FAO – Jatropha: A Smallholder Crop

May 24, 2010 · 1 comment

Jatropha: A Smallholder Crop. The Potential for Pro-Poor Development, 2010.

Full-text: http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/i1219e/i1219e.pdf (pdf, 2.3MB)

FAO.

As developing countries face increasing local demand for energy in rural areas, they are also dealing with both economic and environmental pressure on agricultural lands. The possibility of growing energy crops such as Jatropha Curcas L. has the potential to enable smallholder farmers, producers and processors to cope with these pressures.

There are clear advantages to using plant oil instead of traditional biomass for cooking. These include the health benefits from reduced smoke inhalation, and environmental benefits from avoiding the loss of forest
cover and lower harmful GHG emissions, particularly carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides.

The high viscosity of jatropha oil compared to kerosene presents a problem that necessitates a specially designed stove. There are two basic designs – one uses pressure to atomize the oil and one uses a wick.

The Darfur Stoves Project: A Market Solution to Poverty

May 21, 2010 · 0 comments

3p spoke with Andrée Sosler, Executive Director of the Darfur Stoves Project, to learn more about the initiative and what’s possible when a fledgling non-profit is led by an MBA with a commitment to the public interest and backed by a powerhouse research institution.

Triple Pundit: What is the relationship between the Darfur Stoves Project and the University of California, Berkeley?

Andrée Sosler: The Darfur Stoves Project is an entity of Technology Innovation for Sustainable Societies (TISS), an emergent non-profit currently registering for their 501-(c)3 status. TISS is the link between the lab and NGOs in the field. Our work is demand driven. We focus on relationship building, needs assessment, user feedback, support the creation of supply chains and social marketing. In essence, everything that is not the actual technology. Lawrence Berkeley has a budget of $774 million this year. The staff has tremendous capacity, and a strong will to participate in our work, to volunteer. TISS intends to fill the gap and serve as a connector between the potential of a large research institutions and NGOS.

3p: The Darfur Stoves Project is just one enterprise led by TISS, independent of USAID but created in collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley lab?

Sosler: OFDA/USAID introduced the Lawrence Berkeley team to CHF International, the initial partner for the project. The team advised CHF and trained their staff to test and adapt the stoves, etc. However, after sending a team to Darfur, and benefiting from analysis from business schools, we found that we could lower production costs, increase capacity and improve quality consistency by shifting our manufacturing to India. Fundamentally, it was a question of heightened comparative advantage. While some firms mass-produce stoves to turn a profit and others focus on generating local income and keep their production local, TISS works with the Lawrence Berkeley lab and our current field partner, Oxfam America to incorporate the strongest aspects of both models.

3p: There are obvious advantages to having the support of a major research institution, but what are some of the challenges that stem from working with UCB?

Sosler: Communication is a challenge, particularly as it relates to the transition from the research behind a project to its implementation. The Darfur Stoves project benefits tremendously from UCB; it wouldn’t exist without it. Still, one question we are juggling is how to benefit from that support while becoming nimble and independent.

Read More – Triple Pundit, May 21, 2010

World Bank – Can Renewable Energy Help Close the Electricity Access Gap in Rural Africa?

May 19, 2010 · 0 comments

Can Renewable Energy Help Close the Electricity Access Gap in Rural Africa? (full-text pdf, 2MB)

World Bank, 2010.

Mobile phones, which first came to Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s, have reached about a quarter of the African population. Can something similar happen with decentralized access to electricity, which would help reduce rural poverty in Africa?

In a new working paper, Uwe Deichmann, Craig Meisner, Siobhan Murray, and David Wheeler argue that renewable energy, such as wind and solar power, could play a significant role in Africa’s electrification. It can become the cheapest option for many households in rural and remote areas of Africa, where it is often too costly to expand Western-style universal grids.

In addition, decentralized renewable-energy technologies can help limit a country’s carbon footprint and their adoption can be supported through carbon finance mechanisms. But there are limits: for most Africans, especially those living in population-dense areas, grid-connected energy supplies are likely to be cheaper in the foreseeable future, highlighting the importance of increasing the share of large-scale renewable energy technologies in a country’s fuel mix.

Indoor air kills 2.2 million young Chinese

May 17, 2010 · 0 comments

BEIJING (AFP)  More than two million Chinese youths die each year from health problems related to indoor air pollution, with nearly half of them under five years of age, state media cited a government study as saying.

The study released by the China Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said indoor pollution levels can often be 5-10 times higher than those measured in the nation’s notoriously bad outdoor air, the China News Service said.

