 Conclusion 83 6.2 Recommendation. 85 REFERENCE 8