Woodgas Emission Reduction (WER)

The fuel savings and charcoal production from the use of woodgas TLUD cookstoves are ideal for earning carbon offsets.  Note that it is not the cookstove itself, but the USE of the stove that yields the reduction of CO2 into the atmosphere.  For one model, known as Champion, a project that began in 2013 around Deganga, India has already established that one Champion TLUD stove in regular usage for one year generates four (4) Emission Reduction (ER) credits.  The sales of carbon offsets are poised to potentially finance TLUD stoves in great numbers.

Basics of Carbon Offsets

The prevention of one metric ton (tonne) of carbon dioxide (CO2) or its equivalent (CO2e) from entering the atmosphere can be a measured accomplishment with a marketable value and is called a “carbon offset.”  Written as 1t CO2e, a carbon offset is recognized and documented by organizations and systems under two main management systems.

1. Certified Emission Reduction (CER) units are carefully verified by the UNFCCC, the only organization with a global mandate on the overall effectiveness of atmospheric emission control systems, established under the Kyoto Agreement. 
2. Voluntary Emission Reduction (VER) units are managed with less rigidity.  Several organizations have established their protocols and procedures. 

CERs are the most regulated, most difficult to get approved, most numerous because they deal with large projects, and most expensive to get established (typically costing over $100 K and a year or more of processing).  To ease these costly pre-requisites, VERs have been created, but they are still annually verified and commonly involve over $10 K and several months of processing before approval.  Such procedures, including multiple reports, site visits and reviews, are expensive and commonly result in much (often most) of the carbon offset income being spent on administrative costs.  Those costs can be appropriate when building and operating a hydro-electric dam with millions of CERs and VERs, but they are undesirably prohibitive when the reduced carbon emissions are accomplished by impoverished villagers when they are cooking on appropriate stoves.  

Therefore, to financially favor the poor, to encourage carbon offsets for smaller projects, and to expedite the delivery of benefits to impoverished households, Juntos NFP has initiated a very specific set of carbon offsets called “Woodgas Emission Reduction” (or WER) units or offsets.  WER units are not CER or VER emission reduction units. 

Introducing Woodgas Emission Reduction (WER) Carbon Offsets

The carbon offsets that are available from Juntos NFP are known as Woodgas Emission Reduction (WER) units or carbon offsets.   Note that these terms are originated and introduced by Juntos NFP, a not-for-profit registered corporation dedicated to the advancement of TLUD micro-gasification for the benefit of impoverished people.  Juntos NFP and the Woodgas Institute (Woodgas.org) are working to promote WER and related nomenclature for climate benefits generated by woodgas projects because they distinctly use pyrolysis to create woodgas and charcoal.

Each WER unit represents a one-ton reduction of CO2 emissions (or equivalent), exactly the same amount of reduced emissions as the well-known CER and VER units.  The vigilance of Juntos, under the direction of Paul “Dr TLUD” Anderson, is the basis for confidence that WER carbon offsets are real and valid emission reductions, with optional third-party verifications to be arranged, welcomed, and announced at the Juntos NFP and Woogas Institute websites.

WER units are based on emission reductions accomplished by the use of TLUD (pronounced tee-lud) micro-gasifier cookstoves and related char-producing technologies.  TLUD stoves are already in use in projects that issue and sell CER and VER units of carbon offset credit.  A report about one such project around Deganga, India, is found at:  http://drtlud.com/deganga-tlud-project-2016   .   The initial Juntos NFP project and WER offsets are from the use of the exact same TLUD stove in a different area of the same state in India, and with the same methodologies and activities for project implementation. 

