Clean Cooking Fuels Research Articles

Assessing rural energy sustainability in developing countries

Providing sustainable energy access is one of the most critical global challenges. This paper introduces a method for evaluating the status and progress of rural household energy sustainability in developing countries using a new composite indicator, the energy sustainability index (ESI). The ESI combines 13 techno-economic, environmental and social indicators of sustainability using principal component analysis (PCA). We apply the ESI to China, India, South Africa, Sri-Lanka, Bangladesh and Ghana between 1990 and 2010. The analysis suggests that South Africa's rural energy sustainability index is highest followed by China, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh and Ghana respectively. All the countries' rural energy sustainability has improved relatively over time except Ghana's. Improvements result mainly from increasing rural electricity use and increasing access to clean and efficient cooking fuels.

Better air for better health: Forging synergies in policies for energy access, climate change and air pollution

Air pollution and its related health impacts are a global concern. This paper addresses how current policies on air pollution, climate change and access to clean cooking fuels can effectively reduce both outdoor and household air pollution and improve human health. A state of the art modeling framework is used that combines an integrated assessment model and an atmospheric model to estimate the spatial extent and distribution of outdoor air pollution exposures. Estimates of household energy access and use are modeled by accounting for heterogeneous household energy choices and affordability constraints for rural and urban populations spanning the entire income distribution. Results are presented for 2030 for a set of policy scenarios on air pollution, climate change and energy access and include spatially explicit emissions of air pollutants; ambient concentrations of PM2.5; and health impacts in terms of disability adjusted life years (DALYs) from both ambient and household air pollution. The results stress the importance of enforcing current worldwide air quality legislation in addressing the impacts of outdoor air pollution. A combination of stringent policies on outdoor air pollution, climate change and access to clean cooking fuels is found to be effective in achieving reductions in average ambient PM2.5 exposures to below World Health Organization recommended levels for a majority of the world's population and results in a significant decline in the global burden of disease from both outdoor and household air pollution.

Overcoming the Global Injustices of Energy Poverty

Joan Brown, a college student in Atlanta, Georgia, wakes up in the morning to an electronic alarm clock before she microwaves breakfast, takes a hot shower, grabs a latte at Starbucks, and drives h...

Analysis of energy as a precondition for improvement of living conditions and poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper examines the link between availability of energy and improvement of living condition and poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa. It argued that modern sources of energy are required for the improvement of living standards; may be by helping to create jobs and by boosting productivity. For energy exporters, particularly oil producers, they provide revenues that may bring about sustainable poverty reduction. And the supply of energy improve living conditions by providing better lighting of homes, cleaner fuels for cooking and heating. The study found that, essential aspects of human welfare (leading long and productive life, enjoy good health, have access to knowledge and education opportunities, have the potential to earn sufficient income to supply themselves with ample nutrition, shelter and other material and aesthetic needs) may improve only if modern energy becomes available for all; yet there are nearly 2 billion people still without electricity in developing countries. The study also found that, energy can have major favorable effects in remote rural areas and renewable energy technologies offer a key prospect in areas where the grid cannot reach. Reliance of the poor on their natural surroundings indicates that any step towards poverty alleviation should incorporate environmental and economic sustainability as a priority for sustainable livelihoods. This paper is a contribution in a process towards the use of energy to be one of the instruments to reduce poverty in developing countries especially in Africa. Key words: Energy, poverty reduction, human development, standard of living.

Comprehending household cooking energy choice in rural India

Abstract Energy is essential to attain the quality of life and economic prosperity in a society. In the rural areas of India, cooking dominates the aggregate consumption of energy. This energy demand is mostly met by biomass fuels, which have many associated inherent disadvantages. Hence, it is important to understand the decision making process in rural households regarding the choice of cooking fuels. For this purpose, household information using the 61st round of National Sample Survey is analyzed for the rural parts of India. The logistic regression model is used to explain the determinants of clean fuel use for cooking purposes. The study shows that number of educated females between 10 and 50 years of age, average household education index, regular salary, and monthly per capita consumption expenditure have a positive and significant impact on probability of using clean cooking fuels, whereas possessing a Below Poverty Line ration card, belonging to reserved caste categories, family size and size of farm land have a significant negative linkage.

