Renewable Energy for the Developing World Online

January 13, 2010 · 0 comments

Start date: February 1, 2010
End date: March 14, 2010
Location: Online

Website: Visit event website

This workshop explores different applications for renewable energy technologies in developing countries. Participants will learn how to successfully accomplish sustainable development projects with renewable energy.

Effective technology transfer methods will be presented, as well as setting up infrastructure and the economics and financing of renewable energy projects. Case studies will be presented on solar cooking, rural household electrification, appropriate building technologies, rural health care and micro-enterprises utilizing renewable energy.

Topics Include
Solar Cooking & Food Drying
Solar Water Distillation
Solar Electricity for Rural Development
PV for Rural Health Care
Technology Transfer
Financing Household Solar Energy
Microenterprises
Integrating Women into RE Projects
Procuring Funding

Directions:
This is a 6-week online course
Contact:
Laurie Guevara-Stone
Solar Energy International
laurie@solarenergy.org
970-963-8855, ext. 112

Group works to bring solar ovens to Tanzania

January 13, 2010 · 0 comments

 Judy Martin had a great idea that seemed to be going nowhere. The Okemos woman, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania, wanted to help in that country.  So she and others developed a plan to distribute low-cost solar ovens through a nonprofit organization called Solar Circle. They raised money. They recruited Tanzanians to help them get the word out. They figured out how to build ovens in Tanzania, using local materials. But it didn’t get off the ground. “We had begun to doubt that people really wanted to cook with the sun, because we had about 100 ovens in the store room even though we were heavily subsidizing the price,” Martin said. 

A chance conversation changed all that. “One day we were speaking in Swahili and when I said ‘volunteer’ in Swahili, they said, ‘You mean they work (for the ovens) and they don’t pay any money?’ ” It turns out that many people who were not willing or able to pay for solar ovens were perfectly willing to work for them. The oven is basically a cooking box with a glass lid and reflectors to concentrate the sun’s rays within the box. Since the bartering began, villagers in the southern Tanzanian area of Masasi who want ovens have dug latrines, built homes and provided care for people who are HIV-positive.

On her last trip to Tanzania, earlier this year, Martin found the area abuzz with activity – both building and cooking. “It was so exciting,” she said. “Because now they have groups of people working on a project. The workers are located near each other. The ovens are located near one another, and people are feeding off of one another as to what they’re cooking and what works well.” As villagers experiment with baking bread, beans and other foods in the outdoor ovens, others become interested in them, too. Solar ovens save women time because they don’t have to collect firewood. And it helps keep women and their babies healthy because they don’t have to breathe wood smoke all day. “They really love baking bread in them,” Martin said. “Bread hasn’t been a staple there because it’s so hard to bake bread on an open fire.”

Over the past couple of years, there have been some changes in oven design. For example, the model Solar Circle originally distributed had a single large reflector, but the people who use the ovens prefer those with four smaller reflectors. They rejected a lightweight, low-cost oven that had a cardboard cooking box as too flimsy.

Besides providing the ovens, Solar Circle also has people in Tanzania who will repair them to keep them in use. There still are some glitches in distribution, though. For example, it’s hard to transport ovens to other parts of the country because roads are so bone-jarring that the glass lids break. But the recent developments have been encouraging. About 1,100 ovens have been distributed since the program began, 500 of them in 2009. “This has made us want to go on for several more years,” Martin said. “It is going to take time for solar cooking to be really established.”

Source – http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20100101/NEWS01/1010314

Shell Foundation launches "Room to Breathe" campaign

January 11, 2010 · 0 comments

A campaign designed to tackle harmful kitchen smoke from people cooking in the developing world on open fires and traditional wood-burning stoves has been launched by the Shell Foundation.

New stoves at work

The ‘Room to Breathe’ campaign aims to save lives, improve livelihoods and reduce climate change emissions by tackling so-called Indoor Air Pollution (IAP).

 Every 20 seconds someone in the developing world dies from illnesses  linked to IAP.  With the World Health Organisation estimating that half the world’s population still cook using wood, dung and other biomass, there is also a growing link between IAP and climate change.

“Women should not be dying as a result of cooking meals for their families,” says Simon Bishop, Head of Policy and Communications at the Shell Foundation. “The problem is that when you go to an IAP-affected village in India and say ‘there is this thing called IAP’ it is like turning up in 1984 and saying ‘there is this thing called AIDS’.  People have almost no awareness about either the issue – or the potential solutions. That is why we need this campaign.”

