Effect of indoor air pollution from biomass fuel use on buccal epithelial cells

January 4, 2010 · 0 comments

J Environ Pathol Toxicol Oncol. 2009; 28(3):253-9.

Effect of indoor air pollution from biomass fuel use on argyrophilic nuclear organizer regions in buccal epithelial cells.

Mondal NK, Dutta A, Banerjee A, Chakraborty S, Lahiri T, Ray MR. Department of Experimental Hematology, Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, 37, S. P. Mukherjee Road, Kolkata 700 026, India.

This study investigated the effect of indoor air pollution from biomass-fuel use on the expression of argyrophilic nucleolar organizer regions (AgNORs), an indicator of ribosome biosynthesis, in epithelial cells of oral mucosa.  AgNORs were evaluated using cytochemical staining in 62 nonsmoking indian women (median age, 34 years), who cooked exclusively with biomass, and 55 age-matched women, who were from a similar neighborhood and cooked with relatively clean liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).  Concentrations of particulate pollutants in indoor air were measured using a real-time aerosol monitor.  Compared to the LPG-using controls, biomass-fuel users showed a remarkably increased number of AgNOR dots per nucleus (6.08 +/-2.26 vs 3.16 +/-0.86, p < 0.001), AgNOR size (0.85 +/-0.19 vs 0.53 +/-0.15 mum2, p < 0.001), and percentage of AgNOR-occupied nuclear area (4.88 +/-1.49 vs 1.75 +/-0.13%, p < 0.001). Biomass-using households had 2 to 4 times more particulate pollutants than that of LPG-using households. The changes in AgNOR expression were positively associated with PM10 and PM2.5 levels in indoor air after controlling for potential confounders such as age, kitchen location, and family income. Thus, biomass smoke appears to be a risk factor for abnormal cell growth via upregulation of ribosome biogenesis.

Residential exposures to PM2.5 and CO in Cusco, Peru

January 4, 2010 · 0 comments

Arch Environ Occup Health. 2009 Winter;64(4):278-82.

Residential exposures to PM2.5 and CO in Cusco, a high-altitude city in the Peruvian Andes: a pilot study.

Pearce JL, Aguilar-Villalobos M, Rathbun SL, Naeher LP. University of Georgia, College of Public Health, Athens, Georgia 30602-2102, USA.

High-altitude populations using biofuels for household energy may be at health risk due to a combination of altitudinal stress and indoor exposures to biomass smoke.  In this article, the authors measure indoor and outdoor breathing level concentrations of PM(2.5) and CO during periods of meal preparation in a convenience sample of homes above 3000 m in Cusco, Peru.  From July 10 to 21, 2005, 237 measurements were taken during a pilot study at 41 residences. Results show the highest levels of PM(2.5) and CO occurred during the early morning in the kitchen when dung and wood were used.  Additionally, findings suggest that residential biomass fuel combustion in Cusco results in elevated indoor PM(2.5) and CO exposure levels that are of potential human health concern, an issue that may be exacerbated by the physiological impact of living in a high-altitude environment.

Pakistan – Characteristics of indoor/outdoor particulate pollution

January 4, 2010 · 0 comments

Indoor Air. 2009 Sep 11.

Characteristics of indoor/outdoor particulate pollution in urban and rural residential environment of Pakistan.

Colbeck I, Nasir ZA, Ali Z.

Department of Biological Sciences, Wivenhoe Park, University of Essex, Colchester, United Kingdom.

Particulate pollution has emerged as a serious environmental health concern in Pakistan. The use of biomass fuels in traditional stoves produces high levels of indoor air pollutants. In Pakistan, 94% of rural and 58% of urban households depend on biomass fuel. This study investigates variations in indoor/outdoor concentrations of particulate matter during various activities for three different micro-environments in Pakistan. At a rural site, the average indoor/outdoor ratios for PM(10), PM(2.5), and PM(1), in kitchens using biomass fuels were 3.80, 4.36, and 4.11, respectively.

A large variation was recorded in the mass concentration of particulate matter during cooking with concentrations in the range 4000-8555 mug/m(3). In a living room at a rural site, the average indoor/outdoor ratios for PM(10), PM(2.5), and PM(1) were 1.74, 2.49, and 3.01, respectively. At the urban site, the average indoor/outdoor ratios for the same size fractions were 1.71, 2.88, and 3.47, respectively. Cooking, cleaning and smoking were identified as principal contributors to the high indoor levels of particulate matter. This study showed considerably high concentrations of
particulate matter, particularly in kitchens using biomass fuels, as compared to living areas. Thus women and children face the greatest exposure due to the amount of time they spend in the kitchen.