This indoor pollution causes respiratory and other conditions that kill 2.2 million youths each year, one million of whom are under the age of five, the report said, citing the study released on Sunday.

The study said dangerous indoor pollutants include formaldehyde, benzene, ammonia and radon.

It said formaldehyde posed the biggest threat. It is often found in building materials and new furniture in China and can be slowly released into indoor environments over the course of several years.

It said long-term exposure to such substances can cause a range of health problems including respiratory diseases, mental impairment and cancer, with young children, foetuses in utero and the elderly at most risk.

China’s massive economic expansion of the past three decades has made it one of the world’s most polluted countries as environmental and health concerns are trampled amid an overriding focus on industrial growth.

Countless cities are smothered in smog while hundreds of millions of citizens lack access to clean drinking water.

A 2007 World Bank report said 750,000 Chinese die prematurely each year due to air and water pollution — a figure edited out of final versions of the report, reportedly after China warned it could cause social unrest.

Source – http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100517/ts_afp/healthchinapollution

Indoor particle size distributions in homes with open fires and improved Patsari cook stove

May 14, 2010 · 0 comments

Cynthia Armendariz Arnez, Rufus D. Edwards, Michael Johnson, et al.

Indoor particle size distributions in homes with open fires and improved Patsari cook stoves,  IN: Atmospheric Environment, 5 May 2010

Particulate pollution has been clearly linked with adverse health impacts from open fire cookstoves, and indoor air concentrations are frequently used as a proxy for exposures in health studies. Implicit are the assumptions that the size distributions for the open fire and improved stove do not significantly change, and that the relationship between indoor concentrations and personal exposures is the same between stoves.

To evaluate the impact of these assumptions size distributions of particulate matter in indoor air were measured with the Sioutas cascade impactor in homes using open fires and improved Patsari stoves in a rural Purepecha community in Michoacan, Mexico. On average indoor concentrations of particles less than 0.25 [mu]m were 72% reduced in homes with improved Patsari stoves, reflecting a reduced contribution of this size fraction to PM2.5 mass concentrations from 68% to 48%. As a result the mass median diameter of indoor PM2.5 particulatematter was increased by 29% with the Patsari improved stove compared to the open fire (from 0.42 [mu]m to 0.59 [mu]m, respectively).

Personal PM2.5 exposure concentrations for women in homes using open fires were approximately 61% of indoor concentration levels (156 [mu]g m-3 and 257 [mu]g m-3 respectively). In contrast personal exposure concentrations were 77% times indoor air concentration levels for women in homes using improved Patsari stoves (78 [mu]g m-3and 101 [mu]g m-3 respectively).

Thus, if indoor air concentrations are used in health and epidemiologic studies significant bias may result if the shift in size distribution and the change in relationship between indoor air concentrations and personal exposure concentrations is not accounted for between different stove types.

Kenya – Performance of a domestic cooking wick stove using (FAME) from oil plants

May 14, 2010 · 1 comment

Agatha W. Wagutu, Thomas F.N. Thoruwa, Sumesh C.  et al.

Performance of a domestic cooking wick stove using fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) from oil plants in Kenya, IN:  Biomass and Bioenergy, 7 May 2010

With depletion of solid biomass fuels and their rising costs in recent years, there has been a shift towards using kerosene and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for domestic cooking in Kenya. However, the use of kerosene is associated with health and safety problems. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a clean, safe and sustainable liquid bio-fuel. Plant oil derivatives fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) present such a promising solution.

This paper presents the performance of a wick stove using FAME fuels derived from oil plants: Jatropha curcus L. (Physic nut), Croton megalocarpus Hutch, Calodendrum capense (L.f.) Thunb., Cocos nucifera L. (coconut), soyabeans and sunflower. The FAME performance tests were based on the standard water-boiling tests (WBT) and compared with kerosene. Unlike kerosene all FAME fuels burned with odorless and non-pungent smell generating an average firepower of 1095 W with specific fuel consumption of 44.6 g L-1 (55% higher than kerosene).

The flash points of the FAME fuels obtained were typically much higher (2.3-3.3 times) than kerosene implying that they are much safer to use than kerosene. From the results obtained, it was concluded that the FAME fuels have potential to provide safe and sustainable cooking liquid fuel in developing countries.

