This is unfortunate that it didn’t work, but perhaps they tried to do too much here, like solve climate change and third-world social household habits all in one. The real solution is bringing inexpensive electricity to places like this.
From the UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON:
Replacing traditional cooking fires and stoves in the developing world with “cleaner” stoves is a potential strategy to reduce household air pollution that worsens climate change and is a leading global killer.
A new study by researchers from the University of British Columbia, University of Washington and elsewhere — which measured ambient and indoor household air pollution before and after a carbon-finance-approved cookstove intervention in rural India — found that the improvements were less than anticipated.
CREDIT Ther Wint Aung, University of British Columbia
Actual indoor concentrations measured in the field were only moderately lower for the new stoves than for traditional stoves, according to a paper published in June in Environmental Science & Technology. The study is one of only a handful to measure on-the-ground differences from a clean cookstove project in detail, and the first to assess co-benefits from a carbon-financed cookstove intervention.
Additionally, 40 percent of families who used a more efficient wood stove as part of the intervention also elected to continue using traditional stoves, which they preferred for making staple dishes such as roti bread. That duplication erased many of the hoped-for efficiency and pollution improvements.
Laboratory studies suggested that the more efficient, cleaner-burning stoves could reduce a family’s fuelwood consumption by up to 67 percent, thereby reducing household air pollution and deforestation. In practice, there was no statistically significant difference in fuel consumption between families who used the new stoves and families who continued to cook over open fires or traditional stoves.
Without field-based evaluations, clean cookstove interventions may be pursued under carbon financing programs that fail to realize expected carbon reductions or anticipated health and climate benefits, the study concludes.
“A stove may perform well in the lab, but a critical question is what happens in the real world?” said lead author Ther Wint Aung, a doctoral student at UBC’s Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability. “Women who are busy tending crops and cooking meals and caring for children are using stoves in a number of ways in the field that don’t match conditions in the lab.”
Across all households, average indoor concentrations of particulate matter, an unhealthy component of cooking smoke that can contribute to lung and heart disease, increased after the intervention stoves were introduced — likely because of seasonal weather patterns or food rituals that required more cooking.
The median increase, however, was smaller in homes where families exclusively used intervention stoves — 51 micrograms per cubic meter, compared to 92 micrograms per cubic meter for families who used both intervention and traditional stoves and 139 micrograms per cubic meter for the control group of families who continued cooking on a traditional stove.
“On the one hand, there was less of an increase in some pollution levels and that’s a win. But on the other hand, it feels pretty far from a complete solution,” said co-author Julian Marshall, UW professor of civil and environmental engineering.
The cookstove intervention the research team studied was the first stove intervention in India approved for financing under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism, which allows wealthier countries to reduce their climate emissions by investing in projects that provide climate benefits elsewhere.
Among 187 families who cooked with traditional stoves that burn wood or agricultural waste in the Koppal District of Karnataka in southern India, approximately half were randomly assigned to receive intervention stoves — a single-pot “rocket” cookstove that burns the same biomass fuels. Randomization allowed the two groups to be comparable on demographic and socio-economic variables that may influence the outcome of measures, thereby minimizing potential bias.
The community-based organization leading the intervention has a history of working in the region and took care to address issues promptly and ensure that the new stoves were culturally acceptable, such as lowering the height of the stoves to meet the ergonomic needs of the women using them.
The research team took detailed measurements of how much wood the two groups burned — as well as air pollution within the household cooking areas and at sites in the center and upwind of the village — before and after the intervention stoves were introduced.
The researchers also measured black carbon — a less studied component of smoke that has negative health effects and also contributes to climate change — and found intervention stoves increased the proportion of that pollutant in the smoke.
Next steps for the research team include investigating whether giving families more choices among intervention stoves — with the goal of finding one that would meet a wider range of their needs — could further reduce reliance on traditional, more polluting stoves.
