International Journal of Environmental Health Research, Nov 30, 2011
Exposure to open-fire cooking and cognitive performance in children
Robert L. Munroe & Mary Gauvain
We reexamined field data on cognitive performance in light of recent research that shows open-fire cooking – with its emission of harmful substances – to pose a risk to healthy physical development. Tests of three- to nine‐year-old children in four communities around the world yielded evidence concerning block-building skills, memory, and the discernment of embedded figures. Naturalistic observations of these children were also undertaken in everyday settings.
Open-fire cooking (as opposed to cooking on kerosene stoves) was associated with both lower cognitive performance and less frequent structured play at all ages. Although these correlational results do not reveal causal mechanisms, they are consistent with ideas about negative developmental consequences of exposure to open-fire cooking and suggest that research is needed on the effect on brain development of practices involving production of indoor smoke.
GENDER EQUITY IN ACCESS TO AND BENEFITS FROM MODERN ENERGY AND IMPROVED ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES, 2011. WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT BACKGROUND PAPER.
Joy Clancy, Tanja Winther, Magi Matinga and Sheila Oparaocha
ETC/ENERGIA in association Nord/Sør-konsulentene
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- INTRODUCTION – BACKGROUND TO STUDY, SCOPE
- METHODOLOGY
- THE EFFECTS OF MODERN ENERGY AND MORE ENERGY-EFFICIENT TECHNOLOGIES
- TRANSFORMING GENDER ROLES AND RELATIONS
- ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES AS DRIVERS OF TRANSFORMATION
- INFLUENCING BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS THE UPTAKE OF MODERN ENERGY AND ITSTECHNOLOGIES
- CONCLUSIONS
Energy for Sustainable Development, Available online 27 November 2011.
Influence of testing parameters on biomass stove performance and development of an improved testing protocol
C. L’Orange, a, , M. DeFoorta, B. Willsona. a – 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.
Friday, December 2, 2011 – Burning Bamboo Better Than Wood in Africa, Advocates Say
By Cristina Merrill
Bamboo, a plant that originated in Asia, may find a use as an alternative energy source in Africa, advocates at the COP17 world climate conference said Friday.
Bamboo charcoal and firewood could be substituted for regular firewood in Africa under a new collaboration to bring greener technology to the continent, the group said at the summit held in Durban, South Africa.
Leaders in China and Africa, along with the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR), are working together to bring the technology to Sub-Saharan Africa.
“Bamboo, the perfect biomass grass, grows naturally across Africa and presents a viable, cleaner and sustainable alternative to wood fuel,” INBAR Director General J. Coosje Hoogendoorn said in a statement. “Without such an alternative, wood charcoal will remain the primary household energy source for decades to come-with disastrous consequences.”
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Dec. 5, 2011 – Is Black Carbon Underestimated as a Global Warming Agent?
Researchers at Scripps to discuss results of Project Surya, an initiative to study the climate effects of reducing biomass burning and soot emissions
Satellites have measured black carbon emissions generated by millions of wood-burning stoves throughout the developing world, but a project taking place in India’s Uttar Pradesh province suggests the atmospheric heating effect of these soot emissions are at least twice as large as reported by many IPCC models.
Even studies relying on satellite data may be underreporting the soot heating effects, said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a climate and atmospheric scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego.
Ramanathan will report on results from the pilot phase of Project Surya, a multi-dimensional endeavor to measure the climatic and social effects of replacing traditional cooking methods with cleaner ones. The province in which the project is taking place lies within the Indo-Gangetic Plains region in northern India where air pollution from urban and rural sources frequently amasses. Project Surya scientists argue that mitigating black carbon emissions from its chief sources can provide immediate benefits in the fight to stop warming from producing profound negative effects on society and the natural world. This benefit would complement improvements in public health afforded by cleaner air and, according to recent studies, likely increases in crop yields.
The researchers will discuss findings regarding four aspects of the Surya pilot phase. In one study, they found that black carbon concentrations at ground level peak during morning and evening cooking hours.
In a second study recently submitted for publication, Project Surya researchers concluded that certain forced-draft cookstoves-ones they intend to substitute for traditional wood- or dung-burning stoves-are capable of reducing black carbon emissions by as much as three or four times.
The Surya team has also recently completed two studies addressing the project’s data collection methods. One reported the successful demonstration of a reporting system in which residents at the test site submitted ground-level measurements of ambient black carbon levels using cell phones supplied by the researchers. A second paper currently in review demonstrates that during dry winter months when air pollution remains confined to lower altitudes, Surya researchers will be able to measure from satellites the effects of introducing clean-burning cookstoves. The change in cooking methods is anticipated to create a black carbon “hole” in which diminished aerosol thickness should be measurable from space.
Source – http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaseID=1223
Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, Nov 2011.
Pollutants from the combustion of solid biomass fuels
A. Williams , , J.M. Jones, L. Ma, M. Pourkashanian. Energy and Resources Research Institute/CFD Centre, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
This review considers the pollutants formed by the combustion of solid biomass fuels. The availability and potential use of solid biofuels is first discussed. This is followed by the methods used for characterisation of biomass and their classification. The various steps in the combustion mechanisms are given together with a compilation of the kinetic data.
The chemical mechanisms for the formation of the pollutants: NOx, smoke and unburned hydrocarbons, SOx, Cl compounds, and particulate metal aerosols are outlined. Examples are given of emission levels of NOx and particulates from combustion in fixed bed combustion, fluidised bed combustion and pulverised biomass combustion and co-firing. Modelling methods for pollutants are outlined. The consequential issues arising from the wide scale use of biomass and future trends are then discussed.
