Don’t ignore biomass

In the context of the prevailing cooking gas shortage which has assumed crisis proportions, the government caved in on Thursday permitting Laugfs Gas a substantial price increase while pledging that Litro will continue selling at the old price. This is not going to be possible for very long. Obviously consumers will opt for the cheaper alternative and the pressure on Litro, widely apparent with Laugfs out of stocks, will continue in the short term. As it is Litro is totally unable to cope with the demand with only a fraction of it met. As for Laugfs, “No Gas” labels have sprouted countrywide like mushrooms after the rain and television news bulletins are full of pictures of lines of blue cylinder-carrying consumers waiting for unavailable gas supplies. Laugfs has said that it hope to bring in stocks within a week, while the company’s chairman, Mr. W.J.H. Wegapitiya, has estimated that it will take about a month to bridge the supply gap.

But the chapter will not close even then. With cheaper supplies not get-table, consumers will be compelled to buy the more expensive alternative even reluctantly. But most Laugfs customers will not have Litro cylinders to get refilled. That problem exists even now. Obviously it is only a matter of time – really a matter of short time – before Litro too will be permitted to increase its prices. It, along with Laugfs, has for quite some time being pushing for a price increase. If the government compels a state-controlled company to sell at a loss, eventually the people as a whole must pay the price. It is impossible for any commercial venture to continue selling below procurement prices. However much Trade Minister Bandula Gunawardene keeps saying that businesses that have had good times must live with bad times, that’s not something that’s possible for long.

Although ours is a country notorious for the short memories of its people, many readers will remember there was a price difference in fuel between the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and LIOC (Lanka Indian Oil Corporation) not so long ago. The difference was only a few rupees and LIOC obviously lost business to CPC. But the Indian company which is quoted on the Colombo Stock Exchange and has thousands of local shareholders did not care overmuch though their dealers did as it hurt their pockets. That was because the less diesel – particularly – LIOC sold, the better for the company because of the gap between procurement prices and the prices at which they were permitted to sell. Even now motorists may notice that the cheapest 92 octane petrol is not freely available at many filling stations because of what clearly appears to be an effort to push premium products.

It is in the gas shortage context that we draw attention to an article we run in today’s issue of our newspaper. Readers in urban centers will know that the once ubiquitous firewood carts seen on the streets are today almost as rare as the rickshaws of yore. This is because most urban dwellers cook by gas and the once popular dara lipa (firewood hearth) is now no more even in the least affluent homes in the towns. But this is not the case in rural areas where firewood continues to be used as a cooking fuel. The writer of the article under reference, Engineer R,M. Amarasekera, complains bitterly about the lack of attention to biomass in our energy scene which seems to only encompass solar, wind and hydro in the renewable sector and coal and fossil fuel in the non-renewable segment. This engineer who’s a retired as director of the Sustainable Energy Authority (SEA) and has extensive experience in biomass sees this as the “dark side” of the country’s energy sector.

Unlike those living in rural areas, urban dwellers cannot gather firewood and must depend mostly on gas. Today even the once popular kerosene stoves are a thing of the past and there is no talk whatever of the once encouraged energy saving clay stoves. According to Amarasekera, the biomass energy demand in the country ran at 46.2% followed by petroleum (41%) and electricity (12.3%). These are the figures published by the SEA’s ‘Energy Balance’ documentation of 2018, he says. According to these figures, biomass (64.9%) is the main source of energy in households and industry (74.7%). “This highlights its importance as the lifeblood of the rural sector comprising 81% of the total population,” he says adding that it is evident that the burden of meeting rural energy needs have been met by the rural people themselves led by women, and not by the government.

As with other energy sources, biomass has its own problems. Plantations firing tea factory boilers with firewood have woodlots but this is nowhere enough. Smoke inhalation is a problem though Amarasekera says that women who do the cooking in nearly all homes have a life expectancy of over 80 years. Other means of generating energy also have such problems. Solar panels that were expensive to begin with have since become more affordable. Thermal sources (coal, fossil fuel etc.) have enormous environmental consequences. Amarasekera attributes the negative image of biomass to be associated with factors like deforestation, climate change, under-development, poverty and negative health effects. That is correct. But his argument that this image steers policy makers against replacing other fuels with biomass, rather than improving its sustainability, rings a bell. This is certainly worth thinking about.