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Until last year, the Mokgatlhe family in Kgope, a remote village situated 50 kilometres west of Botswana’s capital, had been using firewood to illuminate and heat their home. They joined 80 percent of Botswana’s rural population in this practice, one that led to the destruction of countless acres of forest.
Responding to Botswana’s urgent call to introduce alternative fuels and reduce carbon emissions, UNDP and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) have partnered with the Government and local communities to bring an eco-friendly and creative solution to a problem that causes damage to both the environment and health through the introduction of solar power.
The initiative is jointly funded by the Government and GEF and implemented by UNDP. Over the past six months, the programme has been steadily rolling-out solar home systems, rechargeable lanterns, community solar recharge stations and wood-saving cooking appliances.
Botswana Power Corporation (BPC), the country’s national electricity utility, has been tasked with providing solar energy services to Botswana’s rural citizens. In Kgope, the village’s development committee is running an energy kiosk, or store, as part of a pilot franchise owned by BPC. The kiosk sells solar laterns, wood-saving stoves and hot bags, specially designed bags that keep food warm and reduce cooking time on stoves.
Serobele Kgadimapa, who was hired by the village committee to run the kiosk, says up to 20 lanterns can be charged in the same kiosk at a time for a modest fee. She also takes orders for solar home systems.
Mrs. Mokgatlhe has watched her family’s world change overnight after purchasing their own solar home system.
“It is a changed world for them,” she says with a smile.
“They even spend more time reading and finishing their school work these days,” adds her husband.
Instead of worrying that the battery powering their lights will run out, Mrs. Mokgatlhe must now make sure that her children get to bed on time. The family is now hoping to buy an upgrade to their system that will allow for the powering of a television and a radio.
BPC has also established solar energy kiosks in the neighbouring villages of Dikgatlhong, Lentsweletau and Medie. The roll-out is expected to gain momentum with time as more rural people use the products and word spreads about their usefulness.
The programme is placing priority on poor and female-headed households, offering a pricing structure that meets their needs, with much of the solar energy packages being offered at very low, subsidized prices. Additional equipment, however, is offered at normal price.
In addition to saving firewood, the programme is saving valuable time for women and girls, the people most likely to do cooking in their households. The wood-saving stove, for example, cooks a four-person meal with only a kilogramme of firewood, greatly reducing the time needed to collect the wood. The hot bags reduce overall cooking time.
When the solar energy products have taken root in these pilot villages solar energy will be rolled out to other rural villages of Botswana. The use of solar energy may finally reduce the depletion of forests and carbon emissions.
Source – http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/201007140622.html
Patrick Wiley used to make a living treating wastewater. Now he’s trying to use wastewater to make a difference.
Wiley grew up in Maine and did wastewater treatment work for various cities in Maine before deciding to go back to school. He had started to become interested in energy-efficient wastewater treatment processes and pursued a master’s degree in wastewater utilization at Humboldt State. His research into finding more efficient ways to harvest algae for use in biofuel production led him to UC Merced to work with Professor Elliott Campbell.
Algae grow naturally in wastewater, and the carbon dioxide captured by the algae during photosynthesis can be harvested for use in biofuels. So while algae-based fuel still emits carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, those emissions are offset because that carbon dioxide was initially taken from the atmosphere by the algae.
He’s also working with a UC Berkeley group on collecting algae from the wastewater treatment process and using it to generate electrical power and for use in indoor cooking and heating. This could improve living conditions in rural areas, where people commonly breathe unhealthy air in their homes because of their use of indoor wood stoves.
TOTOGALPA, Nicaragua – A group of peasant women in this town on Nicaragua’s border with Honduras are replacing firewood and fossil fuels with solar panels and stoves.
Solar Women of Totogalpa is the name of the cooperative made up of 19 women and a man who are working to promote, produce and do research on renewable energy in the northern province of Madriz, for the sustainable development of the family and the community.
The cooperative grew from a 1999 project to reintegrate victims of landmines planted in Nicaragua during the Contra war in the 1980s, an undertaking backed by the Program of Alternative Sources of Energy at the National University of Engineering and promoted by U.S. engineer Susan Kinne.
The goal of that project was to train participants in the production and installation of photovoltaic panels to create jobs and the use of alternative sources of energy in communities that had no access to electricity, said Nimia Lopez, acting administrator of the cooperative, told Efe.
But soon the women of Totogalpa made the project their own, once they saw how solar energy could be used for cooking instead of firewood, and in that way prevent deforestation and respiratory ailments.