Below are abstracts of selected articles from the Dec 2011 issue of Energy Policy which is on: Clean Cooking Fuels and Technologies in Developing Economies
1 – Min Bikram Malla, Nigel Bruce, Elizabeth Bates, Eva Rehfuess, – Applying global cost-benefit analysis methods to indoor air pollution mitigation interventions in Nepal, Kenya and Sudan: Insights and challenges
Indoor air pollution from burning solid fuels for cooking is a major environmental health problem in developing countries, predominantly affecting children and women. Traditional household energy practices also contribute to substantial time loss and drudgery among households. While effective interventions exist, levels of investment to date have been very low, in part due to lack of evidence on economic viability. Between 2004 and 2007, different combinations of interventions – improved stoves, smoke hoods and a switch to liquefied petroleum gas – were implemented in poor communities in Nepal, Sudan and Kenya. The impacts were extensively evaluated and provided the basis for a household-level cost-benefit analysis, which essentially followed the methodology proposed by the World Health Organization. The results suggest that interventions are justified on economic grounds with estimated internal rates of return of 19%, 429% and 62% in Nepal, Kenya and Sudan, respectively. Time savings constituted by far the most important benefit followed by fuel cost savings; direct health improvements were a small component of the overall benefit. This paper describes the methodology applied, discusses the findings and highlights the methodological challenges that arise when a global approach is applied to a local programme.
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November 23, 2011 – Bank of America Corp. (BAC) agreed financing for an emissions-cutting project to sell cooking stoves and fuel in Mozambique, potentially eating into the sub- Saharan region’s $10-billion charcoal market.
Under the agreement, Bank of America Merrill Lynch has bought an option at an unspecified price to purchase and market United Nations-overseen Certified Emission Reduction credits that each represent a metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent, Abyd Karmali, the London-based global head of carbon markets at the bank, said today in a telephone interview.
The reductions would be created by the African country as well as other developing nations through displacement of charcoal with clean cooking fuel, he said. The project isn’t yet approved by UN-overseen emission-credit regulators based in Bonn, he said.
The revenue from the Bank of America option premium allows CleanStar, the Maputo, Mozambique-based venture running the project, to raise additional debt and equity, Karmali said. “This is not just about CERs being the only finance source. It has the potential to displace a substantial portion of the charcoal market” in the sub-Saharan region, worth $10 billion a year, he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Mathew Carr in London at m.carr@bloomberg.net
Source
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Vol. 65, suppl. uppl, pp. A220-A220. 2011.
P2-1 Effect of indoor air pollution from biomass and solid fuel combustion on prevalence of asthma among adult men and women in India
Agrawal, S
Increasing asthma incidence, prevalence and morbidity over recent decades presents a significant challenge to public health in developing countries. A number of studies have suggested that ambient air pollution can trigger asthma attacks. In this study we examined the effect of cooking smoke on reported prevalence of asthma among adult men and women in India. Analysis is based on 99 574 women and 56 742 men age 20-49 years included in India’s third National Family Health Survey conducted in 2005-2006.
Effects of exposure to cooking smoke, determined by type of fuel used for cooking on the prevalence of asthma were estimated using multivariate logistic regression after controlling for age, marital status, education, religion, caste/tribe, house type, place of cooking, persons per room, living standard of the household, urban/rural residence and geographic region. Women living in households using biomass and solid fuels have a significantly higher prevalence of asthma (OR 1.26; 95% CI 1.06 to 1.49) even after controlling for the effects of a number of confounding factors. Interestingly, this effect was not found among men (OR 0.98; 95% CI 0.77 to 1.24). However, tobacco smoking was associated with a higher asthma prevalence both among women (OR 1.72; 95% CI 1.34 to 2.21) and men (OR 1.35; 95% CI 1.49 to 2.25). The findings have important program and policy implications for India, where large proportions of the population rely on polluting biomass and solid fuels for cooking and space heating. More epidemiological research with better measures of smoke exposure and clinical measures of asthma is needed to validate the findings.
Clin Orthop Relat Res, Nov 2011
Environmental Tobacco and Wood Smoke Increase the Riskof Legg-Calve´-Perthes Disease
Anjali Benjamin Daniel, et al.
Background The etiology of Legg-Calve´-Perthes disease(LCPD) remains unknown. A few studies have suggested passive smoke inhalation may be a risk factor, although the association is not confirmed and a causal relationship has not been established.
Questions/purposes We therefore undertook this study to confirm an association between environmental tobacco smoke, firewood smoke, and socioeconomic status and the risk of LCPD.
Methods We prospectively recruited 128 children with LCPD and 384 children attending the hospital for other orthopaedic complaints. The control subjects were frequency-matched with the cases by age and gender. Conditional logistic regression was used to assess the association between the exposures and risk of LCPD.
Results The main risk factors for LCPD were indoor use of a wood stove (adjusted odds ratio [OR], 2.56) and having a family member who smoked indoors (adjusted OR, 2.07). Children from the middle socioeconomic group
appeared to be at a greater risk of developing LCPD (adjusted OR, 3.60).
Conclusions This study provides further evidence that environmental tobacco smoke is associated with an increased risk of LCPD. Exposure to wood smoke also appears to be a risk factor. However, it remains unclear why there are profound differences in the incidence of the disease between regions when the prevalence of smoking is
comparable and why bilateral involvement and familial disease are infrequent.