Room to Breathe is part of the Foundation’s wider Breathing Space programme, which has been tackling IAP since 2002.  Its focus in on promoting ‘the’ internationally-recognised most effective way to tackle IAP – so-called ‘improved cook stoves’, ones that significantly reduce emissions and fuel use.

Click here to see pictures of the campaign in action in southern India:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/43737958@N02/

It was also featured recently on the flagship U.S. current affairs programme PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/july-dec09/india_12-17.html

Gas stoves show small effect on kids' lung function

January 7, 2010 · 0 comments

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – While some studies have implicated gas appliances in children’s risk of respiratory ills, a new report suggests that gas cooking stoves may have only a small effect on most children’s lung function.

Studies over the years have come to conflicting conclusions as to whether gas stoves affect children’s lung function. But some research has suggested that the appliances can worsen existing asthma, or possibly raise children’s risks of developing asthma, allergies or other respiratory ills.

Gas appliances, particularly when not properly ventilated, can release nitrogen dioxide into the home. Nitrogen dioxide is a pollutant produced by fuel-burning appliances that is known to irritate the airways and eyes.

In the new study, published in the European Respiratory Journal, researchers analyzed data on 24,000 children ages 6 to 12 from Canada, the U.S. and seven European countries. All had undergone standard lung function tests, and their parents had answered questions on various exposures, including their use of gas stoves.

Overall, the study found only small average differences in lung function between the 41 percent of children from homes with gas stoves and the 58 percent from homes with electric stoves.

On two measures of lung function — FEV1 and FVC, which gauge the volume of air a person can forcibly exhale — children in gas-cooking homes had a less than 1 percent reduction compared with their peers.

“Frankly, the effects were not very strong,” lead researcher Dr. Hanns Moshammer, of the Medical University of Vienna in Austria, told Reuters Health in an email.

In an earlier study of Austrian children, Moshammer and colleagues had linked more-significant effects to gas-stove exposure. According to Moshammer, those differences in lung function would not have been enough to cause breathing problems in children.

However, he noted, they raised the possibility that gas stoves were creating early damage in the small airways deep in the lungs of some children. “If this effect is a sign of an initiation of a remodeling process in the lung tissue,” Moshammer said, “it still requires further investigation.”

The current study, based on a much larger, international sample, failed to reproduce the findings from the Austrian study. It did find, however, that gas-stove exposure seemed to have somewhat stronger effects on lung function in children with allergies to airborne substances. But Moshammer pointed out that the finding was based on a fairly small number of children, so it is “not very certain.”

The bottom line, according to the researcher, is that “there is no reason to abandon gas stoves.”

He added, however, that parents should be sure to properly ventilate their kitchens, particularly if their children have allergies or asthma. Experts recommend that same precautionary measure with all fuel-burning appliances in the home.

European Respiratory Journal, online December 23, 2009.

source – http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6063WG20100107

WFP launches stove projects in Uganda and Sudan

January 7, 2010 · 2 comments

WFP gives Uganda, Sudan sh1.8b

Jan. 6, 2010

THE World Food Programme (WFP) has launched a stove project worth $1m (about sh1.8b)

The fuel-efficient and improved mud stoves, which use less firewood, are expected to reduce risks of rape and attacks on women in the Internally Displaced Persons’(IDP) camps in Uganda and Sudan.

“With severe shortage of firewood around these areas, people have to travel far collecting firewood, which exposes women and children to possible rape and abuse,” Miria Mutagamba, the water and environment minister, said.

“Women and girls should not risk their lives and dignity, precious trees should not be lost in a simple act of trying to cook food for their families.”

According to a press statement, 100,000 women in Darfur and pastoralists in the drought-hit Karamoja region will also benefit.

“The project will provide more than 35,000 households and 50 schools with fuel-efficient stoves, as well as help women to find other sources of income,” stated a WFP official.

Speaking at the launching ceremony organised by the Danish government and the World Food Programme at the Bella Centre in Copenhagen recently, Mutagamba said the initiative would also help to reduce over-exploitation of trees and reduce health risks associated with smoke.

Mutagamba pointed out that the initiative would promote the Government’s efforts of addressing environmental concerns in IDP camps where the environment is under severe degradation.

She added that these areas are densely populated and a lot of firewood is used, which has led to severe deforestation.

The initiative is expected to start this month.

Source – http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/17/706309

High-tech charcoal fights climate change

January 6, 2010 · 0 comments

Barbara Fraser, Environ. Sci. Technol., Article ASAP, DOI: 10.1021/es903696x

High-tech charcoal fights climate change, Publication Date (Web): December 23, 2009

Full-text: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es903696x

An updated version of a technique used by Amazonian Indians hundreds of years ago offers a way to store carbon for hundreds or thousands of years while producing nonfossil fuel—a double whammy for researchers seeking tools for fighting climate change.