“We haven’t cracked this nut yet,” Marshall said. “But maybe that’s the nature of this problem — maybe we’re going to have small, incremental steps forward. Maybe it’s not going to be a vaccine-type approach where you have one giant step that dramatically reduces the problem.”
“Ultimately households throughout the world will desire the same clean cooking technologies used in high-income countries and in most urban areas: electricity or gas,” said co-author Michael Brauer, UBC professor in the School of Population and Public Health. “This study suggests that the interim solution of cleaner biomass stoves remains elusive.”
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“Women who are busy tending crops and cooking meals and caring for children are using stoves in a number of ways in the field that don’t match conditions in the lab.”
You see, they just need more money for education.
The employees and family members of PC businesses and government depts should be required to use these stoves to offset their own CO2 usage.
Bring electricity to these areas and deaths by electrocution will skyrocket, then they will all reject it, and we’re back to square one. The problem with the approach show here is that they did try and do too much. You can make a traditional stove much more efficient with a few tweaks, I’ve seen it done in Nepal, where the retro-fit of a small baffle and vent tubing made the things burn much hotter and more cleanly. If you stick to these simple incremental improvements the locals will buy-in, then come back in 3 years with a better stove, but here’s the catch, the person that introduces the better stove needs to be the same “trusted” person that introduced the incremental improvement. Too often we get these nerd-esque, do-gooders right out of college, doing a 18 month stint with the Peace Corps, or Unesco. The locals appreciate any extra labor, but the kids don’t know crap-from shinola, and they really don’t accomplish anything in the field.
Back in 1951 my father showed a few folks in Central America that they could use a piece of steel pipe to transport irrigation water, it was much more efficient than letting it run through a ditch for 300 yards. Five years later, when he came back, they paid attention and accepted additional technology just because he was the guy who showed them the pipe that made their work so much better. An ethnologist, who accompanied both trips said it was the personal relationship that mattered, not the technology itself.
Are you saying these people are no better at dealing with electricity risk than formerly ignorant Norman, Anglo, Frank, Teutonic, Han, Siamese, Roman, Venetian, Slav, Norse, Arab, Lombard, etc. stock? If so, please elaborate. If not, please clarify.
Yes, but it’s not from ignorance, it’s from poor maintenance, theft, and poorly conceived attempts to modify the systems. For example, in India the number of people that die from accidents that involve electricity is off the charts compared to the 1st world. Data from India show that 1/50 accidental deaths are from electrocution. In the U.S. it’s 1/2500.
James, difference is
formerly ignorant Norman, Anglo, Frank, Teutonic, Han, Siamese, Roman, Venetian, Slav, Norse, Arab, Lombard, etc. just waited for electricity.
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/ ever heard lands of milk and honey, utopia = EU with mountains of butter and lakes of milk = planning /
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to shamanism / voodoo that just wants to thrive backwards to doom and gloom.
Socialistic progressive (redundant) academics produce a product that is successful in the grant making process but a big FAIL in the free market, where users take many factors into account. I find it chilling that the end product is called an “intervention”, as if it was imposed against the will of the target indigenous peoples. If each intervention family had been given $100 would they have bought the stove as compared to buying something else? If not, then this project is far more an effort of virtue signalling and CV-boosting on the part of the westerners who conducted it than to really produce a product that helps third world people in a meaningful way.
Who benefited from the exercise? Let’s do the audit, if those are still allowed in the new progressive era.
One huge issue only tangentially mentioned here is culture. To many who grew up in rural India, certain foods simply taste better when cooked over dried cow patties. One can do a little online research to discover this. As long as there is a spot in the kitchen for an open fire and the bovine fuel is cheap then there will be pressure to use cow patties to satisfy this cultural preference. Even in the US, millions of families cook regularly outside over open fires in search of flavor and cultural satisfaction.
http://www.shalusharma.com/cow-dung-is-still-used-in-india-for-cooking/
Eating food seasoned with smoke from grass eaters’ poo is underrated. Also, eating with your hands. After all, can you trust the quality of the washing of forks and spoons?
