The Stoves Are Also Stacked: Evaluating the Energy Ladder, Cookstove Swap-Out Programs, and Social Adoption Preferences

September 17, 2012 · 0 comments

Jnl Environ Investing, 3(1)2012

The Stoves Are Also Stacked: Evaluating the Energy Ladder, Cookstove Swap-Out Programs, and Social Adoption Preferences in the Cookstove Literature

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Jessica Gordon, Jasmine Hyman

The distribution of fuel-efficient cookstoves, whether via aid, subsidies, carbon finance, or public programs, has undergone an international renaissance since the establishment of the “Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves” (GACC) in September 2010, a high profile private-public partnership including the United Nations, the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency, and the Shell Foundation. The dominant discourse within the GACC mission and project strategy is the conviction that cookstoves can attract sufficient carbon finance to completely offset project costs, resulting in highly leveraged returns on donor contributions.

Much of the literature has focused on the many positive contributions of cookstove technology including improving public health, decreasing the burden on women, and reducing deforestation. Ample policy publications present recommendations for practitioners regarding cookstove design and project development, though these publications often underreport project failure.

Cookstove technology is not a new intervention but with the entrance of innovative financing streams, it is essential to contextualize its past performance within the academic and policy literature. This survey of existing knowledge synthesizes current understanding of fuel-efficient cookstove interventions while also revealing literature gaps and potentially fruitful lines of inquiry for future scholarship

Charcoal, livelihoods, and poverty reduction: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

September 17, 2012 · 1 comment

Energy for Sustainable Development, 1 September 2012

Charcoal, livelihoods, and poverty reduction: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

Leo C. Zulu, , Robert B. Richardson. Michigan State University, USA

More than 80% of urban households in sub-Saharan Africa use charcoal as their main source of cooking energy, and the demand is likely to increase for several decades. Charcoal is also a major source of income for rural households in areas with access to urban markets. We review studies of the socioeconomic implications of charcoal production and use, focusing holistically on the role of charcoal in poverty alleviation based on four dimensions of poverty defined by the World Bank: (i) material deprivation, (ii) poor health and education, (iii) vulnerability and exposure to risk, and (iv) voicelessness and powerlessness.

We draw conclusions from household-level studies to better understand the determinants of participation in charcoal production and sale, and of urban household demand. Poorer households are more likely to participate in the production and sale of charcoal but their participation is mainly a safety net to supplement other income. Although charcoal production contributes to poverty reduction through alternative income-generation opportunities, it can also undermine production of ecosystem services, agricultural production, and human health.

Reducing rural household dependence on charcoal requires coordinated policies providing alternative income opportunities for farmers, affordable alternative energy sources for urban households, and more efficient and sustainable approaches for producing and using charcoal. For future research, we emphasize the importance of large-N panel datasets to better understand the net benefits of charcoal production as a poverty-reduction strategy.

Making institutional cookstoves an affordable option for Kenyan schools

September 12, 2012 · 0 comments

Making institutional cookstoves an affordable option for Kenyan schools | Source: by Rehema Kahurananga, GVEP International,  (Includes video) 10 Sep 2012.

While many schools would like the opportunity to use improved institutional cookstoves, paying the initial cost can be prohibitive. GVEP is working on changing the situation in Kenya

The premise behind Kartech Agencies Limited is threefold: to ease the financial burden on Kenyan pockets, help preserve the environment and operate a successful business. “If a customer can be able to save at least half of their fuel budget, then that’s good business.” This is the opinion of Boniface Kario, Kartech’s founder and proprietor. 

Since beginning this venture 11 years ago, Boniface has experienced a range of peaks and challenges operating as an individual player in the improved stoves market. However, the fact that this entrepreneur – a mechanical engineer by profession – has managed to stay in business this long indicates that his team are doing some things right. Boniface also attributes his connection with GVEP International as a valuable benefit to running his enterprise, particularly in being able to tap into additional institutional clients made possible through GVEP’s Loan Guarantee Fund.

