Biomass has a potential to replace the role of kerosene for heating purposes in cooking for household. To assess the economical value on the replacement, one requires to compare the heating energy between biomass and kerosene.
What is a good method to compare them? Is simply using the comparison of the heating value applicable?
There are two key factors to consider--available energy in the two sources and energy efficiency. You can easily look up btu/liter for kerosene, multiply by a local cost per liter to get your energy cost per btu. Biomass is much more complex. There are many types of biomass and the heat content varies significantly. In addition you have to consider the effect of moisture content with most biomass. For example, wood may be listed with a heat value of 8000 btu/lb but that is for dry wood. If you are using wood at 50% moisture content the available heat energy is much lower. Finally, there may also be differences in the cooking efficiency. A kersosene stove may be able to direct a larger percentage of the available energy to the food compared to a stove that uses a biomass feedstock. Ultimately the measure that matters is cost to cook, not cost of fuel. I would add that there may be other indirect cost differences that might impact the comparison. For example, storing xx btu's of kerosene may be a small space but storing the same amount of biomass fuel might take a new woodshed (extra cost). Energy density of wood is about 1/3 the energy density of kerosene with implications for handling and storage.
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