Abstract
In most developing countries, many rural households use fuelwood and a traditional cookstove (TCS). Women are the backbone of the cooking system, as they mostly manage it. Despite several existing efficient cooking energy systems, households generally do not prefer them. Thus, our aim is to find why this is the case. We estimate the time required and human energy expenditure (HEE) for production of cooking fuel for four alternative cooking energy systems in Nepal, as a case study. The time required to produce cooking fuel for the baseline scenario (i.e. fuelwood and TCS) is 40 h/cap/yr and HEE is 41 MJ/cap/yr. System 2 (charcoal and TCS) has the highest demand for time and HEE. The results suggest that the most efficient system is System 1 (i.e. fuelwood and an improved cookstove (ICS)). However, a woman produces cooking fuel for the whole household, which multiples her time and HEE demand to the household size. This system analysis indicates a significant influence in the selection of cooking fuel due to the HEE and time demand. It concludes that in the future, more importance should be attached to the labour required from women in the cooking energy systems in the development of technological improvements.
Highlights
Despite the rapid technological advancements, about 60% of the populations of developing countries and 40% of the global population depend on solid fuels for cooking [1,2]
These solid fuels, like fuelwood, charcoal, animal manure and agricultural wastes are mostly used as primary cooking fuel with traditional cookstoves (TCS) [3]
Our study considers the most frequently mentioned alternatives for traditional openfire cookstoves, which are charcoal, briquettes and improved cookstoves
Summary
Despite the rapid technological advancements, about 60% of the populations of developing countries and 40% of the global population depend on solid fuels for cooking [1,2] These solid fuels, like fuelwood, charcoal, animal manure and agricultural wastes are mostly used as primary cooking fuel with traditional cookstoves (TCS) [3]. Women play a major role in the selection of a cooking fuel, as they make or collect most of it [8]. They prefer to use fuelwood, since it is accessible and economically viable for them. There are unanswered questions to the demand of human energy involved in the cooking energy systems
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