Practical Implications – In the developing world, particulate air pollution, both indoor and outdoor, is a substantial health hazard to the public. The very high concentrations of particulate matter in both rural and urban sites, particularly in kitchens using biomass fuels emphasize the severity of this issue in Pakistan. Women and children are extensively at risk due to amount of time spent in kitchens. This state of affairs calls for a large-scale intervention to reduce the exposure to indoor air pollution.

India – Particles emitted from indoor combustion sources

January 4, 2010 · 0 comments

Inhal Toxicol. 2009 Aug; 21(10):837-48.

Particles emitted from indoor combustion sources:  size distribution measurement and chemical analysis.

Roy AA, Baxla SP, Gupta T, Bandyopadhyaya R, Tripathi SN. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India.

This study is primarily focused toward measuring the particle size distribution and chemical analysis of particulate matter that originates from combustion sources typically found in Indian urban homes.  Four such sources were selected: cigarette, incense stick, mosquito coil, and dhoop, the latter being actually a thick form of incense stick. Altogether, seven of the most popular brands available in the Indian market were tested.  Particle size distribution in the smoke was measured using a scanning mobility particle sizer, using both long and nano forms of differential mobility analyzer (DMA), with readings averaged from four to six runs. The measurable particle size range of the nano DMA was 4.6 nm to 157.8 nm, whereas that of the long DMA was 15.7 nm to 637.8 nm. Therefore, readings obtained from the long and the nano DMA were compared for different brands as well as for different sources. An overlap was seen in the readings in the common range of measurement. The lowest value of peak concentration was seen for one brand of incense stick (0.9 x 10(6) cm(-3)), whereas the highest (7.1 x 10(6) cm(-3)) was seen for the dhoop. Generally, these sources showed a peak between 140 and 170 nm; however, 2 incense stick brands showed peaks at 79 nm and 89 nm. The dhoop showed results much different from the rest of the sources, with a mode at around 240 nm. Chemical analysis in terms of three heavy metals (cadmium, zinc, and lead) was performed using graphite tube atomizer and
flame-atomic absorption spectrophotometer.  Calculations were made to assess the expected cancer and noncancer risks, using published toxicity potentials for these three heavy metals. Our calculations revealed that all the sources showed lead concentrations much below the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) threshold limit value (TLV) level.  One of the two mosquito coil brands (M(2)) showed cadmium concentrations two times higher than the California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal EPA) reference exposure level (REL). The latter also showed the highest carcinogenic risks of 350 people per million population. The amount of zinc obtained from the sources, however,  was found to be quite below the standard limits, implying no risk in terms of zinc.

Tanzania – Addressing Energy Crisis Through Alternatives and Efficiency at Household Level

January 4, 2010 · 0 comments

DAR ES SALAAM, Jan 2 (IPS) – Tanzania’s electricity grid is fed by a mixture of natural gas, diesel and hydropower; however, over the past few years the country has experienced severe blackouts and power rationing in urban areas due to drought and subsequent low-water levels.

After seeing springs and rivers in his native Kilimanjaro region dry up, Estomih Sawe wanted to provide energy alternatives for Tanzanians.

“Only 10 percent of people in this country have access to electricity. People like us, we are lucky!” said Sawe, sitting in his air-conditioned office in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s capital.

“In rural areas, where more than 80 percent of people live, only two percent have access to electricity. So you can imagine the major task we have ahead.”

Tanzania burns one million tonnes of charcoal each year; which amounts to clearing more than 300 hectares of forest every day to produce charcoal.

“Unfortunately the rate of cutting trees and replacing them is not proportionate,” said Sawe. “If you do the math, 300 hectares per day x 365 days equals…” 109,500 hectares per year.

“We are only able to plant 25,000 hectares annually, so it is indeed a very serious problem for our environment.”

Sawe initiated TaTEDO – the Tanzania Traditional Energy and Development and Environment Organisation – in 1999, to put into practice knowledge he gained from working as the head of the renewable energy sector for the country’s energy ministry.

“One of the major problems is really the use of solid biofuels,” said Sawe, “which includes the use of firewood and charcoal, of which the technology and use is very inefficient.”

The stoves most commonly used in Tanzania – three-stone fireplaces for wood and metal stoves that burn charcoal – waste more than 85 percent of the energy potential of their fuel.

“The number of people who are dying, particularly women and children, from inhaling the smoke is increasing,” Sawe adds. “The World Health Organisation says that more than 75 people are dying daily here in Tanzania from inhaling smoke while with these inefficient technologies.”