How about combining the best of all worlds using molten salt cookers. If you were to combine a 10 kW generator powered by an external combustion steam engine (http://cyclonepower.com) with a molten salt cooker it would provide electricity 24/7 and cooking as well. In cooler climates it might even be able to heat living spaces. One time investment
What if these peoble were encouraged and helped to produce their own stoves to their own need?
The fuel saving should be some incentive. On the other hand it is real green cooking without fossil fuels and the smoke is very local.
Given the significant amount of worthwhile and thoughtful material and comment that is consistently provided on this site, I am surprised and disappointed when Anthony takes such a “parochial” stance over an unquestionably worthwhile project. Yes, it would have been better if the results had been even better. No, as far as I can tell from the confused reports from the original source – it was not a total failure, just a lesser success than desired. Sure, it was funded by the carbon credit system, but running down initiatives that are worthwhile in their own right because you don’t like the funders or their system runs a high risk of being a niggardly response. (Ben Franklin said, ‘Always leave them a little wiggle room’. :-))
While ” … bringing inexpensive electricity to places like this …” is very probably the *ideal* solution it is NOT the “real” one. Not yet and not for some time to come. Alas.
I’ve played a major part in developing and producing hundreds of thousands of solar powered lights for use by people in developing countries (and a few USAians). I’d like the figure to have been millions. http://bit.ly/SL2MINIAFRICA
Fully customer-paid-for LED lights (solar powered or grid recharged in some cases) are a practical possibility right now for anyone who currently pays for kerosene or candles for lighting* – the only obstacles are human nature, politics and greed. (*The real all up cost of providing kerosene-lamp-replacement levels of LED light is about the same as ~- 3 to 6 months fuel use. Properly managed microfinance means that in typically less than 6 months of the same expenditure as for kerosene the light becomes free for the rest of its lifetime, with no carbon deposits (&, fwiw, no ongoing CO2 emissions 🙂 ). )
Cooking and anything else requiring significant heat is harder due to the energy levels required. India is currently unable to provide reliable / stable grid power to all those who currently have grid access. They are developing Thorium powered nuclear stations as one incentive to help redress this – but it will take about 40 years for these to ramp up to make a major contribution. In the short to medium term a good %age of “real solutions” are liable to look more like a rocket stove than a nuclear reactor.
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General: I’d love to see sites like this lean somewhat more towards taking ‘the moral high ground’ and not slanging those whose opinions they oppose quite so vehemently. Ad hominem attacks may excite the choir but bring few converts.
regards
Russell McMahon
Well said Russell!
Here’s a link about solar lamps replacing kerosene:
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/05/12/solar-lights-eradicating-kerosene-lamps-africa/
“Using a unique business model to sell solar lights in rural African off-grid communities, SolarAid aims to eradicate the dangerous and toxic kerosene lamp from Africa by 2020. Working in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Uganda, the lives of over 10 million people in Africa are being improved through solar technology.
Announcing another record-breaking year, SolarAid recently reported that its social enterprise, SunnyMoney, sold 624,468 solar lights last year, bringing its total distribution close to 1.7 million solar lights”
General: I’d love to see sites that are real catalysts for change in calling out bad public policy and public education about promoters and scam artists of bad public policy input. A lot of the sarcasm on this site is about frustration with bad policy and promoters of bad ideas getting ahead at the expense of fact checking, results audits, and real science process. If there were a positive way around the generational spans of protectionist, special interest policies, and corruption in India and a lot of other backward countries there would be more cheering going on. The tens of thousands of demonstration projects out there are based more on self-aggrandizement than anything else. And the few success stories still ignore the policy landscape that ultimately dwarf them and undermine them over time.
Rocket stoves are less polluting because they burn fast and HOT, which works great for stir frying vegetables and boiling water.
But India is the world’s largest consumer of dried beans, peas and lentils – foods which are cooked slowly, over low heat.
A rocket stove can be used to bring pulses to a quick boil, followed by moving the pot off the stove and wrapping it in insulating material for a few hours of passive cooking. But as was stated, the change in cooking ritual might be problematic.