Biochar—charcoal produced by heating organic material in the absence of oxygen (O2)—not only contains stable carbon (C), but may also help boost soil fertility.

China – An experimental study on the effect of fluorine capture of calcium based coal briquette

January 6, 2010 · 0 comments

Wei Sheng Yan Jiu. 2009 Nov;38(6):717-9.

An experimental study on the effect of fluorine capture of calcium based coal briquette

Yang J, Chen D, Jin X, Zhao B, Ying B, Wang S, Li S, Yang C. Institute for Environmental Health and Related Product Safety, China CDC, Beijing 100021, China. yangjiaolan@126.com 

OBJECTIVE: To study on the fluorine capture effect of calcium based coal briquette with fluorine capture additive in coal-burning fluorosis area.

METHODS: Add proper proportions of calcium based fluorine capture additive in high fluorine coal for making coal briquette were added, and were added the fluorine in coal cinder in order to reduce its emission. Meanwhile, to determine the composes of coal briquette were added, the percentage of fluorine in coal cinder and the concentration of fluoride, sulfur dioxide and PM10 were determinated, to evaluate the effect of fluorine capture and the level of door air pollution.

RESULT: After pilot-scale studying on the effect of fluorine capture in 30 households at coal-burning fluorosis area in Guiding of Guizhou Province. The average fluorine capture rate were 71.8%, and the average concentration of fluoride were 0.0052 mg/m3, which reduces by 27.8% in comparison with control group and were lower than environmental air quality standard (0.007 mg/m3); and the average concentration of SO2 were 0.67 mg/m3, which reduces 52.8% in comparison with control group and slightly higher than those of indoor air quality standard (0.5 mg/m3).

CONCLUSION: The application of the coal briquette made by calcium based fluorine capture additive could reduce the pollution caused by high fluorine coal, could improve the quality of indoor air.

Nepal – Cooking on toxic fumes

January 6, 2010 · 0 comments

Burning biomass causes TB

Nepal has a high incidence of tuberculosis. Nepal is also among the South Asian countries where a lot of biomass is burnt for fuel. The two facts provided a group with reasons to link indoor air pollution from fuels with tuberculosis—something that six studies have so far have tried to do, unsuccessfully.

Researchers from the school of public health at University of California at Berkeley in usa proved the link and also found something significant: kerosene, though not a biomass-based fuel, plays a bigger role in triggering the disease.

The researchers studied 125 women in the age group of 20-65 suffering from tuberculosis and getting treated in the Regional Tuberculosis Centre and Manipal Teaching Hospital, both located in the Pokhara municipality. Another 250 healthy women in the same age group were monitored as control. The women were questioned on history of use of cooking fuels and stoves, kitchen type and location, kitchen ventilation, burning of mosquito coils and incense.

The researchers also visited a small number of households to verify the answers for the study that lasted from July 2005 to April 2007.

Burning wood, cow dung and other such biomass to keep the house warm harms the lungs more than when the same is used for cooking. This could be because cooking on stoves takes a long time. The woman goes into the kitchen once in a while to check if the food’s done, thus reducing her exposure to smoke. Using biomass for heating results in more exposure as there is a deliberate attempt to minimize ventilation as the family sits around the fire. This was not considered earlier as most of the studies on biomass and tuberculosis have been carried out in warmer countries but in Nepal night-time and winter temperatures are low.

The team also found that women who had been exposed to the fumes of burning kerosene both in stoves and for lighting purposes were more prone to catching tuberculosis.

Kerosene is more of a risk than biomass as burning of biomass produces dense smoke that make the eyes smart; so people stay away and avoid inhaling the fumes. But sitting right next to a kerosene lamp or lantern causes far less discomfort while exposing one to fine particulate matter and other lung-damaging chemicals.

“We plan to do a much larger and more detailed study to validate this finding as it would have major implications for policy if confirmed. Poorly burned kerosene is a risk, but to what extent must yet be determined with certainty,” said Kirk R Smith, who led the study.

“For the moment, I think the main policy implication is that along with kerosene fuel subsidies, there should be programmes to promote cleaner burning lamps and stoves,” added Smith. Identification of the risk factors that lead to tuberculosis is essential to reduce the disease burden in Nepal and other developing countries.

