Patterns of Stove Use in the Context of Fuel–Device Stacking: Rationale and Implications

March 4, 2015 · 0 comments

Patterns of Stove Use in the Context of Fuel–Device Stacking: Rationale and Implications. EcoHealth, February 2015

Authors: Ilse Ruiz-Mercado, Omar Masera

In this paper we explain that stacking and, specifically, the residual use of traditional fires have strong implications for two agendas critical to the cookstove sector: the implementation of fuel-stove programs that deliver tangible and sustained benefits and the design of evaluation and monitoring schemes that effectively and realistically assess these benefits.
The rationale and implications of stacking hinge on three key aspects: end uses, cooking tasks and livelihood strategies. For example, traditional fires satisfy energy uses that extend beyond cooking and therefore, most of the times, introducing a single clean fuel-stove will not be a perfect substitution of the traditional fires and their residual use will persist.
It is by looking at the interactions of these three aspects with habits, culture, preferences, and household dynamics that the patterns of fuel-stove use can be understood and that the actual benefits from clean fuels and stoves can be assessed.
Thus, addressing stacking, displacement and residual use of traditional fires requires that we:
  • Move from introducing a single fuel-stove to the promotion of a portfolio or “stack” of options(fuels, stoves and practices) to fully displace the negative health and environmental effects of traditional open fires.
  • Design stoves that target the most critical traditional cooking tasks (the most frequent, most culturally relevant or those with the greatest negative effects -not necessarily the same) and stoves specifically aimed at covering residual end uses.
  • Evaluate the effects of introducing a clean fuel-device and its levels of usage in terms of the niche of tasks that the stove can actually cover. Characterize the redistribution of tasks among new and existing stoves and consider the weight that each task has (for health, fuel or emissions) to assess the impacts of stacking and displacement.
  • Complement fuel-stove dissemination with strategies to provide cost-effective alternatives to fuel processing, storage and drying as well as sustainable mechanisms to secure spare parts and stove repairs.

Abstract: The implementation of clean fuel and stove programs that achieve sustained use and tangible health, environmental, and social benefits to the target populations remains a key challenge. Realization of these benefits has proven elusive because even when the promoted fuels-stoves are used in the long term they are often combined (i.e., “stacked”) with the traditional ones to fulfill all household needs originally met with open fires.

This paper reviews the rationale for stacking in terms of the roles of end uses, cooking tasks, livelihood strategies, and the main patterns of use resulting from them. It uses evidence from case studies in different countries and from a 1-year-long field study conducted in 100 homes in three villages of Central Mexico; outlining key implications for household fuel savings, energy use, and health. We argue for the implementation of portfolios of clean fuels, devices and improved practices tailored to local needs to broaden the use niches that stove programs can cover and to reduce residual open fire use.

This allows to integrate stacking into diagnosis tools, program monitoring, evaluation schemes, and implementation strategies and establish critical actions that researchers and project planners can consider when faced with actual or potential fuel-device stacking.

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