By Brenda Shaffer Svante Cornell
One of the biggest threats to human health, and a major source of air pollution, is regularly hidden in statistical reports as “renewable energy:” the burning of dung, wood, and lump coal. While most of the world receives its energy from fossil fuels, over two billion people on the globe do not have regular access to modern energy and rely on traditional burning of gathered materials. The great majority of the people without access to regular energy live in sub-Saharan Africa. However, in many states, the access to energy is highly differentiated between the main urban centers and the rural population. Central Asia is a region with such a split: it has a high level of human development and electricity access is universal in major cities, but up to a third of the population continues to rely on traditional energy, due either to a lack of reliable access to heat and electricity or due to the latter’s prohibitive cost. One of the top development priorities in Central Asia and globally should be enabling access to modern energy, specifically natural gas, which will in turn vastly improve human health and lower air pollution.
All humans need energy to perform basic functions. Without access to modern energy sources, people burn biomass and other materials they can gather for free or very cheaply. For the first time since World War II, global access to electricity declined in 2022, and likely remained flat in 2023. This left more people relying on traditional energy sources, which leads to increased health threats and rising air pollution.
The extent of people relying on traditional energy is often hidden in the formal statistics on energy use, or goes underreported. Some organizations, such as the International Energy Agency, have begun to categorize traditional burning as renewable energy. The IEA has been able to show an increase in renewable energy consumption by this reporting and an increase in “women in the energy workforce” by classifying women who gather dung and sticks as “energy workers.” In some places, there is general underreporting of traditional energy use, since most of it does not involve traded or taxed goods or formal employment.
Central Asia is a case where despite high or very high levels of human development in all but one of the states of the region, and widespread electricity access, rates of traditional energy use are still very high. In Kazakhstan, 30% of households reported burning coal or wood for heat. Residential burning of coal is one of the main sources of air pollution in Kazakhstan, especially in the winter. The situation in Kyrgyzstan is even worse, with half of the country’s households burning lump coal or dung for winter heat. Due to this indoor air pollution, mortality rates from lung diseases are the highest in the world in Kyrgyzstan. In Tajikistan, many households rely on burning coal, dung and wood for winter heating, albeit precise data on the percentage of households is lacking.
While funding is available from the World Bank and foreign aid donors for renewable energy, few funds are offered to help countries move from health threatening energy use to cleaner fuels, such as natural gas. This is because the World Bank and the G-7 countries in 2021 stopped all funding for fossil fuel energy. Other sources of renewable energy are not a realistic option to provide a serious portion of the energy needs of Central Asia, due to the extreme cold climate of most parts of the region. Kazakhstan is among the world’s coldest countries, with winters lasting for six months. In Kazakhstan and most of Central Asia, reliable and affordable access to heat is necessary for basic survival.
The wealthy countries in the West believe that by denying access to fossil fuels, they can force people to adopt renewable energy. However, the case of Central Asia shows that people will expose themselves to the dangers of traditional energy, without access to safer forms of energy, when renewable energy is expensive, unreliable or not able to meet their geographic needs, such as for heat in the winter.
An IEA report on traditional heating in Kazakhstan suggested that heat pumps could help the population access cleaner energy. This illustrates the disconnect of many of these First World energy institutions from the real life of people. Many people in Central Asia that have access to electricity continue to burn lump coal or wood in their homes, despite the health risks, because it is cheaper and more reliable than electricity. While people in wealthy countries like the United States and the UK have installed heat pumps at a very low rate, poor people in Central Asia can’t even dream of expenses of this nature.
Yet Central Asia has significant resources of natural gas, which Western well-wishers would rather leave in the ground. But increased utilization of natural gas is the only practical option that can help Central Asians lower their dependency on traditional energy. Natural gas supplies have the potential of being both reliable and affordable. Access to new gas supplies will contribute significantly to improving public health and reducing pollution in Central Asia.
The Central Asian example illustrates the unintended consequences of the West’s blanket ban on supporting fossil fuel development, and its lumping together of cleaner natural gas with more polluting fuels like coal and oil. It also serves as a reminder that “renewable” energy does not always mean healthy energy. For many, such as in Central Asia, lack of funding for gas will not drive people to a world powered by wind or solar, but will leave them dependent on burning coal and dung.
Brenda Shaffer is a faculty member of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.
