[Stoves] Regressing into common sense - econometrics of cooking

[Traveller]

Tom Miles' reference to IAQ reminded me of this blog entry from the World
Bank two years ago (below). It says,

"We conducted fixed-effect panel regression analysis to investigate the
effects of various factors, including fuel (charcoal, wood, and ethanol),
stove (traditional and improved), kitchen size, ventilation, building
materials, and ambient environment on indoor air for a total of 338
households. Our findings strongly suggest that variations in cooking fuel,
stove types and kitchen size produced large differences in HAP, with
ethanol being significantly cleaner than other fuels judging by its effect
on PM2.5 and CO.  Our findings also showed that a larger kitchen
significantly improves the quality of household air. "


Duh!!

Econometricians are born stupid, turn dumb, then discover common sense.
Even then, can't understand that cooking fuel and stove types are not
independent.

With experts like these, who needs idiots?

Ms. Dasgupta knows nothing better than cite-o-logy - claiming "The Global
Burden of Disease Study 2010 found that HAP is the second leading cause of
disease in Madagascar,.."

Nothing of the sort. It didn't "find" anything. It just cooked up numbers
with manufactured data and dubious models.

One colleague reacted:


"there's a wonderful German expression, more or less "dumb geboren und
nichts dar zugelernt", roughly = "born stupid and nothing learned since"

Their conclusion could have been "there's a positive correlation between
wealth and health".

Behind the problems with the study, there's the problem of why rare public
resources are so easily poured down the drain to finance this kind of
thing. And what could possibly be done to make ODA more intellingent."


Beats me. The comedy of "clean cookstoves" is the tragedy of persistent
drudgery.

The Malawi study, in comparison, is at least honest, even if useless.

Oh, well. GACC had a revelation - a child died in a thach hut was
"SIGNIFICANT NEWS".

GACC is building an EVIDENCE BASE. What are DfID millions good for except
to discover such news in an ex-British colony?

Ms Dasgupta is to be commended for asserting "increased ventilation in
cooking areas (and where possible a spacious kitchen) will yield a better
household health environment." Could someone from the ISO/IWA exercise tell
me whether or how a "household environment" is defined for Water Boiling
Test protocols?


N
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http://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/node/1068

Addressing Household Air Pollution: A Case Study in Rural Madagascar
[image: Susmita Dasgupta's picture]
<http://blogs.worldbank.org/team/susmita-dasgupta>
SUBMITTED BY SUSMITA DASGUPTA
<http://blogs.worldbank.org/team/susmita-dasgupta> ON TUE, 01/28/2014

More than half the world’s population cooks with solid biomass fuels, such
as wood, dung, charcoal or agricultural residues. Use of these fuels has
been found to cause significant levels of respiratory infections, as well
as trachea, bronchus, and lung cancers, ischemic heart disease,
cerebrovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and
cataracts. TheGlobal Burden of Disease Study 2010
<http://www.healthmetricsandevaluation.org/gbd/research/project/global-burden-diseases-injuries-and-risk-factors-study-2010>
found
Household Air Pollution (HAP) from solid fuels to be the third leading
cause of disease worldwide. Mitigation of HAP has a vital role for lowering
health risks, particularly for women and children in developing countries
where cooking with solid fuels is a common practice.

As incomes rise, the transition to modern energy sources will ultimately
reduce HAP. During the transition, efforts to increase access to cleaner
fuels, provision of improved stoves, and public information leading to
improved ventilation and behavior change may significantly reduce exposure
to household smoke. Design of HAP reduction strategies has been hindered,
however, by a lack of data on air quality in households and the health
benefits of potential mitigation measures.

To help fill these gaps, we (along with Hussain Samad) used new information
from Madagascar on concentrations in household air of fine particles with
diameter less than 2.5 microns (PM2.5) and carbon monoxide (CO), to analyze
the effect of fuel type, stove type and ventilation on these sources of
HAP.  Our analysis
<http://econ.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64165259&theSitePK=469372&piPK=64165421&menuPK=64166093&entityID=000158349_20131009092916>
drew
on a collaboration between the World Bank and a team led by Practical
Action Consulting, including the University of Liverpool, Berkeley Air
Monitoring, Eco-consult and Project GAIA, in close co-operation with
Fondation TanyMeva, Meres Diligentes, and Agence de Jeunes pour la
Developpment à Vatomandry. From 2009-210, the team monitored indoor air in
a sample of households in two towns in Madagascar: Ambositra (located in
the central highlands), and Vatomandry (located on the central east coast).
In selecting households for air monitoring, the focus was on the two most
predominant types of fuel, charcoal and wood.

The Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 found that HAP is the second
leading cause of disease in Madagascar, accounting for some 6.7% of the
national burden of disease. More than 99 percent of households rely on
solid biomass, such as charcoal, wood, and crop waste, as the main cooking
fuel.  Since cooking with clean fuels is rare in Madagascar, after a
baseline household survey and baseline monitoring of HAP, ethanol and
ethanol stoves were distributed to a selected group of households. Locally
produced ethanol is proposed by the Madagascar Ministry of Environment to
help meet their goal of replacing 30 percent of fuelwood for cooking with
cleaner fuels. Use of improved stoves is atypical, so improved charcoal and
wood stoves were also distributed to another selected group of households
to investigate their effectiveness as potential mitigation measures.

Concentrations of  PM2.5 and CO in kitchens were monitored three times
during February-March 2009 (baseline), April 2010 (round 2), and
July-August 2010 (round 3) using UCB Particle Monitors and GasBadge Pro
Single Gas Monitors. Wherever air was monitored, average concentrations of
both pollutants significantly exceeded World Health Organization guidelines
for indoor exposure.

We conducted a fixed-effect panel regression analysis to investigate the
effects of various factors, including fuel (charcoal, wood, and ethanol),
stove (traditional and improved), kitchen size, ventilation, building
materials, and ambient environment on indoor air for a total of 338
households. Our findings strongly suggest that variations in cooking fuel,
stove types and kitchen size produced large differences in HAP, with
ethanol being significantly cleaner than other fuels judging by its effect
on PM2.5 and CO.  Our findings also showed that a larger kitchen
significantly improves the quality of household air.  As to the
effectiveness of improved stoves as potential HAP mitigation measures, our
findings are mixed. Compared with traditional charcoal stoves and
traditional wood stoves, improved charcoal stoves were found to have no
significant impact on air quality, but the improved wood stove with a
chimney was effective in reducing concentrations of CO in the kitchen. Not
surprisingly, measures to improve air circulation, especially via
ventilation with outside air also provide significant benefits in reducing
the concentration of CO.

These findings highlight a range of possible household adjustments that can
significantly mitigate HAP exposure: first, switching to clean fuels (for
example ethanol) is desirable; second, if cooking with clean fuels is not
possible, use of an improved stove with a chimney can make a significant
difference for concentrations of CO in households using wood fuel; finally,
increased ventilation in cooking areas (and where possible a spacious
kitchen) will yield a better household health environment.
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