But making changes is complicated by overlapping factors including gender and poverty, according to the Household Energy Network (HEDON).

The gendered division of labour usually means that women are responsible for most domestic tasks; women and children are worst affected by the health impacts of smoke inhalation for example.

But women’s influence on decision-making in the household is limited by their economic dependency on men. According to the UN-HABITAT, where women are economically empowered, they are more likely to adopt better technologies to change damaging energy practices and improve the living conditions of their families.

In the rural village of Igunhwa in the Mwanza region of northern Tanzania, several women’s groups have been formed to take advantage of micro-finance schemes and construct more efficient mud stoves designed by TaTEDO.

“Before we were introduced to the mud stoves we were using traditional three-stone fire places for cooking,” said Florence Ngembwe* of the Upendo women’s group. “The problems with using the three-stone fireplaces were that we would use a lot of firewood for cooking, and it is only the women and girls who are collecting the wood.

“There was also a lot of impacts on women’s health, due to smoke while cooking inside. We would waste a lot of time fetching wood instead of doing other productive activities, and often girls would be doing this work too, so they weren’t going to school.”

Many of the women involved in the project said that the construction of improved stoves has helped them significantly. They now have a reduced workload, less firewood collection and the new stoves have chimneys, which means much less smoke inside their kitchens.

According to Sawe, more than 80 percent of urban residents use charcoal for cooking. TaTEDO claims that in Dar es Salaam, around 60 percent of households have been helped to switch to improved charcoal stoves which lower both costs and the burden on the environment through greater efficiency.

“It is quite a challenging undertaking,” said Sawe. “Firstly you are dealing with people with limited means, limited incomes. Here we are talking about technologies where the initial costs are high, which means the progress for up-taking the technologies is limited because people are poor.

Some of the other areas in which TaTEDO work include; making alternative fuels for stoves out of the waste material from tree-felling, and from other agricultural residues. “You don’t have to cut a tree to make charcoal,” said Sawe. They have been using rice husks and coconut shells, as well as sawdust to create fuel briquettes.

Through the introduction of the new stoves, TaTEDO claims to save more than 4,500 ha of trees in the areas they work in. But despite dawning realisation of the real effects of climate change – 2009 was the driest year on record – the switch to more sustainable technologies is slow.

“Of course there are cultural problems; if you are dealing with people who have been using three-stone fireplaces for many years it will take quite an effort to change into a new technology even if it a very good one.”

Source – IPS News

Bio-Char Factory Opens in Cambodia

January 4, 2010 · 1 comment

January 4, 2010I

Cambodia opened its first biomass “charbriquette” factory in Phnom Penh last month, an enterprise that will produce fuel for stoves from waste biomass material.

The factory, a venture backed by Geres and For a Child’s Smile, two French organizations active in Cambodia’s development community, aims to reduce demand for wood and charcoal that 80 percent of Cambodians use every day to cook and boil water.

“Climate change and global warming are serious issues these days,” said Yohanes Iwan Baskoro, Cambodia country director for Geres. The factory, Mr. Baskoro said, “will save about 1,600 tons of greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere” every year.

The number of households projected to use charcoal as an energy source here will rise to more than one million in 2015 from about 500,000 now, according to a 2008 study conducted jointly by Cambodia’s Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy, the United Nations Development Program and Geres.

The projected increase has raised concerns among environmentalists, who say that charcoal production entails the removal of vast quantities of woodland, often in naturally growing forests.

According to Geres, Phnom Penh consumes 90,000 tons of charcoal every year, a market believed to be worth about $25 million.

At the new factory, called the Sustainable Green Fuel Enterprise, waste biomass like coconut husks and shells will be burned for an hour in brick kilns, or until the material is carbonized. The heat from the burning process is then recaptured in a funnel and used to dry the waste biomass so that the burning process becomes more energy efficient.

The end-product, known as char, is crushed and mixed with water and cassava residue to form individual briquettes of fuel.

Mr Baskoro said that the biomass used to make the briquettes would otherwise decompose on the capital’s streets, releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in the form of methane and carbon dioxide.

Moreover, there will be less dependence on producing charcoal from wood, most of which comes from naturally growing forests.

The briquettes, Mr. Baskoro said, “will preserve Cambodia’s natural forests by having a cleaner and safer alternative to wood and charcoal. He added that the briquettes produce less smoke and pose less of a threat to human health and the environment.

And while the briquettes will cost nearly three times that of charcoal sold on the streets of Phnom Penh, they will burn for nearly twice as long, according to Ly Mathheat, the executive director of the Sustainable Green Fuel Enterprise.