Source – http://www.downtoearth.org.in/full6.asp?foldername=20100115&filename=sci&sec_id=12&sid=2

Many Czech households use hazardous waste for heating

January 5, 2010 · 0 comments

Prague – Many households in Czech rural areas use hazardous waste for heating thus creating poisonous gases that threaten their neighbours but the Environmental Inspection (CIZP) is helpless to stop it, the daily Pravo writes today.

Thousands of Czechs burn PET bottles, old shoes and other waste in their stoves to heat their houses. They poison the air, especially in rural areas, but they face practically no punishment, the paper says.

The CIZP has no legal means to punish people for burning hazardous waste in their household heating appliances.

On the contrary, the inspection faces no difficulties in carrying out controls of small industrial boilers, Pravo writes.

“Every year we receive requests from many citizens to fine their neighbours for burning hazardous waste in their stoves and thus polluting the environment with burnt gases and smell,” Oldrich Janeba, from the CIZP, told the paper.

“The complainers point out that their neighbours put their health and property in danger. However, the Inspection has no legal tools to control whether people who have solid-fuel boilers installed in their houses burn hazardous waste in them,” Janeba says.

Under the law on atmosphere protection, each operator of a stove, a fireplace or a coal-fuelled boiler is obliged to ensure CIZP inspectors access to the heating appliances.

However, this does not apply to the operators of heating appliances in private houses and private summer cottages.

The Inspection can only urge them to observe the set limits for the thickness of burnt gases and smell, but it has no tools to force them into changing their behaviour, Pravo writes.

Citizens who suffer from such ruthless behaviour of their neighbours have no other choice but to file a complaint with the local authorities. However, even the authorities have no right to violate the principle of the untouchability of private property, the paper says.

An amendment to the law on atmosphere protection that has been drafted by the Environment Ministry and was approved by the government last November, would, if passed by the Chamber of Deputies, allow regular controls of domestic boilers, Janeba said.

If the boiler owner denied a CIZEP inspector entry to his house he would have to produce a document on the state of the boiler.

If he failed to do so he would be fined on the spot a sum equal to the fine imposed for the operation of the appliance that does not meet the set criteria, Janeba said.

Source – http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/news/zpravy/many-czech-households-use-hazardous-waste-for-heating-press/416131

Indoor air pollution, cookstove quality, and housing characteristics in two Honduran communities

January 4, 2010 · 0 comments

Environ Res. 2010 Jan; 110(1):12-8.

Indoor air pollution, cookstove quality, and housing characteristics in two Honduran communities.

Clark ML, Reynolds SJ, Burch JB, Conway S, Bachand AM, Peel JL. Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences, Colorado State University, Campus Delivery 1681, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1681, USA.  maggie.clark@colostate.edu

Elevated indoor air pollution exposures associated with the burning of biomass fuels in developing countries are well established. Improved cookstoves have the potential to substantially reduce these exposures. However, few studies have quantitatively evaluated exposure reductions associated with the introduction of improved stoves, likely due to the cost and time-intensive nature of such evaluations. Several studies have demonstrated the value of estimating indoor air pollution exposures by evaluating personal cooking practices and household parameters in addition to stove type. We assessed carbon monoxide (n=54) and fine particulate matter (PM(2.5)) (n=58) levels among non-smoking Honduran women cooking with traditional or improved wood-burning cookstoves in two communities, one semi-urban and one rural. Exposure concentrations were assessed via 8-h indoor monitoring, as well as 8-h personal PM(2.5) monitoring. Housing characteristics were determined to indicate ventilation that may affect carbon monoxide and PM(2.5). Stove quality was assessed using a four-level subjective scale representing the potential for indoor emissions, ranging from poorly functioning traditional stoves to well-functioning improved stoves. Univariately, the stove scale as compared to stove type (traditional versus improved) accounted for a higher percent of the variation in pollutant concentrations; for example, the stove scale predicted 79% of the variation and the stove type predicted 54% of the variation in indoor carbon monoxide concentrations. In multivariable models, the stove scale, age of the stove, and ventilation factors predicted more than 50% of the variation in personal and indoor PM(2.5) and 85% of the variation in indoor carbon monoxide. Results indicate that using type of stove alone as a proxy for exposure may lead to exposure misclassification and potentially biased exposure and health effects relationships. Utilizing stove quality and housing characteristics that influence ventilation may provide a viable alternative to the more time- and cost-intensive pollutant assessments for larger-scale studies. Designing kitchens with proper ventilation structures could lead to improved indoor environments, especially important in areas where biomass will continue to be the preferred and necessary cooking fuel for some time.

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →