Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Charcoal was the most valuable phytomass fuel in all advanced traditional societies. These
two engravings from Diderot and D'Alembert's famous
L'Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire
raisonné des sciences, des artes and des métiers
(1751-1780) show the construction of a
charcoal kiln and its i ring and breaking up.
peasants in sub-Saharan Africa and the least prosperous parts of Asia and Latin
America. Wood and charcoal are still widely used in Brazil, the country that also
leads the world in the use of ethanol; unfortunately, other national programs pro-
moting liquid biofuels (most notably the U.S. corn-based ethanol and European
biodiesel) make little sense as they do not offer any environmental, energetic, or
economic advantages.
Wood was also the quintessential raw material of all preindustrial civilizations:
metal tools, implements, machines, and weapons were much less common than
their wooden counterparts. As for building materials, stone and bricks have been
common choices since prehistoric times, but in many parts of the world wood
retained its primacy in construction into the twentieth century. Japan's pre-World
War II residential buildings were overwhelmingly wooden, and sawn wood remains