Brought to India by the immoral thieves from the Clinton Global Initiative — which were happy to profit from the carbon credits while not actually giving a crap about the people. They should be in jail.
+1000
Give them electricity, dammit!!
India would rather pursue protectionism on local content rules at higher costs than provide electricity or other basics. That’s a fact.
How about limiting solar cells as simple “made in India” charging stations for radios, phones, and LED lighting. Radios can be used for education. Solar cookers would not be a bad alternative in the tropical regions. They can be made pretty cheap right there in India and the cost partially subsidized if necessary. Women and children not being involved in wood gathering and bending over a smoky fire can spend that time getting educated. If you need incentive, educating the next generation can be very powerful.
In the end, only an India solution is going to work, and it will happen. Women want their ease of meal prep and washing machines, no matter which country they live in.
If you want a real education about this google Hans Rosling or go to gapminder.org and watch his videos.
don’t forget clockwork powered radios… big in Africa!
Typical, they are so obsessed with the climatic effects that they end making matters much worse, when what they really need is chimneys.
“Polycyclic armomatic hydrocarbon concentrations in smoke aerosol of domestic stoves burning wood and coal.”:
http://burningissues.org/car-www/science/pah-comp-wood-coal.htm
Precisely Ulric – a chimney and a door on the stove.
You just need to a chimney to create updraft and a door to control the burn and to create a pressure differential – such that air in the room is sucked into the stove and no combustion products flow out of the stove into the room.
It’s that simple.
Once you can control a stove in that way, then you can have controllable heat and almost zero pollutants at ground level (temp. inversion conditions exempted). Plus, more efficient combustion means less fuel wasted.
The problem is not soot in the atmosphere – it’s soot flowing directly into the lungs of the world’s poorest.
(Anyway, I thought that we wanted particulates in the upper atmosphere. I thought that Schneider had promised that it would lead to the ice age which we all crave.
Or was that the earlier Schneider – before he became the uber-warmista-meister ?!!)
Studies like this that measured indoor air quality with ‘air tight’ stoves is why I stopped heating with wood.
Did I mention idef is an idiot.
I’m not sure what aspect of this problem you have misunderstood.
You have said “Studies like this that measured indoor air quality with ‘air tight’ stoves is why I stopped heating with wood.”
Expect that the study in question explicitly states, “Newer airtight wood stoves keep more of the carcinogens OUT of the burners LIVING SPACE,” (i.e. indoor air quality is IMPROVED) see link from the post to which you refer.
And yet you claim that I am the idiot.
You should try reading the link before commenting – so that you don’t goof up.
“Studies like this” compare the composition of the output of the stove or fireplace in total.
In the case of the sealed stove they refer to the mixture present at the flue terminal.
We do not breath the air at the flue terminal – we breath the air in the living space where the stove or fireplace is sited.
The strategy which I recommend is to keep the living space free of pollutants.
The flue terminal emissions from my stove have negligible impact on any man or beast.
Who or what are you concerned about? A hypothetical recipient who in reality does not exist?
I and my family live in the “living space”, not sited at the receiving end of my chimney.
Whereas I have attempted to spend a few minutes in a traditional bengali kitchen and I can tell you that it is an experience that is not significantly improved upon living IN a chimney.
Maybe you should focus on making valid arguments rather than lazily insulting people who possess complete information, good technical understanding and lifelong experience of the specific issues being debated.
(Sorry, I accidentally posted this comment in the middle of the thread, can the mod please remove the duplicate – see earlier, if necessary.)
Wood/dung burning stoves should in principle offer an opportunity for an almost total reduction of particulates in the living area where they are sited.
I have a multifuel stove in my kitchen. I burn vast amounts of fuel each year and the air in my kitchen is perfectly clean. I can not smell the slightest hint of smoke in the air, and surfaces do not collect any soot.
Every year, I also spend some time with Bengalis, who visit from Chhattisgarh, India.
