Envirofit International: Guardian Sustainable Business Member spotlight

April 24, 2014 · 0 comments

Guardian Sustainable Business Member spotlight: Envirofit International | Source: The Guardian, April 23, 2014 |

Providing efficient cook stoves to communities, schools and households, EnviroFit International is making cleaner, less energy-intense cooking accessible

Envirofit International, an organization that champions the adoption of cleaner, greener, and more cost-effective cooking technologies, launched a new 100-litre institutional stove in Kenya on 21 March, 2014.

The majority of previous attention has been drawn to households, where half the world’s population cooks over an open fire. However, inefficient fuel burning also burns a major hole in schools’ pockets. A school that feeds 300 students may use 18,000 kg of wood per year – as much as two double-decker buses. Recent reports suggest that schools offering meals to students have on average 28% higher enrolment – yet providing lunch can also place a large financial burden on schools, many of which spend 20-50% of their annual budget on fuel.

In this article, Jessica Alderman writes that Envirofit’s institutional stove has been designed with a high-performing combustion chamber that burns wood more efficiently – decreasing harmful emissions and fuel consumption by up to 90%. State-of-the-art technology and design have been employed to create a product that schools can afford – with only one third of the annual fuel bill.

Land use change, fuel use and respiratory health in Uganda

April 24, 2014 · 0 comments

Land use change, fuel use and respiratory health in Uganda. Energy Policy, Volume 67, April 2014, Pages 713–726

Pamela Jaggera, et al.

Highlights

  • Land use change affects the quality, quantity and type of biomass fuels rural households use.
  • Use of fuelwood from non-forest areas leads to an increase in ARI for children under 5.
  • Use of crop residues leads to a decrease in ARI for children under 5.

This paper examines how biomass supply and consumption are affected by land use change in Uganda. We find that between 2007 and 2012 there was a 22% reduction in fuelwood sourced from proximate forests, and an 18% increase in fuelwood sourced from fallows and other areas with lower biomass availability and quality. We estimate a series of panel regression models and find that deforestation has a negative effect on total fuel consumed. We also find that access to forests, whether through ownership or proximity, plays a large role in determining fuel use.

We then explore whether patterns of biomass fuel consumption are related to the incidence of acute respiratory infection using a cross-sectional data set of 1209 women and 598 children. We find a positive and significant relationship between ARI and the quantity of fuelwood from non-forest areas; a 100 kg increase in fuelwood sourced from a non-forest area results in a 2.4% increase in the incidence of ARI for children. We find the inverse effect of increased reliance on crop residues. As deforestation reduces the availability of high quality fuelwood, rural households may experience higher incidence of health problems associated with exposure to biomass burning.

Comparative study of indoor air pollution using traditional and improved cooking stoves in rural households of Northern India.

April 24, 2014 · 0 comments

Comparative study of indoor air pollution using traditional and improved cooking stoves in rural households of Northern India. Energy for Sustainable Development, Volume 19, April 2014, Pages 1–6.

Sudha Singh, et al.

Highlights

  • ICS operation helps in reducing indoor air pollution as compared to TCS.
  • This was corroborated by lower concentrations of aerosol components and gases, recorded in the indoor air during operation of ICS as compared to TCS.
  • Estimates showed that cooking with ICS consumed 41% less biofuel as compared to TCS.
  • A survey revealed that most of the women in the study village found ICS better than the TCS in terms of handling, reduced emissions, easier cooking and time & fuel efficiency.

A major fraction of the rural population of India still burns biomass for domestic cooking and heating. Biomass materials such as wood, dung cakes and crop residues are burnt to produce energy for cooking. These are major sources of aerosol and gaseous pollutants in the atmosphere. Indoor measurements of gaseous species and chemical characteristics of aerosols contributed by burning biomass in traditional cooking stoves (TCS) vs. improved cooking stoves (ICS) are reported in this paper. Samples were collected from a village called Khairatpur, located in Sultanpur district of Uttar Pradesh state. The concentrations of aerosol components and gases in the indoor air during the operation of ICS were found to be lower as compared to TCS.

On an average, total concentrations of major ions were lower by 32% during ICS operation. The most significant difference was observed for SO42 − aerosols (lower by 47%). Among SOx, NOx and NH3 gases, SOx showed maximum reduction (lower by 55%). Estimates of consumption of different types of biomasses showed that 621 t biomass is burnt annually by the villagers during cooking with TCS as compared to 365 t during ICS cooking. A social survey in the form of a questionnaire revealed that most of the women in the village of this study found ICS better than the TCS in terms of handling, reduced emissions, easier cooking and time & fuel efficiency.