Boniface, a 1995 graduate from the University of Nairobi, opted to start Kartech Agencies after gaining practical experience in a welding and metal works company. With personal savings of Ksh60, 000 (US$~750) he began his business with just one employee. Kartech now employs a staff of 17, including an accountant, a marketing manager and skilled labourers and produces cookstoves for institutional and domestic use. The enterprise is based in Umoja, a busy location in the outskirts of Nairobi common to many metal-works businesses. Boniface believes it is their commitment to quality that has kept them operational through the years. “We employ specialised artisans,” he explains. “If a part of the process has not been done right, it gets redone. We also offer a five-year warranty on our cookers.” They also offer periodic maintenance as a follow-up service and to ensure clients are satisfied.

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USAID Cookstoves Website

September 12, 2012 · 0 comments

Worldwide, an estimated 2.4 billion people depend on biomass fuels (wood, dung, crop residues) to meet their cooking needs and heat their homes, including approximately three-quarters of the households in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The use of these solid fuels in open fires and rudimentary stoves is not only inefficient, but can also result in high levels of indoor air pollution; negative local and global environmental impacts, including global warming; and loss of productive opportunities for women and girls – who usually bear the burden of collecting the fuel.

Mariam Hammed cooking in her home in El Fasher, North Darfur. Switching from an open fire to a stove means Mariam and her baby will inhale less smoke. Potential Energy

USAID is working to reduce the adverse effects of household energy use by encouraging families to switch to cleaner, more efficient fuels and technologies. Our programs support the adoption of affordable stoves that require less fuel to meet household energy needs and release fewer pollutants. These stoves can help us accomplish many international development objectives, such as

  • improving health;
  • reducing environmental degradation;
  • mitigating climate change;
  • fostering economic growth and;
  • empowering women

Our overarching goal is to develop evidence-based practical approaches to scaling-up and sustaining these interventions.

USAID is a founding partner of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, and is working closely with the Alliance and other U.S. Government partners to collectively disseminate 100 million clean cookstoves by 2020. Our commitments to the Alliance are concentrated in three primary areas:

  • Developing and documenting methods of commercializing the clean cookstove sector via projects that strengthen private-sector cookstove enterprises and/or increase enterprise and consumer access to finance;
  • Extending the distribution of clean cookstoves to reach displaced populations in conflict or disaster settings; and
  • Increasing understanding of consumer needs and preferences, in order to help the global community bolster adoption of clean cookstoves and reduce exposure to indoor air pollution.
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Analysis of the life-cycle costs and environmental impacts of cooking fuels used in Ghana

September 6, 2012 · 1 comment

Applied Energy, Volume 98, October 2012, Pages 301–306

Analysis of the life-cycle costs and environmental impacts of cooking fuels used in Ghana

George Afranea, , , Augustine Ntiamoahb
a University of Ghana, Department of Food Process Engineering, Legon, Accra, Ghana
b Koforidua Polytechnic, Department of Energy Systems Engineering, Koforidua, Ghana

This study evaluated the life-cycle costs and environmental impacts of fuels used in Ghanaian households for cooking. The analysis covered all the common cooking energy sources, namely, firewood, charcoal, kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas, electricity and even biogas, whose use is not as widespread as the others. In addition to the usual costing methods, the Environmental Product Strategies approach (EPS) of Steen and co-workers, which is based on the concept of ‘willingness-to-pay’ for the restoration of degraded systems, is used to monetise the emissions from the cookstoves.

The results indicate that firewood, one of the popular woodfuels in Ghana and other developing countries, with an annual environmental damage cost of US$36,497 per household, is more than one order of magnitude less desirable than charcoal, the nearest fuel on the same scale, at US$3120. This method of representing the results of environmental analysis is complementary to the usual gravimetric life-cycle assessment (LCA) representation, and brings home clearly to decision-makers, especially non-LCA practitioners, the significance of environmental analysis results in terms that are familiar to all.

