How can we ensure safe energy for everyone?

Though growing interest in energy access issues in developing countries has led to more open discussions and more funding opportunities, much of it is focused on electrification needs, not clean cooking and heating fuels. Despite the lop-sided attention, the statistics on access to clean cooking and heating fuels in the developing world are just as (if not more) staggering as the electrification challenge, and ensuring access to modern fuels demands at least as much urgency.

Approximately 3 billion people globally, 80% of whom live in rural areas, use open fires and simple cook stoves fueled by wood, animal dung, crop wastes, and coal. These sources emit dangerous levels of greenhouse gases and hazardous particulate matter, and pose elevated risks for uncontrolled fires. TheWorld Health Organization estimates that illnesses resulting from household air pollution caused by the inefficient use of solid fuels are responsible for 4.3 million premature deaths annually. As of 2010, indoor air pollution caused more premature deaths than tuberculosis or malaria.

Health hazards are not the only issues that arise from the use of traditional fuels. Collecting wood, dung, and other types of biomass requires a significant amount of time and money. While the fuel itself is free, as people are able to collect it themselves to cook and heat their houses the time it takes to gather these fuels could be spent on more productive or health-protecting activities. In addition, the use of traditional biomass stoves increases pressures on local natural resources and contributes to climate change at the regional and global level.

A significant gender component also exists: women (and children) take on the greatest share of the health burden associated with the use of traditional fuels because they spend the most time at home. They also typically bear both the physical burden and the time burden of collecting, transporting and processing the fuels. Women and girls can spend upwards of 20 hours each week collecting fuel for their families, and may face increased security risks during their search.

The good news is that there are better, cleaner options. Kerosene, though not necessarily the best alternative, is used when available and affordable. LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) is commonly used in urban areas where people can afford more modern fuels and distribution systems such as pipelines and better roadways for trucking exist. Dimethyl ether (DME) is growing in popularity, particularly in China, and has similar chemical and combustion properties to LPG, but can be made from any organic matter. Kerosene, LPG, and DME are typically liquid fuels (generally under slight pressure) that burn much cleaner than solid fuel alternatives. In lab tests, LPG proves to reduce the most harmful emissions, such as sulfur dioxide (SOx), nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide (NOx), and particulate matter (PM), by over 95% compared to cooking over an open fire. These liquid fuels also burn more efficiently and have higher energy densities than their solid counterparts. The energy density of LPG, for example, is 46.3 MJ/kg, while that of wood is on average 14.4 MJ/kg. This means users require less of the liquid fuels to produce the same amount of energy for cooking or heating.

Although the proportion of households using solid fuels has declined, the actual number of people without access to clean fuels has remained largely constant primarily due to population growth. AsBonjour et al. show, there is a close relationship between traditional cooking solutions and poverty, demonstrated in the strong correlation between biomass usage and low per capita GDP.

Figure 1. Consumption of solid fuels vs. GDP per capita (Source: Bonjour et al.)

The biggest barrier to the adoption of more efficient cook stoves and more modern fuels is initial upfront costs. Most low-income users typically favor fuels like charcoal and kerosene because they can be bought in small quantities (on a per mass or volume basis) which they can afford. DME and LPG, on the other hand must be bought in large cylinders, which have high initial cost but are cheaper in the long-run. Although it is hard to convince someone living paycheck to paycheck, the high upfront costs of modern technologies can be recovered through fuel savings that can then be allotted to other livelihood expenditures.

Any potential strategy (or, more likely, portfolio of solutions) to increase the uptake of clean cooking and heating technologies must go beyond programs that simply give out advanced cook stoves or subsidize cleaner fuels. A recent study aimed at evaluating how these stoves perform in real-world conditions over long time horizons showed that “improved cook stoves in India did not reduce smoke exposure, improve health, or reduce fuel usage of recipients because they were not used regularly and recipients did not invest to maintain them properly” (emphasis added). Household needs and preferences must be accounted for. For instance, women are more likely to adopt new technology if it reduces the labor required for household tasks (in this particular case, the burden of the fuel chain).

The transition to more modern cooking fuels creates large opportunities for improving quality of life. Grasping that opportunity will require improvements in many areas, like supply chain networks, policies and institutional frameworks, business models, financing schemes, and improved technology. A few companies have had significant success in bringing cleaner fuel to people by developing community-conscious business models. India’s Samuchit EnviroTech has developed an at-home biogas digester, which can be homemade inexpensively to produce biogas, used like LPG, from household waste. In utilizing waste a household currently produces, the end user does not have to spend time finding their energy source. Another successfully scaled company, First Energy, has a developed a device that uses densified biomass from agricultural waste as fuel, providing an LPG-like flame with a leasing model targeted at the food-service establishments. Successfully addressing the variety of challenges requires that energy access discussions focus on the crucial issues surrounding cooking and heating fuels in addition to electricity.

This article is published in collaboration with The Energy Collective. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum. 

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Author: Angi Acocella is a Graduate Student at MIT. Lily Mwalenga is a Master’s student at MIT

Image: Livestock is seen inside a Turkana cattle kraal, as food is cooked on a fire, in the disputed area of the Ilemi triangle in northwestern Kenya. REUTERS/Siegfried Modola