Assessment of Rice Husk Briquette Fuel Use as an Alternative Source of Woodfuel

Biomass is predominantly used in a very traditional way of conversion and causing wastage a lot of energy. Thus creates an extra pressure on the forest biomass to meet the shortage of woody biomass fuel. This study is carried out to find out the alternate resource of woody biomass fuel, to quantify the amount of wood fuel replaced by the woody biomass, reduction of deforestation as well as reduction of carbon dioxide emission, and financial viability analysis of fuel switch. Rice husk briquette use is found to be a viable replacement for wood fuel. Improved rice parboiling system and rice husk briquette machine are found to be financially viable with a cost benefit ratio of 1.57 and 1.06, respectively. The analysis of fuel switch from wood fuel to rice husk briquette analysis showed a negative cost of CO2 reduction, which means no addition cost is required to adopt briquette fuel. There is a potential of 2.85 million tonne of rice husk briquette production in the country in 2012 that could substitute about 4.66 million tonne of wood fuel. The wood fuel switch to rice husk briquette could save 24.14 thousand hectares equivalent of forest land from deforestation process annually; it could develop a carbon sink equivalent to 1971s' stock by 2030. As a results, a reduction of deforestation process would develop a carbon stock in the existing forest leading towards a sustainable development of forest resources in Bangladesh.