Clean Cookstove Programs: Why the 21st Century is Different from the 20th, November 2011.
Kirk Smith
The Indian National Programme for Improved Chulhas, like the other major national programme in China,was initiated in the early 1980s and focused mainly on increasing fuel efficiency to assist with rural welfareand, to a lesser extent, protect forests. Secondary emphasis was on reduction of smoke exposures through use of chimneys. Today, however, there are major changes in our understanding and in world conditions that have completely changed the landscape for biomass stove programmes.
An excerpt: Rationale
- We understand much more thoroughly the health impacts of traditional fuel use patterns with hundreds of papers published in the biomedical literature documenting a range of health impacts. Currently, this evidence leads to an estimate of ~4 lakh premature deaths a year in India fromhousehold biomass fuel use.
- We also know that to obtain significant benefits for health it is necessary to reduce exposures by 80% or more – a factor of two, which is all that seems to be obtainable even with the best chimney stoves, is not enough.
- We now understand that the international price of LPG, being a petroleum product, will likely continue to increase faster than rural incomes, thus making the transition to modern fuels difficult and, if subsidized by government, increasing expensive. This adds to the attraction of deploying advanced biomass stoves that provide high performance using local renewable resources and relieve the government of the cost of fuel subsidies.
- It is understood now that poor household combustion of solid fuels is responsible for a significant proportion of outdoor pollution in India, perhaps approaching 50%.
- It is now recognized that household fuel combustion is a significant player in climate change with high greenhouse impacts per unit energy compared to other human uses of energy.
Technology
- Given the combined goals of fuel efficiency, health protection, and low climate impacts, it is nowrealized that the only best approach is to move toward high-combustion-efficiency low-emissionsadvanced combustion devices, such as “gasifier” stoves. A chimney adds to the benefits for health,but does not do anything for climate or outdoor air pollution.
- To achieve reliable high performance, stoves must use either ceramics or good metal alloys,neither of which can be effectively utilized in village manufacture, but must be made incentralized manufacturing facilities with good quality control and other modern mass productiontechniques.