A Youtube Playlist cookstove videos produced so far in 2014

April 22, 2014 · 0 comments

If you have other suggestions for 2014 videos to add to the list please contact WASHplus.

Future of Cook stoves in India: Review and recommendations

April 16, 2014 · 0 comments

Future of Cook stoves in India: Review and recommendations, 2014.

Authors: Moreshwar Hude, et al. TERRE Policy Centre, Pune

This paper, developed by an author and the guide who themselves were the users of various types of cooking stoves in their childhood and who have interacted with the present users, technology suppliers and decision makers, assesses the situation in respect of the cooking stoves, identifies the barriers-many of which are overlooked by zealous technocrats- and makes recommendation to overcome those barriers.

The Effect of Marketing Messages, Liquidity Constraints, and Household Bargaining on Willingness to Pay for a Nontraditional Cookstove

April 16, 2014 · 0 comments

The Effect of Marketing Messages, Liquidity Constraints, and Household Bargaining on Willingness to Pay for a Nontraditional Cookstove, 2014.

Authors: Beltramo, Theresa, Impact Carbon; Levine, David I, UC Berkeley; Blalock, Garrick, Cornell University

Lack of product information, liquidity constraints, and women’s limited intrahousehold bargaining power can all slow adoption of new technologies that primarily benefit women and children in poor nations. One such technology, an improved cookstove, can replace inefficient traditional biomass cookstoves that cause significant environmental degradation and some four millions deaths a year. This experiment conducted in rural Uganda estimates willingness to pay for cookstove technologies using Vickrey second-price auctions. Using a randomized controlled trial we first test whether marketing messages which address specific information barriers increase willingness to pay.

Second, a within subjects comparison tests the effect of time payments on willingness to pay. To assess intrahousehold decision-making a correlational study examines the effect of being female, indicators of intra-household decision making, and earning a stable income on willingness to pay. Information campaigns have no large effect on willingness to pay. Neither marketing message- ‘the stove can improve health’ or ‘the stove can save time and money’-consistently increased willingness to pay. We find evidence that consumers in rural Uganda are liquidity constrained. Including time payments raised willingness to pay for a nontraditional cookstove by 41%. Each additional asset owned increased willingness to pay by 10%. Having a stable income increased willingness to pay by 8-10% for both men and women participants, though no effect on willingness to pay is observed of having a stable income for married women.

There is a large negative effect on willingness to pay if participant is female- on average men are willing to pay 21-23% more than women. Efforts to increase willingness to pay for nontraditional cookstoves which improve health and abate environmental harm may be more successful by designing and disseminating nontraditional cookstoves with features valued more highly by men and addressing liquidity constraints, instead of repeating marketing messages related to the cookstoves’ health and private economic benefits.

Clean cookstoves, windmills improve health while reducing emissions

April 16, 2014

Clean cookstoves, windmills improve health while reducing emissions – study | Source/complete article: by Samuel Mintz and Laurie Goering, Reuters, Mar 11, 2014 |

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Clean cookstoves, power-generating windmills and reforestation projects deliver social benefits far beyond reductions in climate-changing carbon emissions, an internal study of projects certified by The Gold Standard has found.

In a look at 109 clean energy and forest projects around the world, all with emissions reductions measured and certified under the The Gold Standard label, economists found that cookstove projects produced $84 million a year in health benefits, in part by reducing exposure to coal, charcoal or firewood smoke, the Gold Standard Foundation said in a press release.

In addition, families participating in the projects saved $243 million annually on coal or firewood purchases, or the equivalent in time spent collecting firewood.

Windmill projects, similarly, saved countries that have installed them $100 million a year on fossil fuel imports, and created $12 million in salaries annually, the foundation said.

Altogether, the additional benefits beyond carbon emissions reductions, including ecosystem services and local employment, added up to more than a billion dollars over the life of the 109 projects, all of which are now completed, the study said.

Gold Standard certified carbon credits, launched in 2003 by the World Wildlife Fund and partners, are sold to individuals, companies and governments wanting to offset their own carbon emissions by paying to reduce emissions elsewhere.

The new look at environmental and social benefits from carbon reductions suggests that buyers of credits from everything from bio-digesters in China to water filters in Honduras are getting more for their money than reductions in climate-changing emissions.