Back in rural india, they use an open stove. Air rushes through an entrance at the base and the wood smoke rises directly into the room. These indians do not understand how to construct an efficient modern sealed stove with a flue. i.e. a stove with a sealable door giving total control over the air flow.
Now, some bunch of idiots have gone over to india and introduced – THE WRONG KIND OF STOVE.
The rocket stove designs that I have looked at are more or less a metal version of what the indians already have. They are crap.
Now, research into the efficacy of this misdirected goof-up has concluded that the real-world results have been disappointing.
Well, congratulations idiots – that’s because you don’t know the most basic thing about designing or using efficient stoves.
It’s a massive facepalm moment for me.
I was looking forward to seeing western agencies assist indians in introducing cheap, efficient, clean sealable stoved. Such stoves can be manufactured very cheaply from old gas cylinders and a some 1/4″ mild sheet steel. (I know a man who constructs such stoves for a living.)
But, it turns out that academics, NGOs and government agencies involved are just as technological backward as the indias who they wish to pretend to be helping.
P.S. everyone – Indians do not want to make rotis on electric cookers.
If they make rotis here in the west then they prefer gas and a griddle pan.
Why is it that the good-intentioned are almost invariably also the most misinformed?
If anyone from such an organization is reading my comment then please contact me and I will tell you exactly what simple measure could be taken to totally remedy the current situation, reduce pollution, wastage of fuel and create clean air in the living area.
This is not rocket science – and it did not require rocket stoves.
Ah, if only Greenies were actually concerned about the welfare of poor people, instead of “saving the planet”.
The stench of hypocrisy is overwhelming.
In other shocking news, water is wet.
Welll, heck… who do you think is running all the solar lantern projects in Africa, India, Bangladesh?
rich conservatives, fossil fuel power companies or greenies?
The new stoves are sometimes a slight advance on the old stoves.
It’s completely hit and miss. Mostly miss.
But then the old “chulha” design was barely an advance on an open fire.
Many newer designs are still based upon pre-industrial revolution thinking and primitive technologies.
Somebody should introduce these people to modern, efficient, safe and clean stoves.
Instead of continuing the obsession with making small modifications to wasteful, dirty, obselete designs from the distant past.
The neolithic era is over – let’s put it behind us and move on.
These indians do not understand how to construct an efficient modern sealed stove with a flue…
75 percent of rural India survives on [USD $0.50] per day
They’re poor, not stupid. The present U.S. Surgeon General was born in rural India, a farmer’s son.
Somebody should introduce these people to modern, efficient, safe and clean stoves…>/i>
A rocket stove burns both creosote and carbon monoxide gases using dry fuel and plenty of air. Since many poor can’t afford an expensive dirty stove that dumps the pollution outdoors (such as yours), a more affordable option is improved ventilation combined with a cleaner burning stove.
No, he was born in England, to Indian parent
Then you condemn them, through this chain of reckoning – to be expose to extraordinarily high levels of indoor smoke exposure.
I’m not sure why you would be so keen to defend the indefensible.
The bengalis who I know personally – who use the traditional clay open stove have access to enough money to buy trucks and smartphones.
I could personally show them how to construct efficient flued stoves that cost no more than $40 each.
This obsession with reducing total emissions rather than aiming primarily to reduce human exposure will result in the premature deaths of hundreds of millions.
Deaths resulting from stupidity and ignorance – not from poverty.
Retired Kit
The Power Pallet is a brilliant piece of work and please don’t lump everything into a single bin. The same organisation offers the plans for making research gasifiers free on line. They are expanding production as rapidly as possible and exporting a great many.
… remains elusive. ”
Kudos for the rare, unvarnished candor of the researchers! Bespeaks of engineering involvement. The answer for a successful conclusion could be to broadly share the details of design, cultural habits, etc. involved. To have not considered that these people have a special way to cook Nan or tandoori is an unacceptable oversight (old meaning of the word).
“Women who are busy tending crops and cooking meals and caring for children are using stoves in a number of ways in the field that don’t match conditions in the lab.”