Source – New York Times

U.S. Unveils a $350-Million Energy-Efficiency Initiative at Copenhagen

December 17, 2009 · 1 comment

December 15, 2009 – Solar lanterns and more efficient appliances are part of a new U.S.-led effort to deploy clean energy across the globe to combat climate change and other ills

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu at the United Nations climate summit would focus on bringing everything from efficient refrigerators to solar lanterns to the developing world.

COPENHAGEN—Since the 1970s, refrigerators in the U.S. have swelled from 18 cubic feet to 22 cubic feet. But, at the same time, the energy consumption of such gargantuan coolers has dropped by 75 percent, down to roughly 40 watts, saving countless tons of coal from being burned. And a five-year global program that reached all the refrigerators in the world with similar efficiency improvements might save 1.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide over that span, a significant contribution to combating climate change.

And that’s exactly what U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) Secretary Steven Chu unveiled here Monday at the United Nations’ summit on climate change: the Climate Renewables and Efficiency Deployment Initiative (Climate REDI)—a $350-million investment by major economies, including $85 million from the U.S., to bring everything from efficient refrigerators to solar lanterns to the developing world.

“The energy savings from refrigerators is greater than all U.S. renewable energy generation—all the wind, solar thermal and solar photovoltaics—just the refrigerators,” Chu said in a speech announcing the initiative, noting the refrigerators also cost less. “Energy efficiency is truly a case where you can have your cake and eat it too. [But] it was driven by standards; it didn’t happen on its own.”

In addition to coordinating global standards for efficient appliances, Climate REDI will also invest in further developing renewable energy sources—such as wind and solar power—in the developing world. The initiative will fund the deployment of “affordable home systems and LED lanterns to those without access to electricity,” according to a program fact sheet.

“We want to help turn the lights on where people live but also in a way that helps solve climate change,” Chu said, referring to the at least 1 billion people who lack access to electricity globally.

Jairam Ramesh, India’s minister of the environment, welcomed the effort and called for his country to be one of the recipients. But he also noted that “Indian companies have been pioneers in low-cost pharmaceuticals now being widely used in Africa. I see no reason why Indian companies in the next five or six years with the help of American counterparts cannot emerge as world leaders in renewable energy technology.”

The Climate REDI program is an example of the kind of technology transfer developing countries would like more of from the developed world as part of any Copenhagen agreement, along with a specific amount of funding for such measures.

Of course, the bulk of indoor air pollution is produced by cooking fires and there was no program announced here as of late Monday to address that issue. And the LED solar lanterns have a wide range of performance in terms of light actually emitted. “Quality control is not that good,” Chu admitted, but the program will work to address that as well as reducing the cost of the lanterns.

The major economies are also working on their own projects, such as a carbon capture and storage partnership between the U.K., U.S. and Australia. The goal there is to “broaden the range of uses [of the sequestered CO2] so the cost of capturing CO2 is minimized,” Australia’s Department of Climate Change Secretary Martin Parkinson says.

And Chu spoke of some of the “game-changing” technologies the DoE, which he called the “world’s largest [venture capital] firm for clean energy,” hopes will come to fruition in coming years, such as a liquid-metal battery that could be both relatively inexpensive and store megawatts of electricity. “Science and technology has given us game-changers in the past,” Chu noted, pointing particularly to the Green Revolution in agriculture led by Norman Borlaug that helped feed billions in the 1970s. “The prosperity of the U.S. is actually depending on how much we fund this research. We are serious about changing our direction.”

Source – Scientific American

Tropical Forests Affected by Habitat Fragmentation Store Less Biomass and Carbon Dioxide

December 17, 2009 · 0 comments

 ScienceDaily (Dec. 10, 2009) — Deforestation in tropical rain forests could have an even greater impact on climate change than has previously been thought. The combined biomass of a large number of small forest fragments left over after habitat fragmentation can be up to 40 per cent less than in a continuous natural forest of the same overall size.

This is the conclusion reached by German and Brazilian researchers who used a simulation model on data from the Atlantic Forest, a coastal rain forest in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, around 88 per cent of which has already been cleared. The remaining forest fragments are smaller, so the ratio between area and edge is less favourable. The reason for the reduction in biomass is the higher mortality rate of trees at the edges of forest fragments, according to the results published by researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research and the University of São Paulo in Ecological Modelling. This reduces the number of big old trees, which contain a disproportionately high amount of biomass. Altered wind conditions and light climate lead to a general change in the microclimate at the forest edges. Big old trees are particularly vulnerable to these factors. With the help of FORMIND, a forest simulation software developed at the UFZ, the researchers modelled different sizes of forest patches left over after landscape fragmentation. The smaller a patch of forest is, the worse is the ratio between edge and area. Simulation results suggest that a natural tropical forest of our study area contained approximately 250 tonnes of aboveground biomass per hectare, a forest fragment measuring 100 hectares has around 228 tonnes of biomass per hectare, while a patch of rain forest measuring one hectare has only 140 tonnes of biomass per hectare.