Svante E. Cornell is a co-founder and Director of the Institute for Security and Development Policy. He is the Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, the Joint Center operated by ISDP in cooperation with the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC).
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
“…over two billion people on the globe do not have regular access to modern energy and rely on traditional burning…”
I have access to modern energy systems, but… they are deliberately being made that expensive that it is far cheaper to revert to using the open fireplace burning wood and coal, or freezing. And a fire does create a nice cosy atmosphere – thanks to the invention of the chimney. I find that people rarely gather around a radiator.
This is where we now are; going backwards.
The amount of bare-faced lying required is quite staggering:
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/jan/22/weather-bomb-expected-to-cause-cut-in-uk-energy-prices
Incredibly the Guardian acknowledge wind is unreliable and suggests the best way to tackle the unreliability is to build more!
While it is trivially true that the wind is always blowing somewhere there are two problems with relying on this to solve the problem of winds intermittency.
1) That somewhere, where the wind may be blowing, is often thousands of miles away. This means a huge cost to build the infrastructure to bring the energy from where the wind is blowing to here.
2) The people who live in this place where the wind is blowing, also need the energy that the blowing wind provides, and may not have any excess to send to us.
“open fireplace” Come on man, get an insert.
I had a local shop build one for me in the mid-1970s. It had C-shaped tubes, fan, and outside air intake. Now I have a stove with a catalytic burner.
JH>> Good advice. An open fireplace typically has a negative efficiency when the outdoor temperature reaches 0 C and gets worse at lower temperatures. That’s because the heat output is less than that required to heat the outdoor air pulled in to replace the warm air sucked out by the chimney. A modern clean burning wood stove or insert is typically 70-80 efficient and can provide very nice ambiance as well as comfort in the coldest weather.
What is missing in all fuel use heating stoves is a supply of air for the fire from outside. Using air from the inside structure e.g. from inside the house, is inefficient and can lead to dangerous breathing conditions, e.g. insufficient oxygen.
No, for good clean combustion you need an air to fuel ratio of about 10:1 on a mass basis (about 10 cfm at normal burn rates). This is a quite small amount of air and a fraction of the normal ventilation rate needed for healthy indoor air quality. Since the air drawn in from outdoors is generally cleaner than indoor air the process can actually improve indoor air quality as long as the user takes care to avoid spilling smoke when opening the door to refuel. If you can smell woodsmoke in your home when using a quality wood stove, you’re doing something wrong.
“hidden in statistical reports as “renewable energy:” the burning of dung, wood, and lump coal.”
Gotta wonder: who is it exactly that thinks lump coal is renewable? Perhaps the author meant charcoal? Lump coal requires a slightly more sophisticated industrial base and distribution economy than that required for charcoal.
I suppose in 500 million years or so that Carbon [dioxide] could become coal again
“ lump coal ” Some places the coal appears at the surface and can be obtained. Other places have commercial mines that uncover the coal, and/or go deep.
Yes. Oil and tar appear in many places too.
Charcoal can be made almost anywhere there is a brush pile or peat bog, and only needs to be kept mostly dry until you need it for heat.
Whether you picked it up from the surface or dug for it, coal is still a fossil fuel. In coal mining, “lump coal” is coal as it is brought out of the mine, mostly in big pieces, before crushing into smaller pieces and separating them by size for sale. When an article starts by asserting that lump coal or any other kind of coal is renewable, that is so wrong that I cannot read any more!
Unless there is a nearby, near the surface, coal seam.
Lumps of coal from nearby mines was THE major heating fuel for most of the US when I was a child.
Oh, how I wish that wealthy New Yorkers, Chicagoans, and San Fransickans had to endure just one week of “the burning of dung, wood, and lump coal!” Just imagine the shrieking of libtard Karens when their cocktail and dinner parties are “enhanced” with the piquant aroma of burning manure! That might quiet their cries for the fallacies of the Green Raw Deal!
After their recent attempts at playing patty cake with apocalyptic, wind storm induced wild fires, I doubt that Los Angelenos will ever join them by leaving LaLaLand. If you aren’t marching in the streets with torches and pitchforks, while your hair and few remaining possessions still reek of hazardous chemical laden smoke; then you’re probably down with the complete conversion to Equity City, DEI! That last bit should read; District of Egomaniacal Infants!