A rapid assessment randomized-controlled trial of improved cookstoves in rural Ghana

September 6, 2012 · 0 comments

Energy for Sustainable Development, Volume 16, Issue 3, September 2012, Pages 328–338

A rapid assessment randomized-controlled trial of improved cookstoves in rural Ghana

Jason Burwena, 1, , David I. Levineb, ,
a Energy and Resources Group, 310 Barrows Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3050, USA
b Haas School of Business, 545 Student Services #1900, University of California, Berkeley, CA 97420-1900, USA

We conducted a rapid assessment randomized-controlled trial to quantify changes in fuel use, exposure to smoke, and self-reported health attributable to deployment of an improved wood cookstove in the Upper West region of Ghana. Women trainers from neighboring villages taught participants to build an improved cookstove and demonstrated optimal cooking techniques on such stoves. Participants were then randomly assigned to construct improved stoves at their homes immediately (treatments) or in a few months (controls). Several weeks after the treatments built their new stoves, all participants engaged in a cooking test while wearing a carbon monoxide monitor. At that time we surveyed participants on cooking activity, fuel wood gathering, self-reported health, and socioeconomic status. At a subset of homes we also installed stove usage monitors on the improved and traditional stove for the following three weeks.

During the cooking tests, treatments used 5% less fuel wood than controls, but the difference was not statistically significant. There were no detectable reductions in a households’ weekly time gathering wood or in exposure to carbon monoxide. In contrast, there was a sharp decline in participants’ self-reported symptoms associated with cooking, such as burning eyes, and in respiratory symptoms, such as chest pain and a runny nose. Stove usage monitors show that treatments used their new stove on about half of the days monitored and reduced use of their old stoves by about 25%. When we returned to three of the villages eight months after project implementation, about half the improved stoves showed evidence of recent usage.

Overall the new stoves were not successful, but the evaluation was. Our methods offer a rigorous modest-cost method for evaluating user uptake, field-based stove performance, and exposure to smoke.

Influence of testing parameters on biomass stove performance and development of an improved testing protocol

September 6, 2012 · 1 comment

Energy for Sustainable Development, Volume 16, Issue 1, March 2012, Pages 3–12

Influence of testing parameters on biomass stove performance and development of an improved testing protocol

C. L’Orange, , M. DeFoort, B. Willson, Mechanical Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO, USA

Biomass fuels are used by nearly half the world’s population on a daily basis for cooking. While these stoves often look simple in appearance they are notoriously difficult to test. By their very nature biomass stoves are typically fairly uncontrolled devices which often exhibit a large amount of variability in their performance. In order to characterize a stove and understand the processes which are occurring inside, and through this begin to design better stoves, this variability and uncertainty needs to be reduced as much as possible.

A parametric study was conducted to better understand what factors lead to variability and uncertainty in cookstove test results and should be controlled in order to obtain repeatable results. Using the Water Boiling Test as a starting point, it was found that significant reductions in test variability could be achieved through minimizing the amount of water vaporization which occurs during the test. Uncertainty was further reduced by using fuels with consistent moisture contents. Based on these findings a new testing methodology, the Emissions and Performance Test Protocol, has been proposed and the benefits of moving to this method presented.

Evaluating the relative strength of product-specific factors in fuel switching and stove choice decisions in Ethiopia

September 6, 2012 · 0 comments

Energy Economics, Volume 34, Issue 6, November 2012, Pages 1763–1773

Evaluating the relative strength of product-specific factors in fuel switching and stove choice decisions in Ethiopia. A discrete choice model of household preferences for clean cooking alternatives

Takeshi Takamaa, , , Stanzin Tsephelb, , Francis X. Johnsonc,
a Stockholm Environment Institute, Chulalongkorn Soi 64, Phyathai Road, Pathumwan, Bangkok, 1033 Thailand
b Ladakh Ecological Development Group, Karzoo, Leh Ladakh, 194401, India
c Stockholm Environment Institute, Kräftriket 2B, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

Switching from conventional stoves to modern clean, safe, and efficient stoves will improve health and social welfare for the 2.7 billion people worldwide that lack reliable access to modern energy services. In this paper, we critically review some key theoretical dimensions of household consumer behaviour in switching from traditional biomass cooking stoves to modern efficient stoves and fuels. We then describe the results of empirical research investigating the determinants of stove choice, focusing on the relative strength of product-specific factors across three wealth groups.

