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India is very renewable already. Same with Africa. Hundreds of millions if not billions burn wood and biomass for heat and cooking daily

• triceratops 1mo ago
  Definitely not billions. Do you have actual sources for how many? Do you imagine they enjoy wood and dung smoke in their houses, or maybe they'd prefer electric ranges or hot plates powered by solar panels?
  • hammock 1mo ago
    About 660 million in India and 1 billion in Africa burn renewables like wood or biomass for cooking, heating and daily energy needs. We could learn from them. Sources: https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/clean-cooking-expands-at-record-pace-in-africa-but-lags-behind-population-growth/ https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/clean-cooking-expands-at-r... https://www.fao.org/wood-energy-info-portal/search/detail/en/c/1395457/ https://www.fao.org/wood-energy-info-portal/search/detail/en...
    • triceratops 1mo ago
      Thanks for the sources. So not billions but still more than I'd have expected. Also the 1 billion number from Africa includes people burning kerosene. That isn't biomass. > We could learn from them. I sense sarcasm. It's an ugly worldview.
    • phtrivier 1mo ago
      In a sense, when we use scraps from agriculture in a methanizer to produce "bio" gaz, we are "learning" from people still using biomass. It's just that we mediate it through ch4 to avoid some of the worst health risk. The problem is of course that we don't use "scraps" so much as "purposefully using fossil fuels to grow stuff that we won't eat and burn instead". There's a startup to build around "disrupting food wastes from gen-Z". Like a "reverse" dashdoor, where people would drive e-bikes door to door to collect your compostables, and sell the gaz / fertilizer. Then the next version will not collect food scraps, but other forms of... Let's say "valuable organic matter currently wasted in big cities" ;) But I doubt VCs would rush to fund something like "UberPoop"... Unless we find a way to get views on HN by bringing "AI" in the mix, or writing the client in Rust :P
• phtrivier 1mo ago
  Which is why I mentioned _decarbonization_, not only renewables ;) (wood stoves are always this weird thing to put in the carbon cycle. It's "recent" carbon, not carboniferous, so... the But they're not very efficient.)
  • hammock 1mo ago
    > It's "recent" carbon, not carboniferous, so... Yeah try telling that to the people who want to ban beef because the cows eat grass and burp
    • triceratops 1mo ago
      Cows also eat corn and burp. Corn is grown with fertilizers and harvested with tractors and shipped by truck. All fossil-fuel intensive. If all we had were grass-fed cows and no deforestation to raise them, it would be a much smaller problem.
      • belorn 1mo ago
        A lot of political platforms has the goal of using corn based ethanol to become carbon-neutral, by burning that fuel for heat, electricity and in transportation. Animal feed and bio fuels are directly competing with each other. For now, animal feed has a bit bigger portion of the market but the distance is shrinking as demand for bio fuels are constantly increasing. With plans to increase bio fuel consumptions several times over, bio fuels will overtake animal feed in consumption, while deforestation will increase in order to generate more green credits.
        • triceratops 1mo ago
          > using corn based ethanol to become carbon-neutral You misspelled "to win the farm lobby". That's the only reason for the ethanol stupidity.
          • belorn 1mo ago