It depends what they burned it in. The USA has poor access to modern technologies for domestic solid fuel combustion. Anything that meets CSA B415.1 is permitted on the market. Solid fuel combustors in Africa and Asia are far cleaner than what is permitted in the USA and Canada.
I find it interesting that such simple and thought provoking article would need to find air on platforms such as RealClearEnergy and WUWT.
We can only hope that the Trumpian era gives much wider perspective on global energy poverty.
The real interesting part is that such an article is only coming out now.
Much of the included material has been around about 5 – 10 years.
I would not get so caught up in this rush to ban indoor fires. Although, dung fires to western ears may have an unappealing ring, I love sitting in front of a fireplace on a cold New England winter evening. Besides, no offense to the author, but he is relying on “femo-statistics” regarding the health impacts of indoor smoke (not unlike the statistics on second-hand smoke that got public smoking banned). I have been exposed to second-hand smoke my whole life (first from my father and later from my wife) and it has not impacted my health one bit. At age 70, I will challenge any 20 year old to ski race down any steep trail with moguls. Go figure.
One big issue with dung fires is that they are used for cooking in an unflued environment in the dwelling. Smoke and poor burning gases do cause health issues.
Story tip – LABOUR ROW DEEPENS
Reeves is supported by a collection of Labour MPs known as the Labour Growth Group and opposed by three major Labour figures – Miliband, Khan, and Burnham.
…
The net zero-obsessed Climate Change Committee says there can be no more added capacity while Downing Street’s line remains that any expansion has to “contribute to economic growth” while upholding “existing environmental obligations.” That one won’t hold…
https://order-order.com/2025/01/24/shadow-business-trade-secretary-opposes-airport-expansion-as-labour-row-deepens/
To grow or to contract: that is the question.
I’ll bet that none of them know that Heathrow is the UK’s largest ‘port’ by value with £203bn worth of goods to 218 destinations worldwide in 2022, 112 of which were long haul. 83% of that trade was carried in the belly hold of passenger aircraft.
In 2023 it handled a slightly lower amount of £198.5bn cargo and as of July 2024 flew cargo to 234 destinations in over 85 countries. 90% of that trade was in the belly hold of passenger aircraft.
I remember reading a post at Junkscience years ago that found no correlation between these indoor fires and health. Didn’t the Scots burn peat (which is very close to dung) for indoor fires? Did they have health issues or did Scotch counter peats effect?
If you’re using indoor fires to cook your meals, you probably don’t have ready access to doctors hospitals, medicines….and indoor cooking and heating is probably not on your list of longevity concerns.
Wood boilers are common in the N Rockies. My neighbor runs a “smoke dragon”
type, he heats a large shop, a couple of ag buildings and his house. He runs a semi load
of firewood per season. I have a couple of wood stoves and a woodgas boiler for the house
that uses a wheelbarrow load per day. The wife say a wood fired shower is the best. Volvo
the Swedish company makes a portable Fischer-Tropsch plant that with a tank of LNG
can make high grade diesel on a logging landing. It’s a continuous run not a batch
type. Set up on a landing with a chipper it puts out a huge amount of fuel per hr.
The numbers are 80-100 gallons per ton of wood. The forest in this area yields around 20 tons per acre. The USFS is planning on burning a 40,000 acre unit in the next year a few miles away from me. 20×40,000= 800,000 tonsx80 = 64million gallons. 64,000,000x $3=$192 million dollars. I have some photos of one of these units in use on private forest in New England back around 07. It legally requires the approval of the Wood Products Industry to use wood from the National Forest for this and they won’t approve it….I always think about this piece when I
see reports about wildfires such as the recent ones in CA…Someone needs to get this
info to Trump.
As hard core greens want everyone (except themselves) in mud huts or yurts, why would they want to backslide? Peasant scum is what they regard most people to be, again excepting their precious selves, so keeping peasants shivering in the dark is a Good Thing.
The WHO informs us that one million people a year die in developing nations from respiratory conditions contracted from the smoke of burning wood and dung.
Most are women and children exposed to the smoke from biofuels used for heating and cooking in the home.
As referred to in this article, much of this could be alleviated by allowing these people access to cheap, reliable and clean electricity derived from burning coal in modern power stations with efficient pollution controls.
or an affordable stove for burning the fuel they have access to that exits all combustion products to the outside at a reasonable height.