Fuel-efficient stoves for Darfur: The social construction of subsistence marketplaces

May 14, 2010 · 0 comments

Samer Abdelnour, Oana Branzei,

Fuel-efficient stoves for Darfur: The social construction of subsistence marketplaces in post-conflict settings, IN: Journal of Business Research, Volume 63, Issue 6, June 2010, Pages 617-629,

This paper explores the development of market roles and transactions in fuel-efficient stoves in Darfur from 1997 to 2008 as a grounded example of how subsistence markets are socially constructed in post-conflict settings. Using a combination of archival texts, interviews, and real-time discourses by protagonists, this study explains the who, what, why and how of emergent marketplaces by showing how development interventions come to imbue market participants and transactions with socially (re)constructed meanings.

The fitful emergence of subsistence marketplaces for fuel-efficient in Darfur is punctuated by development interventions which at times under- or misrepresent market participants and by successes and failures in bringing together trainers, producers, sellers, consumers and users of fuel-efficient stoves. Subsidies and handouts delay and distort the emergence of grassroots demand, choices, and prices; a plurality of competing development interventions re-shape the supply.

By the end of 2008, the subsistence market for fuel-efficient stoves catches momentum, engaging over 52% of the Darfuri communities in market transactions for the product.  As market participants gain voice and influence they reshape the market to favour mud stoves over metal stoves.  Reports by several development organizations suggest that among fuel-efficient stove users, 90% use mud models, and 49% of women who own both mud and metal stoves prefer mud stoves.

PCIA – USAID Report on Black Carbon Emissions in Asia

May 14, 2010 · 0 comments

USAID Report on Black Carbon Emissions in Asia: Sources, Impacts, and Abatement Opportunities, April 2010.

Full-text: http://www.pciaonline.org/files/Black%20Carbon%20Emissions%20in%20Asia.pdf (pdf, 1.77MB)

The USAID ECO-Asia Clean Development and Climate Program has just released a new report on Black Carbon Emissions in Asia, which addresses the following issues:

  • 1. What are the properties of black carbon as a contributor to global warming, and what are the direct and indirect impacts of black carbon with respect to global warming, natural ecosystems, human health, or other considerations?
  • 2. What are the principal sources of black carbon emissions in Asia, both in terms of types of activities generating emissions and the location of these activities?
  • 3. What are the most immediate opportunities for reducing black carbon emissions in the Asia region and for mitigating the impact of those emissions in Asia, and what are the major obstacles to pursuing these opportunities?

YouTube Playlists on Indoor Air Pollution & other topics

May 11, 2010 · 0 comments

Below are links to updated playlists of videos on Indoor Air Pollution and other topics:

Using charcoal as base material reduces mosquito coil emissions of toxins

May 10, 2010 · 0 comments

Indoor Air. 2010 Apr;20(2):176-84.

Using charcoal as base material reduces mosquito coil emissions of toxins.

Zhang L, Jiang Z, Tong J, Wang Z, Han Z, Zhang J. School of Public Health and Environmental and Occupational Health Institute (EOHSI), University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA. jjzhang@eohsi.rutgers.edu

Mosquito coils are used to prevent mosquito exposures indoors by approximately 2 billion people worldwide. However, the smoldering of organic matters used as base materials of mosquito coils emits particulate and gaseous toxic compounds. A previous study indicates that emission rates of toxic compounds depend on types of base materials and can be high enough to generate room concentrations markedly higher than health based standards or references.

The objective of this study is to evaluate a new type of mosquito coil that uses charcoal powder as base material and to compare its emission rates with those of several current-market brands and several brands tested in the previous study. Results show that the charcoal-based coil had emission rates of PM(2.5) mass, total particle number, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), and aldehydes, substantially (up to 10 times) lower than other tested conventional mosquito coils.

Results also show that particles freshly generated from burning mosquito coils were all fine and mostly ultrafine in size. This study presents emission rates for PM(2.5) mass, total particle number, gas-phase and particle-phase PAHs, 14 aldehydes and acetone, and 10 volatile hydrocarbons. These data, along with emission rates presented in the previous study are useful for estimating indoor concentrations of toxic compounds generated from mosquito coil uses.

Practical Implications – Mosquito coils are widely used indoors to prevent mosquitoes from entering indoor environments. This is achieved through the release of insecticides impregnated in biomass base materials of mosquito coils during coil combustion. A previous study reported that burning one mosquito coil releases the same amount of fine particles as burning 75-135 cigarettes, largely depending on what biomass (saw dust or coconut husk) is used as base material. This ‘follow-up’ study measured several current-market brands of mosquito coils, including a new charcoal-based coil labeled as smokeless coil by the China Environmental Labeling, for their emissions of particulate and gaseous pollutants. Results show that using charcoal powder as base material reduces fine particle emissions by a factor of 5-10 and also reduces emissions of pollutants such as formaldehyde and PAHs substantially.

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