Abstract
Globally, around three billion people depend upon solid fuels such as firewood, dry animal dung, crop residues, or coal, and use traditional stoves for cooking and heating purposes. This solid fuel combustion causes indoor air pollution (IAP) and severely impairs health and the environment, especially in developing countries like Pakistan. A number of alternative household energy strategies can be adopted to mitigate IAP, such as using liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), natural gas, biogas, electric stoves, or improved cook stoves (ICS). In this study, we estimate the benefit-cost ratios and net present value of these interventions over a ten-year period in Pakistan. Annual costs include both fixed and operating costs, whereas benefits cover health, productivity gains, time savings, and fuel savings. We find that LPG has the highest benefit-cost ratio, followed by natural gas, while ICS has the lowest benefit-cost ratio. Electric stoves and biogas have moderate benefit-cost ratios that nevertheless exceed one. To maximize the return on cleaner burning technology, the government of Pakistan should consider encouraging the adoption of LPG, piped natural gas, and electric stoves as means to reduce IAP and adopt clean technologies.
Highlights
Almost three billion people in low- and middle-income countries do not have access to clean or modern energy sources and depend upon solid fuels such as firewood, biomass, crop residues, coal, and charcoal for cooking and heating [1]
None of these studies have evaluated more than three interventions, and most evaluated just a single intervention. Some useful interventions such as natural piped gas and electric stoves remain relatively unexplored, while others lack a standardized withincountry comparison. Our study fills this significant gap by providing analysis for five indoor air pollution (IAP) mitigating technologies, including piped natural gas and electric stoves, which have far been largely ignored in the literature
The number of days spent in bed because of illness, fuel collection time, time spent on economic activity, the operating cost of biogas plants, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), natural gas, electricity, the fixed costs of LPG, natural gas, and electric stoves, and environmental related variables were constructed with the help of published research studies
Summary
Almost three billion people in low- and middle-income countries do not have access to clean or modern energy sources and depend upon solid fuels such as firewood, biomass, crop residues, coal, and charcoal for cooking and heating [1]. When these solid fuels burn, they emit a multitude of complex chemicals including formaldehyde, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, cilia toxic, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and other inhalable particulates [2, 3].
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