A stated preference survey and discrete choice model were developed to understand household decision-making associated with cooking stove choice in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The study found that, with the exception of price and usage cost factors for the high wealth group, the product-specific factors that were investigated significantly affect stove and fuel choices. The relative strength of factors was assessed in terms of Marginal Willingness to Pay and provides some evidence that consumer preference for higher quality fuels and stoves tends to increase with increasing wealth.

Performance evaluation and emission characterisation of three kerosene stoves

September 6, 2012 · 0 comments

Energy for Sustainable Development, Volume 16, Issue 3, September 2012, Pages 344–351

Performance evaluation and emission characterisation of three kerosene stoves using a Heterogeneous Stove Testing Protocol (HTP)

Tafadzwa Makonesea, b, , , Crispin Pemberton-Pigottb, James Robinsona, b, David Kimemiaa, b, Harold Annegarna, b
a Department of Geography Environmental Management and Energy Studies, University of Johannesburg, Kingsway Campus, Auckland Park 2006, Johannesburg, South Africa
b SeTAR Centre, Research Village House 6, University of Johannesburg, Bunting Road Campus, Auckland Park 2006, Johannesburg, South Africa

The combustion of kerosene fuel in poorly designed cookstoves is a major domestic source of poor indoor air quality and burn injuries in the developing world. It is argued that these challenges are best addressed by the development and dissemination of clean, safe and efficient cookstoves. In this study, three kerosene stoves including two wick stoves and one pressurised stove were tested for thermal performance and CO gas emissions using the Heterogeneous stove Testing Protocol (HTP) developed at the SeTAR Centre, University of Johannesburg. Results from the testing showed that the diameter of the pot had little effect on the performance of the tested kerosene stoves in terms of CO emissions, but it did have an effect on the thermal efficiency at the high power setting.

Power setting was found to influence the thermal efficiency and combustion performance of all stoves tested, indicating the need for assessment of the appliances across the full range of power settings (where feasible). The pressurised stove had lower CO emissions compared with the wick stoves. Conversely, the wick stoves depicted lower specific times to boil water and higher fuel efficiencies. These results provide essential information to stove designers, regulators and authorities interested in the dissemination of improved kerosene stoves.

The variation of emissions and performance across the power band may be useful for improving national standards by correctly characterising novel technologies and improving the design of existing appliances under different operating conditions. Implications of improved kerosene stoves are improved health, improved access to modern energy, reduced fuel consumption and a reduction in energy poverty.

Cooking practices, air quality, and the acceptability of advanced cookstoves in Haryana, India

September 6, 2012 · 0 comments

Cooking practices, air quality, and the acceptability of advanced cookstoves in Haryana, India: an exploratory study to inform large-scale interventions. Global Health Action, 5 2012, doi:10.3402/gha.v5i0.19016.

Mukhopadhyay R, Sambandam S, Pillarisetti A, Jack D, Mukhopadhyay K, Balakrishnan K, Vaswani M, Bates MN, Kinney PL, Arora N, & Smith, KR.

Background: In India, approximately 66% of households rely on dung or woody biomass as fuels for cooking. These fuels are burned under inefficient conditions, leading to household air pollution (HAP) and exposure to smoke containing toxic substances. Large-scale intervention efforts need to be informed by careful piloting to address multiple methodological and sociocultural issues. This exploratory study provides preliminary data for such an exercise from Palwal District, Haryana, India.

Methods: Traditional cooking practices were assessed through semi-structured interviews in participating households. Philips and Oorja, two brands of commercially available advanced cookstoves with small blowers to improve combustion, were deployed in these households. Concentrations of particulate matter (PM) with a diameter< 2.5 µm (PM2.5) and carbon monoxide (CO) related to traditional stove use were measured using real-time and integrated personal, microenvironmental samplers for optimizing protocols to evaluate exposure reduction. Qualitative data on acceptability of advanced stoves and objective measures of stove usage were also collected.

Conclusions: The high PM and CO concentrations reinforce the need for interventions that reduce HAP exposure in the aforementioned community. Of the two stoves tested, participants expressed satisfaction with the Philips brand as it met the local criteria for usability. Further understanding of how the introduction of an advanced stove influences patterns of household energy use is needed. The preliminary data provided here would be useful for designing feasibility and/or pilot studies aimed at intervention efforts locally and
nationally.

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