If ever there is a simple government mandate that is clearly and
immediately beneficial gto the government itself it is the outright
distribution of safe cooking stoves of some form. The USA and Canada
was built on flat topped wood burners that carried of gases through
stove pipes. They easily handled coal when it was available and
reduced most trash before it really became a problem. Of course it
normally included an oven and sometimes a doubtful water tank.
My point is that it worked and kept that one room warm while doing a
great job.
The main tool is the stove pipe. Whatever is rigged up beneath it
must escape its gases and nothing is more important. A grass
thatched mud hut becomes pleasant with a stove pipe and a hood over
an open flame.
Plenty of effort is now going into getting this all right for more
tropical conditions and this item tells us just how important it
happens to be. And what holds true in China, also holds true for two
billion others around the world.
Cooking Fuel
Transition in China
Despite China's
booming economy, many poor individuals continue to use traditional
stoves that burn low-grade solid fuels like charcoal and coal. Such
stoves generate high levels of indoor air pollution that cause dire
health problems, especially in women and children. These health
concerns include asthma, bronchitis, and heart disease. By 2030, a
new study predicts, nearly a quarter of the rural population and
one-sixth of city dwellers could still be using such stoves. However,
with a relatively small per capita investment, the study suggests,
those values could drop to zero.
The study, led by
Brijesh Mainali of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm,
Sweden, appears in a special issue of the American Institute of
Physics' Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy (JRSE) that
focuses on emerging energy trends in China.
Mainali, who has been
working in the field of rural energy for the past 15 years, along
with senior researcher Shonali Pachauri and researcher Yu Nagai –
both from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in
Vienna, Austria – modeled cooking fuel and stove choices in both
rural and urban Chinese populations. Choices were modeled to depend
on standard economic variables such as income, technology costs, and
fuel prices, along with some variables unique to developing countries
such as inconvenience costs.
The analysis revealed
that, under a business-as-usual scenario, 24 percent of the rural and
17 percent of the urban population might still depend on solid fuels
in 2030. For an annual cost of just $2.39 per person, the researchers
found, universal access to modern fuels could be achieved by that
date in urban areas. Providing such fuels to rural areas would cost
substantially more – an estimated $10.75 per person – but,
Mainali notes, "the associated reductions in the adverse impacts
on health and emissions of greenhouse gases, as well as general
improvements in socio-economic welfare that are likely to accompany
any access policies, justify such investment." Once there is
access to modern fuels, he says, "the change that it brings to
lives and society also changes prosperity levels and thus, in the
long run, the required subsidies could be phased out or reduced."
Title: "Analyzing
Cooking Fuel and Stove Choices in China Till 2030"
Journal: Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy
Authors: Brijesh Mainali (1,2), Shonali Pachauri (2), Yu Nagai (2,3)
- Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, Stockholm, Sweden
- International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria
- Technische Universitat Wien, Vienna, Austria
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