In other words, the biomass in the forest remnants in this study fell by as much as 40 per cent. “This finding is of great significance for the function of rain forests as a biomass store. It is important to be clear about the fact that we are losing more than just the deforested areas. Even the remaining forest is thinned out as a result. It is a mistake to think only in terms of total area. We have to start thinking in terms of the spatial configuration of the remaining forest fragments as well,” says Dr Jürgen Groeneveld of the UFZ, explaining the significance of the study for climate policy. As well as the biomass yield per hectare, these fragmentation-related spatial (edge) effects also have impacts on climate balance and biodiversity, i.e. on several dimensions of sustainability. The simulation integrated results from other researchers who are conducting unique long-term experiments on fragmentation in Amazonas. However, a large number of questions remain unanswered: Are the edges stable? Can the forest regenerate or does the degradation continue inwards? The researchers therefore view the figures as a preliminary, cautious estimate. “But if it is confirmed, it is a really fundamental finding,” adds Dr Sandro Pütz of the UFZ. “Forest fragments cannot perform in the same way as continuous forests.”

The researchers therefore intend to investigate the long-term effects over the coming years to find out how the rain forest remnants develop in the long term. The results of this study will also have fundamental consequences for forest conservation, at least in terms of the carbon balance: “In any case, in terms of carbon storage, it is better to protect 100 continuous hectares than to protect 100 one-hectare patches,” says Jürgen Groeneveld. The data used in the model come from the tropical coastal rain forest in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The Atlantic Forest was severely deforested in the second half of the 19th century for construction timber, charcoal and grazing and arable land. Although only around an eighth of the original forest area remains, these remnants are still regarded as international biodiversity hot spots, since they are home to an as yet not fully recorded, but impressive number of endangered animal and plant species that are not found anywhere else. Since 2003, Brazilian and German researchers have therefore been investigating the long-term effects of landscape fragmentation on habitats in the Atlantic Forest, which used to stretch along the whole of Brazil’s east coast and is today one of the most endangered rain forests in the world. The new findings from the ecological modelling experts led by Andreas Huth and Klaus Henle are also relevant for negotiations at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen. Under the heading REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), the conference will be discussing a mechanism for including the forests in climate protection. Forests bind carbon dioxide. Deforestation or degradation of forests leads to a further release or less fixing of carbon dioxide per unit area, thereby increasing the greenhouse effect. Around 20 per cent of total global CO2 emissions comes from the destruction of forests.

Source – Science Daily

The Perfect Stove – New Yorker Blog Post

December 17, 2009 · 1 comment

Indoor solid fuel combustion and tuberculosis

December 17, 2009 · 0 comments

Int J Tuberc Lung Dis. 2010 Jan; 14(1):6-14.

Indoor solid fuel combustion and tuberculosis: is there an association?

Slama K, Chiang CY, Hinderaker SG, Bruce N, Vedal S, Enarson DA. International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, Paris, France.

OBJECTIVES:  To assess the strength of evidence in published articles for an association between indoor solid fuel combustion and tuberculosis.

METHODS:  PubMed, a private database and Google Scholar were searched up to May 2008, as was the Cochrane Library (2008, issue 4), to identify articles on the association between indoor air pollution and tuberculous infection, tuberculosis disease and tuberculosis mortality. Each article initially chosen as acceptable for inclusion was reviewed for data extraction by three different reviewers using a standard format. Strength of evidence was determined by pre-determined criteria.

RESULTS: The full texts of 994 articles were examined for a final selection of 10 possible articles, of which six met the inclusion criteria. All articles investigated the association between exposure to solid fuel (coal and biomass) smoke and tuberculosis disease. Three (50%) of the six studies included in the systematic review showed a significant effect of exposure to solid fuel combustion and tuberculosis disease-one high-quality case-control study and two cross-sectional studies.

CONCLUSION:  Despite the plausibility of an association, available original studies looking at this issue do not provide sufficient evidence of an excess risk of tuberculosis due to exposure to indoor coal or biomass combustion. Because the number of studies identified was small, new studies are needed before more definitive conclusions can be reached.

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