Extinguishing the Three Stone Fire: A guest editorial in the Solar Cooker Review, Jan 2014 by Dar Curtis, co-founder of Solar Household Energy (SHE)
Time was when cooking with wood over a three-stone fire didn’t bother our planet much because there weren’t all that many people lighting fires. It wasn’t that long ago. The world’s population has gone from two billion to seven billion just in my lifetime!
The UN’s World Health Organization reports that emissions from smoky cooking fires are now killing four million people a year. Many of the world’s poor who are compelled to buy their cooking fuel are sometimes forced to choose between food and something to cook it with. The release of CO2 and soot from cooking fires is conservatively estimated as contributing 18% of greenhouse gases implicated in climate change. Increasingly, environments are being degraded by the daily harvest of trees and bushes for cooking fuel. As the world’s forests diminish and its human population increases, it is obvious that people are far better at growing more people than they are at growing trees. Finally, the processing and shipping of fossil fuels to countries in need strains their economies and leaves a significant carbon footprint.
At last the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves has mounted an effort to mitigate these afflictions on our planet and its people. As impressive as their efforts are however, they have not extended them to include the application of solar thermal energy for cooking. The sun hammers the planet 24-7, lavishing enough energy to supply many of our needs. That’s what the Chinese, the Indians and we western solar advocates know and have demonstrated again and again.
Nevertheless, our efforts have yet to inspire significant interest in this technology at the Global Alliance. Why? How can we improve our advocacy? I think the key is in better education and field assessments. Our efforts over the years have been conducted on a shoestring. We have not had the resources to pay for objective project evaluations that can convince decision makers. We need to work on that because we have gained extensive field experience and knowledge about the capabilities of existing solar thermal devices and their use. By the same token we are aware of the need for further R&D.
We should also be reporting on the type of in- country support required for successful field projects—such as infrastructure for training and micro-financing. We can explain how we have learned to work with host country community development projects. We should highlight the economic and environmental savings that come with the use of solar energy, a fuel that is ubiquitous, endless, safe and free.
We have frequently noted the serendipity of the fact that a high percentage of three-stone fires burn in areas of abundant sunshine. That is a profound reality. However, decision makers cannot properly assess the potential of solar cooking unless they possess accurate data on climate and cultural habits in each of these areas.
Of great importance as well is the widespread understanding and practice of “Integrated Cooking,” in which solar cookers (when properly combined with the use of improved combustion stoves and retained heat containers) can provide the world’s poorest citizens with the most economical and fuel-efficient way to cook food and heat water.
We must also urge a study of the real cost of cooking. The strategy for replacing three-stone fires must be based on a clear understanding of the long-term affordability of the various options. There are several types of affordability to consider. If biomass is a country’s major fuel, can it afford and sustain the attendant degradation of its environment over many more decades? If the country’s cooking fuel must be produced or imported, will it have to be subsidized to be affordable to the population? If so, what will be the impact of these subsidies on other national priorities like health, education, and infrastructure? What percent of the population will not be able to afford to purchase fuel at any price?
Even if imported fuel is deemed to be affordable monetarily, we need to know its cost in terms of CO2 release. In addition to extraction and processing, this calculation would need to include the maritime shipping of petroleum fuels from producing countries to consuming countries, from ports of entry to in-country distributors and from distributors to customers. When cooking fuel is produced in-country, a life cycle analysis of CO2 emissions from the manufacture of cooking equipment, canisters and other infrastructure is also needed.
It appears to me that policy makers at the Global Alliance are projecting a replacement for the three-stone fire with the exclusive use of stoves employing combustible fuels. If this is true, how will they guarantee the uninterrupted, permanent, environmentally sound, global re-supply of such fuels at scale? When earth’s population reaches nine billion in a few decades, will combustible fuels be accessible, much less affordable, if they are the only source of cooking for the 1.5 billion who make less than $1.25 a day? Can the cost and the consequences of promoting the sole use of combustible fuels be justified under the glare of a sun that provides the Earth with enough energy every hour to power all human activity for a year?