Household cooking fuels and technologies in developing economies

A major energy challenge of the 21 st century is the health and welfare of 2.7 billion people worldwide, who currently rely on burning biomass in traditional household cooking systems. This Special Issue on Clean Cooking Fuels and Technologies in Developing Economies builds upon an IAEE workshop on this subject, held in Istanbul in 2008 ( Foell et al., 2008). It includes several papers from that workshop plus papers commissioned afterwards. The major themes of that workshop and this Special Issue are: • Analytical and decision frameworks for analysis and policy development for clean cooking fuels. • Making energy provisioning a central component of development strategies. • Strategies/business models of suppliers of modern fuels and technologies. • Analysis of successes/failures of past policies and programs to improve access to clean cooking. This introductory paper serves as a preamble to the 11 papers in this Special Issue. It provides a brief background on household cooking fuels and technologies, including: (1) their implications for sustainable development, health and welfare, gender impacts, and environment/climate issues; (2) options and scenarios for improved household cooling systems; and (3) discussions of institutions, programs and markets. It closes with “Research and Action Agendas”, initially developed during the 2008 workshop.

Energy security issues at household level in India

Energy security at the household level implies ensuring assured and regular supply of clean energy fuels at an affordable price for various household activities. Threat to physical availability of clean energy fuels for cooking and lighting is determined through various indicators such as dependence on traditional fuels and limited access to clean fuels. Energy insecurity translates into various adverse social impacts. Financial threat to energy security is indicated by expenses incurred on energy fuels and affordability of clean fuels. Households spend a major portion of their income on acquiring energy fuels; however, due to high price of clean fuels, they continue to depend on traditional and inefficient fuels. There is an urgent need to address factors that pose a threat to energy security at the household level. In this regard, measures taken by the government agencies and other institutions are also reviewed. The paper also suggests the regulatory and policy interventions required to address the energy security issues at the household level.

A global clean cooking fuel initiative

This article calls for engaging the public and private sectors of developing and industrialized countries in a global clean cooking fuel initiative (GCCFI) to bring about a worldwide shift to clean fluid fuels for cooking and heating in 10-15 years' time – with an emphasis on providing clean fuel to the poorest households. This initiative is crucial to implementation of the Millennium Development Goals and the Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development. The article builds on (1) analyses in this special issue of Energy for Sustainable Development of challenges to sustainable development posed by use of solid fuels for cooking and water heating (and for space heating in temperate climates) and opportunities for addressing them by bringing about a shift to clean fluid fuels, and (2) an extensive and compelling literature on the problems posed by this reliance on solid fuels.

Ethanol and gelfuel: clean renewable cooking fuels for poverty alleviation in Africa

This paper presents a discussion on the potential of ethanol and gelfuel as clean renewable and low-cost household cooking fuels for African countries. The discussion is based on the experience of the “Millennium Gelfuel Initiative (MGI)”, a public-private sector partnership shepherded by the RPTES Program of the World Bank in Africa. The paper starts by providing a brief background of the household energy sector in Africa. It then summarizes the objectives, scope and outcomes of the MGI. The possibility to promote rural, agricultural and agro-industrial development and poverty alleviation through the establishment of ethanol production programs in African countries is presented next, and a conceptual developmental model is outlined. The paper then touches on three key implementation concerns: context-specific nature of bioenergy production systems; “fuel vs. food dilemma”; and scale-up challenge. The paper concludes with a summary of a possible implementation framework, including the roles of the private sector, governments and the international development community.

97/05239 Co-combustion of recycled RDF and PDF fuels: Manninen, H. and Frankenhaeuser, M. Solid Waste Manage.: Therm. Treat. Waste-to-Energy Technol., Proc. Int. Spec. Conf., 1995, (Pub. 1996), 415–424

Sustained use and adoption of clean cooking fuels have become an important concern for developing countries due to the enormous burden of diseases attributable to household air pollution (HAP). The transition and adoption of clean household energy involve various socio-economic, behavioral, and technological barriers at different community levels. Hence, the present paper aims to scrutinize the factors, key determinants, and other interventions among rural households that limit clean cookstoves' sustained uses. The study proposes an integrated model to enhance clean cooking fuel uptake and uses based on the available evidence. The health, climate and environmental factors were identified as the key to trigger the adoption of clean cooking fuel alternatives. The model comprises the integration of components for targeted clean fuel policy interventions and promotes green recovery. The elements include Knowledge, Housing characteristics, Awareness, Interventions, Willingness to pay, Adoption, Lower emissions and Gender Equality (THE KHAIWAL model) to ascertain the intervention focus regions. Integration of model components in policy implementation will promote clean household energy to reduce emissions, leading to improve quality of life, good health, women empowerment, better air quality and climate.