“We housewives like the solar stoves more because they save firewood and cooking time, there’s no ash and we don’t make smoke, said Nimia Lopez, who now has a solar oven of her own.
Yelba Maria Lopez, another peasant woman equipped with a solar panel and stove, told Efe that she previously spent up to 100 cordobas ($5) a month on firewood, but now, thanks to her solar stove, she doesn’t have to pay for firewood.
She has also slashed her electricity bill by 85 percent, she said.
Yelba Lopez said she earned the solar panel and stove in exchange for her work at the Solar Center, the cooperative’s base, where the women turn out this equipment by hand.
Stoves that operate on solar energy are constructed 70 percent of local materials and are made of wood, glass, aluminum foil, nylon sieves and a clock with a thermometer.
The solar panels are made of aluminum, glass and cells that accumulate solar energy in batteries and work perfectly for up to 25 years.
With these panels, solar energy can be generated for six hours in a home with six lamps, a television set and a sound recorder.
The acting administrator said that the Solar Women of Totogalpa are not only looking for economic self-sufficiency but are also working for the sustainable development of the community by “creating decent jobs that promote renewable energy and protect the environment.”
Source – http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=359740&CategoryId=23558
Chest. 2010 Jul;138(1):20-31.
Risk of COPD from exposure to biomass smoke: a metaanalysis.
Hu G, Zhou Y, Tian J, Yao W, Li J, Li B, Ran P.
Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases, State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, 151 Yanjiang Rd, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510120, China.
Comment in: Chest. 2010 Jul;138(1):3-6.
BACKGROUND: Although many studies have suggested that biomass smoke is a risk factor for COPD, the relationship between the two has not been firmly established. In particular, the extent of the association between exposure of biomass smoke and COPD in different populations, as well as the relationship between biomass smoke and cigarette smoke, is not clear. To ascertain the relationship between biomass smoke and COPD, we performed a metaanalysis.
METHODS: We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences Database and analyzed 15 epidemiologic (11 cross-sectional and four case-control) studies that met our criteria. Data were extracted and analyzed independently by two investigators using a standardized
protocol.
RESULTS: Overall, people exposed to biomass smoke have an odds ratio (OR) of 2.44 (95% CI, 1.9-3.33) for developing COPD, relative to those not exposed to biomass smoke. Biomass smoke exposure was clearly identified as a risk factor for developing COPD in both women (OR, 2.73; 95% CI, 2.28-3.28) and men
(OR, 4.30; 95% CI, 1.85-10.01), and in both the Asian population (OR, 2.31; 95% CI, 1.41-3.78) and the non-Asian population (OR, 2.56; 95% CI, 1.71-3.83). This risk factor has also been revealed in patients with chronic bronchitis (OR, 2.56; 95% CI, 1.77-3.70) and COPD (OR, 2.65; 95% CI, 1.75-4.03), and in cigarette
smokers (OR, 4.39; 95% CI, 1.40-4.66) and non-cigarette smokers (OR, 2.55; 95% CI, 2.06-3.15).
CONCLUSIONS: Exposure to biomass smoke is a risk factor for COPD.
J Asthma. 2010 May;47(4):407-11.
Household and environment factors associated with asthma among Indian women: a multilevel approach.
Guddattu V, Swathi A, Nair NS.
Department of Statistics, Manipal university, Manipal, India. vasudev.guddattu@gmail.com
BACKGROUND: Asthma is a prevalent disease among adults in India. This study aims to find prevalence and risk factors for asthma among Indian women aged 15 to 49 based on Indian National Family Health Survey-3.
METHODS: Prevalence of asthma was reported per 1,000 women among individual- and household-level variables. Chi-square test was used as test of association. Odds ratio with 95% confidence interval was used to find risk factors. Multilevel logistic regression was used to find risk factors adjusting for the confounding effect. Attributable risk percentage and population-attributable risk percentage were computed and
interpreted.
RESULTS: The overall prevalence of asthma was 17 per 1,000 women. Overweight, obesity, exposure to alcohol, smoking, use of biomass for cooking, and low education are proven to be risk factors for asthma. The odds ratio ranges from 1.2 to 3. Not cooking under chimney and exposure to biomass fuels were observed to have high population-attributable risk percentage (19%, 18.6%). Controlling for these variables may reduce major burden of asthma.
CONCLUSION: Modification of household-level variables such as cooking fuel and cooking condition coupled with abstinence in consumption of alcohol and smoking may reduce the prevalence of asthma among women.