“By being able to value critical outcomes, like improvements in health and employment, carbon credit buyers, funders and policy makers can better understand the big picture of what carbon finance can do when it’s implemented through the rigorous framework and auditing requirements of The Gold Standard,” said Adrian Rimmer, the CEO of The Gold Standard, in a press release.

The Gold Standard certifies nearly 1,000 projects around the world by a wide range of companies and organizations, including J.P. Morgan and a variety of non-profit organizations.

 

Twice as bad: new estimates for mortality from air pollution

April 15, 2014 · 0 comments

Twice as bad: new estimates for mortality from air pollution. Lancet Respiratory Medicine, April 2014.

Talha Khan Burki

WHO have upwardly revised their figures for the global mortality caused by air pollution. They estimate that about 7 million deaths occurred as a result of indoor and outdoor air pollution in 2012. The new figures take into account improvements in the methods and data collection used in previous years and honed techniques for measuring exposure-response.Indoor air pollution accounted for 4·3 million deaths in 2012, largely in the South-East Asia and Western Pacific regions. Respiratory illness made up 40% of the death toll. It all comes down to smoke inhalation, either from open fires or inefficient cook stoves. Children younger than 5 years are particularly vulnerable: 2012 saw over 500 000 deaths from acute lower respiratory infections related to indoor air pollution in this age bracket.

Outdoor air pollution accounted for 3·7 million deaths in 2012, concentrated in low-income and middle-income countries; 389 000 of these deaths were from chronic obstructive respiratory disease, and 227 000 from lung cancer (emissions from diesel engines are particularly culpable in this). Since communities are exposed to several types of pollution, WHO estimated the total number of pollution-related deaths at 7 million (rather than 8 million).Tackling outdoor pollution requires a wide ranging approach. “We would like to have more interventions on healthy urban planning”, affirmed WHO’s Maria Neira. She notes that the transport sector has provided much evidence on environmentally friendly and sustainable systems. Clearly, industry has a large part to play, and there are plenty of proven interventions, such as fitting flue-gas desulphurisation systems to coal-burning power plants, that can help ameliorate matters.

Later this year, WHO will launch its guidelines on indoor air quality. About 3 billion people live in households that rely on solid fuel for cooking and heating. “They burn what is available”, explains Jon Ayres from Birmingham University. Rolling out an efficient means of combusting this fuel, as envisaged by the UN Foundation’s Global Alliance for Clean Cook Stoves, is crucial. But simply ensuring a supply of such stoves will not suffice—when they break down, users tend to return to their previous habits. Ayres emphasises the importance of co-opting local entrepreneurs to produce inexpensive, good-quality stoves and subsequently provide maintenance services. “It’s a big job—we have to enable great swathes of people to become the users, producers, and maintainers of these better stoves”, he told The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

Current debates and future research needs in the clean cookstove sector

April 15, 2014 · 0 comments

Current debates and future research needs in the clean cookstove sector. Energy for Sustainable Development, Volume 20, June 2014, Pages 49–57.

Authors: Gregory L. Simona, et al.

Highlights

• Despite considerable growth in the clean cookstove sector, many debates remain.
• Vetting of stove performance and appeal prior to scale-up is needed in sector.
• Given corollary benefits, local production of effective stoves should be encouraged.
• There is a need to analyze the suitability of diverse subsidies in various settings.
• Decline in carbon credit prices has increased the need to diversify investment types.

The international clean cookstove sector has undergone considerable growth over the past decade. We use this critical juncture – where program priorities and strategies are formalized and converted into institutional norms and practices – to review current debates and areas for future research. We focus our review on four important areas and suggest industry participants expand and refine efforts to (i) balance technical stove performance with implementation needs and stove user compatibility; (ii) understand the trade-offs associated with local and imported production methods; (iii) determine a suitable role for direct subsidies for purchasing stoves and indirect subsidies for research, institutional development and distribution of stoves; and (iv) develop an appropriate finance strategy to support dissemination amidst carbon market uncertainties. Given the complex and interdisciplinary nature of the clean cookstove sector, we hope our appraisal of these four issues will inform innovation and invite new insights.

Climate change and health: on the latest IPCC report

April 2, 2014 · 0 comments

Comment: Climate change and health: on the latest IPCC report. Lancet, April 2014.

Authors: Alistair Woodward, et al.

The health co-benefi ts of action on climate change could be very large. For instance, a reduction of emissions of methane and black carbon might directly prevent 2·0–2·5 million deaths per year worldwide, according to one estimate. When converted into economic terms, the health gains could off set much of the early cost for mitigation of climate change.

 

 

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