As someone who spend several years working on heating systems and cooking stoves using coal, wood and dung in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia, I feel that my opinions are relevant.
“The situation in Kyrgyzstan is even worse, with half of the country’s households burning lump coal or dung for winter heat. Due to this indoor air pollution, mortality rates from lung diseases are the highest in the world in Kyrgyzstan. ”
There is a study which looks at the impact on indoor air pollution in rural Kyrgyz homes that were part of a pilot program rolling out coal stoves that were designed using modern science, engineering and materials – something that is almost even considered when sweeping changes are advocated. Comparison is always made (not just “usually”) cherry picking terrible conditions where decrepit hardware is replaced by new gas appliances. Well, duh! What do you expect? Of course there is a big improvement.
There is also a big improvement when replacing crummy old coal stoves with brand new high performance coal stoves.
Here are the stoves:
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/31774/Beyond-the-Last-Mile-Piloting-High-Efficiency-Low-Emissions-Heating-Technologies-in-Central-Asia.pdf
These are made “on the street” by local artisans for $190, 5% of the cost of inferior technologies available on Canada and the USA. This technology is in the public domain and was developed in Tajikistan, Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan with testing in China. It is now produced in those countries plus Poland, and South Africa. Properly operated, it is as clean as gas stoves and furnaces, burning raw coal (no processing other than sizing. It uses 50% to 60% of the fuel of traditional stoves, reduces black carbon emissions by 92%, PM by 98% and CO almost to zero.
Here is the impact, independently researched by Fresh Air, Netherlands:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41533-019-0144-8.epdf
Yelling about “dirty fuels” and “clean fuels” is unscientific. What matters is performance. Technical solutions should be open. There are FAR better local products available on the market than those known in the West.
Further, gas supplies in Kyrgyzstan (and apparently the region) are controlled by foreign GazProm which took over nationally and more than tripled the price of gas. That mega-marketer is itself under the control of “various power centres” between Bishkek and Moscow outside the formal sector.
Kyrgyzstan has enormous hydro potential including some of the highest dams in the world. Their plan is to power Pakistan – the lines are under construction.
The use of the fuels mentioned in open fires is well known as a source of respiratory issues, and much worse. However, intermittent renewable energy (IRE) is a major cause of the lack of available energy for those very people being deprived.
The authors of the article are intentionally blind to the real problem. That is typical of the sycophants of IRE. They are not free to criticize the WASTE of 10s of $trillions which could have provided cheap energy to those unfortunates effectively living in the stone age. They would lose their cushy jobs if they were truthful. The money is gone into the pockets of the super-wealthy. That reality is not mentioned. Such virtuous souls as the authors are not willing to address the real problem, just to complain that it is not solved.
But, think what simple digesters could have done for millions — provide very cheap methane for cooking, clean methane. But, no! These people want “modern energy” but IREs are too expensive by far for the poor to maintain. Many examples exist of dead PV panels after they fail, as in the PV cow shed seen in the attached photo.Those people are too poor to maintain or repair “modern energy” systems, Simple, effective, cheap solutions, such as digesters or solar cookers, have long been known, but do not fill the coffers of the very rich.
Biomass as the main fuel source for humanity lost out to coal by 1850 when fossil fuels surpassed wood. The maximum energy from biomass is about 30EJ, while the world consumes over 600EJ. Those having access to wood in low density populations manage, but that is NOT true for the remaining 95% of humanity.
The poor need HEAT more than electricity, heat for cooking and in colder countries in winter, heat for survival. Open fires are inefficient as well as polluting. If one wanted to help the poor, provision of simple stoves, e.g. Franklin stoves, in the hundreds of millions would enhance the efficiency of combustion, provide heat for cooking and warmth, and carry noxious gases out to disperse in the wind. That would be far more effective and cheaper than to provide intermittent electricity from wind and PV which cannot be maintained nor relied upon.
Maybe, just maybe, it’s not an unintended consequence.
Burning dried dung is quite smokeless.
The picture used to highlight this topic shows that fact vividly.
Anyone being honest would not include dried dung as contaminating indoor air.
Burning anthracite or high quality bituminous coal also gains the heat for the household without smoke.
Burning poor quality or wet lower quality bituminous coal does cause severe smoke.
As does burning dead vegetation.
One does not need expensive natural gas appliances. What they need is access to clean burning lump coal.