[Stoves] Is LPG all that bad?

[Anand Karve]

Dear Crispin,
the life style of the urban people serves as the role model for the
rural people. Our organisation is in the business of selling stoves
using biomass as fuel. We found that it was practically impossible to
sell our clean burning stoves to individual users in the rural areas
because firstly the clean burning stoves are costly and secondly
because the rural people aspire to use LPG. Our biomass burning stoves
are purchased by urban philanthrophists who distribute them as free
gifts in villages adopted by them. This means that even the biomass
burning stoves have to be subsidised, if you want the rural people to
use them. The subsidy on LPG is available in India only to individual
households and only on a particular number of cylinders per year per
family. Restaurants, hostels, industrial establishments etc. have to
buy LPG at the non-subsidised price, which is about double the
subsidised price.
Yours
A.D.Karve
***
Dr. A.D. Karve

Chairman, Samuchit Enviro Tech Pvt Ltd (www.samuchit.com)

Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)


On Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 7:19 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott
<crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:
> Dear AD
>
> LPG is a wonderful fuel for those who can get it and pay for it. Because of
> cost, kerosene was heavily subsidised in Indonesia. It became so expensive
> when the price of oil was run up that the subsidy  was literally
> bankrupting the country. They tried to raise the price and there were
> riots.
>
> So they embarked on the only other viable plan: to switch their subsidy to
> LPG but at a lower level.
>
> This was accomplished in a total of 4 years, I believe. Some 40 million
> stoves were given away. Recently Cecil Cook and the WB social science team
> led by Helen Carlsson discovered that 70% of the poor people 'cooking with
> wood' also used LPG at least part of the time.
>
> Cecil found it is used for very particular tasks which fit the description
> you gave below - largely for quick cooking and reheating of food, making tea
> and when the pots should remain clean.
>
> Problems emerged last year when the budget allocation for LPG and gasoline
> (which sells for $0.66 a litre) ran out long before year end. Same problem
> as before : rising energy prices.
>
> Now that there is a determined effort to drive the international price of
> oil down, perhaps they get a reprieve for a while, but the fact remains, to
> give access to LPG it has to be subsidised. Otherwise they will use more
> wood.
>
> It is not a matter of one of the other, people use both, but the switch to
> wood is immediate if the price rises.
>
> Globally there is a shortage of LPG. Thus pressure on the price will remain.
> Part of the price is a relatively expensive delivery cost as every aspect
> of it is regulated and has to be very safe. I say that with kerosene in mind
> which is far cheaper to distribute. It can also be loaned or sold to a
> neighbour on a small scale.
>
> Both can be burned extremely cleanly so it is a disappointment to see the
> WHO refer to kerosene as a 'dirty fuel' in need of being removed from all
> homes. A stove that cannot burn it properly is the guilty party, not 'a
> fuel'.
>
> Regards
> Crispin
>
>
> Dear List,
> I saw recently a lot of criticism against LPG. As cooking fuel, it is
> really superb, giving a blue flame without smoke or soot,
> instantaneous ignition, finger-tip control of flame intensity, no ash,
> etc. Being liquifiable, relatively large quantities of it can be
> filled into cylinders which occupy very little space in the kitchen.
> One can carry the cylinder around if the gas is needed elsewhere. I
> understand that LPG is a by product of petroleum refining and that one
> cannot avoid the production of LPG as long as we are using petroleum
> and refining it. So, if we stopped using it as cooking fuel, we shall
> have to find an alternative use for it.
> Yours
> A.D.Karve
> ***
> Dr. A.D. Karve
>
> Chairman, Samuchit Enviro Tech Pvt Ltd (www.samuchit.com)
>
> Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)
>
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