Characteristics of WER Carbon Offset Units

1. Each WER unit is created by standard and sustained use (cooking) with a TLUD stove that is specifically included in a designated WER Project for which Juntos NFP provides leadership and information (eventually to be displayed on the JuntosNFP.org and the woodgas.org websites).
2. Note that it is not the sale of the stove, but it is the USE of the stove that generates the carbon offset.  Therefore, some sales of TLUD stoves may not result in creation of WER offsets.
3. One WER per year is the same as 1/12^th WER per month.  Therefore, each of these stoves that generate four WERs per year is generating one WER unit in each three months of use.
4. TLUD stoves are increasingly attractive to people who are further down on the poverty scale, and those people are the ones most likely to use TLUDs daily.  WER-financed TLUD stoves are not trying to compete with LPG, electric, alcohol, biogas or solar cooking when marketing is on a level (non-subsidized) playing field to people with moderate financial means. TLUD stoves with WER credits are targeted to the BOP (Base of Pyramid) households that are LEAST ABLE TO AFFORD such clean-burning stoves and are currently and in the future dependent on dry biomass as their household fuel.  And those households receive the most benefits from the Juntos NFP efforts and WER financing.
5. Woodgas TLUD stoves in WER projects approved by Juntos NFP and the Woodgas Institute are never given away, but are always earned eventually, such as by offering very favorable arrangements for the BOP and the use of WER carbon offsets.
6. In order to generate the carbon offsets, impoverished people who cannot afford the TLUD stoves need to have the stoves in their houses and in use.  This is the proverbial “chicken or egg” dilemma that is made worse by the need to pay the stove manufacturers at the start of the stove usage.  The solution devised for Juntos NFP activities is to offer WER carbon offsets for sale BEFORE the carbon reduction is actually generated.   In some ways, this is like CER and VER units sold for hydro-electric projects and re-afforestation efforts that have emission reductions many years later.     
7. Unlike CERs and VERs that can be traded and can have changing values over time, WER units cannot be traded and are considered to have been “used” (consumed or “retired”) at the moment of purchase.   This prevents speculative business practices. 
8. WERs are sold at a set value and are associated with a specified carbon offset for the purchaser.  This reduces speculation and price fluctuations.   However, the WER purchaser who believes that the cost of purchasing carbon offsets in the future would increase can save money by making additional purchases now, but even advance-purchase WERs cannot be sold to a third party later because they have been recorded in the registry as “retired early”.
9. EXPLANATORY NOTE:  The above items 6, 7, and 8 can also be expressed in different words.  For example, consider that the purchaser pays a specified price in advance for four WERs and is to receive two WERs at the end of the first year of stove use and the second two WERs at the end of the second year.  That would have been like an interest free loan for two years, with repayment in the form of WERS.   If those WERs cost US$20 (example of original price) but the value of the WERs one and two years later were double that value, the cost to the purchaser did not increase, and the purchaser is appropriately advantaged.  And if the price dropped to half, the purchaser still receives the 4 WERs for the price that was originally paid.  In either case, the purchaser helped one or more impoverished families obtain TLUD gasifier stoves and associated benefits that were beyond their reach without the advanced purchase of the WERs.
10. Through maintenance, repairs and replacements that are covered by a combination of the manufacturer’s guarantee plus sales-staff service plus some possible payments by the users, every stove will be functional for the entire duration of the WER project, typically seven or ten years.  A stove that is not in use represents the loss of WER units that it could have provided; therefore, everyone is engaged in keeping all the stoves in use.  This is a key to sustainability.
11. Because each stove has a unique serial number and is registered through Juntos NFP to a specific household, stoves cannot be sold by the user unless it is sold back to the Juntos NFP project.  Because the stove price is initially subsidized to allow early placement in many more households, any stove that is not being utilized can be reclaimed by the WER project for the price the user originally paid (perhaps discounted based on years of use).  Stoves that are not being used appropriately are removed from the project listing of active stoves and do not earn WER offsets.
12. Because of the very explicit purpose of the WER carbon credits, and because the basic operational units are small ($40 for one stove and $20 for one carbon offset), and because WER-project stoves are individually identified with a serial number, the procedure for individual persons or entities to sponsor specific stoves and purchase project-specific carbon credits can be arranged if merited, such as sponsorships of specific communities by specific donors/sponsors/WER purchasers. 

 Only TLUD Stoves are Funded by WER Credits

The main reason only TLUD stove can receive WER credits is that TLUD stoves are better than alternative stoves.  

1. An authoritative categorization of cookstove types jointly published by the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GACC) and the World Bank’s ESMAP (Tech Rpt 007, Fig. 1, 2015) identifies the gasifier stoves (TLUD, TChar, and Fan-jet stoves) as being the only wood-burning stoves in the category of modern “Advanced Cooking Solutions.”  [See:   http://www.drtlud.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Stove-Classification-2017-04-10.pdf  ]  These gasifier stoves are cleaner burning than any other stoves burning solid fuels.  They are not perfect, but gasifiers are undoubtedly the best biomass-burning stoves for reduced Household Air Pollution (HAP) and greater health benefits.
2. TLUDs are quite efficient, using less fuel than traditional (Tier 1) stoves.  Some other biomass-burning stoves (mainly Rocket stoves) also have high fuel efficiency, but they do not create recoverable charcoal and are not as clean-burning.
3. TLUD stoves are the only stoves that produce plentiful charcoal that can be easily recovered.  Charcoal collection is crucial in the WER carbon offset system for two reasons: 
4. a) Collection of the char is one major way to confirm that the stoves have been in use.
5. b) Charcoal is the avenue for the generation of half of the WER credits.
6. The Champion TLUD stoves (and probably many other TLUD stoves) have already been researched and documented by field work in India to generate four (4) carbon offsets per year of use.  Four is a higher number than the carbon offsets given for rocket stoves, improved charcoal-burning stoves, and other types.

Note:  TLUD stoves have other favorable attributes, including simple construction, relative low cost, ability to use many types of dry biomass as fuel (less deforestation), significantly reduced HAP, and consistent flames with reduced fire tending.  Although these characteristics are of secondary or no importance when determining the validity to issue carbon offsets, these reasons could be the primary reasons why some supporters of TLUD advanced cookstoves choose to purchase WER carbon credits. 

Pricing of WER units

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”  The value of any carbon offset, whether CER or VER or WER, is subject to the perceptions and emotions of the buyers.  The prices of CERs and VERs are whatever is negotiated between the buyer and seller.  Historically, carbon offsets have higher market prices if the offset-generating activities have socially and morally higher collateral rewards for each tCO2e (such as water wells and cookstoves for impoverished people) than if they are for less-personal activities such as hydro-electric dams and massive reforestation projects.   That favors higher prices for the WERs that are for cookstoves for BOP (Base of the Pyramid) households. 

Prices as high as US$50 per carbon offset have been suggested for cookstove projects by the US EPA.   Sweden has some carbon offsets that cost over US$150 each.  In California, carbon offset projects are found with prices of $12.  On the other hand, some CERs and VERs have been traded several times and have values less than $3. 

Because Juntos NFP wants to maximize the number of TLUD stoves put into use by households, a reasonable, low price has been set.  As an informed but still arbitrary decision, Juntos NFP has set the price of each of the initial 100,000 WER credits at US$20, which is a total value of two million dollars.  This amount will fund the purchase of 50,000 Champion TLUD stoves that cost $40 each, which will then generate the WER carbon offsets that will pay off loans and provide funds for project expansion.

Initial Woodgas (WER) Projects by Juntos NFP

Actions speak louder than words, so Juntos NFP has already (October 2018) started a WER project in the community of Hingalganj, West Bengal, India.  See project information at the Projects page.