Perspectives and Challenges of World Charcoal Production in Technological, Social, and Climate Change Fields

Charcoal is the main renewable fuel used in the world, and its production and consumption date back to the beginnings of society. Currently, it is estimated that one-third of the world’s population depends on biomass as a primary energy source, making discussions about the use of charcoal a recurring topic. Decades have passed and the production of this fuel has reached all homes, mainly in developing countries, through varied production processes and with different technological levels. In this context of importance, this chapter has as its main question: “How was charcoal production characterized in the past and how is it today, in technological, social, and environmental aspects?”. Climate change and countries’ energy security are topics that have been discussed for a long time and need to be increasingly expanded, either through scientific publications or through classes and lectures to local and scientific communities. However, some questions are repeated in debates but still do not bring in-depth answers, such as the impacts caused by the use of charcoal in domestic environments and the main challenges of the sector to present technological innovations. Thus, with this chapter, we want to bring a historical retrospective about the production and use of charcoal in the world and show how this sector has behaved in terms of social and environmental aspects. From this, we will be able to provide important contributions for the deepening of debates involving the production and consumption of charcoal in the world, as well as a scientific basis for pointing out the main innovations acquired so far and the bottlenecks that permeate the technological advancement of the sector.