Really? Shocker!
Hooda thunk it?
Solar-powered machine turns urine into beer
Forget the cookstove, here is a truly environmental friendly device, something that the ‘greenies’ should have been looking forward to.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/technology/2016/07/27/104112914_Belgian_scientists_Marjolein_Vanoppen_and_Sebastiaan_Derese_demonstrate_the_use_of_a_m-large_trans++H7ePlBY3E4z00ksx7LiwuqVYpqzq9HvzzWOjNRMDvhs.jpg
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/07/27/solar-powered-machine-turns-urine-into-beer/
I have been conducting a similar experiment.
I have succeeded in converting beer into urine.
I now need a grant for further extensive research.
This confirms my suspicions about British beers.
What a village really needs is http://www.gizmag.com/power-pallet-20-gasifier-biomass-generator/32245/ and some easy/cheap way to wire up for lights and cooking.
James, gasifiers are not cheap, not easy, nor, clean and ruin a good ICE. Yes, you can do it but why wood you?
Retired Kit
The Power Pallet is a brilliant piece of work and please don’t lump everything into a single bin. The same organisation offers the plans for making research gasifiers free on line. They are expanding production as rapidly as possible and exporting a great many.
Here is the correct way to do it.
1. Go to a community using wood stoves and study how the people (men as well as women use them).
2. Find ways to improve those processes.
a. Better chimneys perhaps
3. Demonstrate those improvements and point out their advantages.
a. Less time and money for fuel.
b. Better health.
4. Write a report and add in all the climate change crap.
This is a good rule for life. If anyone ever says ‘It’s simple arithmetic’ they are either a stupid person or they think you are. Making a stove (or a car for that matter) more efficient effectively makes the fuel cheaper. Everyone who claims to have more than a grade 10 education should know what happens to demand when the price drops.
More than 40 years ago, when OPEC turned off the oil spigot and the US turned to wood burning stoves to heat their homes, this move made their kids sick, from indoor air pollution. No matter how sophisticated the stove, no matter how efficient, the same result, because the firebox had to be opened to add fuel to the fire. Just seconds are needed for the gases and particulates of the firebox to equilibrate with the room.
Now we have in a 3rd world country an attempt to continue to use biomass for cooking and heating, again, with the identical results. There is no safe biomass stove that is used indoors.
Any attempt to cook with solar is doomed to failure as, frankly, they don’t work unless it is during midday, sunny and not monsoon season. To cook lentils requires more time to cook and fiddling with the angle of the solar collector all the time.
Unless and until the International Monetary Fund is allowed to finance coal fired power plants to get electricity to 2 million people who live without it, we will see the same excess deaths from this political decision.
“this move made their kids sick”
BS!
Retired Kit P
Try reading this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1568417/
Yes indeed, indoor air pollution from the use of woodturning stoves here in the good olde USA. The only thing that made the sick kids better, OPEC turned on the oil spigots again and people switched to propane gas furnaces and got rid of their WBS, or, if ever used, for decorative purposes. Some WBS that are used regularly have the combustion occur outside and hotter heat is piped indoors.
The firebox and when it is opened, in less than 30 seconds, the firebox gases and particulates come into equilibrium with the room. Of the 7,000+ compounds in the firebox that come into the room, more than 90 are direct toxins to the respiratory tract defense mechanisms and another 50+ are carcinogenic.
I was in the Peace Corps in Brazil. One of the Peace Corps “off the shelf” projects was dung to gas. Most common was using pig dung in a pit. Put a “roof” of sheet metal over the manure with a pipe sticking out the top. Bacteria turn the dung into gas. The weight of the roof pushes the gas up the pipe and through a hose into the house. The hose is connected to a stove. This project is usually done with scrap or very cheap material and is safe and effective. Any kind of dung, including human will work. Isn’t this approach better, cheaper and more effecitive.
King
Yes, there are millions around. The biggest benefits is keeping manure out of the surface water. Also produces safe compost for fertilizer.