[Stoves] Kenya: To use or not to use fuelwood?
Ronal W. Larson
rongretlarson at comcast.net
Sat Mar 11 19:03:33 CST 2017
List: cc Tom (with thanks for stating this useful thread) and Crispin
RWL1. Summary - I think Crispin is a too hard on this reporter (and the panel she was reporting on) - whose work Tom Miles sent to us today. Much of the panel dialog seems to be about charcoal and stove problems - and this seems a good chance to focus on stove health issues.
RWL2. The article we heard about today is a report on a 6-person panel that met in Nairobi on 19 January. The sponsoring organization (wPOWER) looks like a valuable one; their own write-up gives more on the panelists, who look well chosen for the topic. I see nothing too surprising in the write-up:
http://wpowerhub.org/threat-or-opportunity-what-is-the-future-of-woodfuels-as-a-renewable-energy-source/#.WMRo7BIrL_R <http://wpowerhub.org/threat-or-opportunity-what-is-the-future-of-woodfuels-as-a-renewable-energy-source/#.WMRo7BIrL_R>
RWL3. I found one other report on this panel:
http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=9cb21f8b9d12b67232bc5b542&id=6d84d9ab98&e=bccf29360a#ISP <http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=9cb21f8b9d12b67232bc5b542&id=6d84d9ab98&e=bccf29360a#ISP>, which more or less agrees with the above and the report by reporter Ms. Mwololo.
RWL4. The panel moderator Wanjira Mathai (daughter of a most-famous Kenyan) wrote very recently on the panel theme on p 48 at:
http://wpowerhub.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/population-debate-1.pdf <http://wpowerhub.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/population-debate-1.pdf>
She was probably the person who invited the 6 panelists. Her closing sentences make sense to me from the standpoint of this list and of GACC:
"We must accept that wood fuel is not a transitional fuel. It is here to stay for the foreseeable future. Demystifying the wood fuel value chain, therefore, and pursuing one that is more sustainable as population pressures increase would be a game changer for climate and would stimulate innovations in the use of this essential fuel.”
I recommend her views as the reason for this panel (and for this list).
RWL5. I didn’t follow up on all the participants, but by chance I found that Dr. Mary Njenga is expert on briquettes. For those interested in that I recommend a short video and an interview. http://borlaugleap.org/fellow/mary-njenga <http://borlaugleap.org/fellow/mary-njenga> . I think she is a future good resource for many on this list.
RWL6. Here are some other cites that somewhat relate.
http://www.familiesforcleanair.org/health/health4/ <http://www.familiesforcleanair.org/health/health4/>
http://www.lung.org/about-us/media/top-stories/wood-stoves-harm-health.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/ <http://www.lung.org/about-us/media/top-stories/wood-stoves-harm-health.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathy-shufro/wood-stove-smoke-is-killi_b_6587462.html <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathy-shufro/wood-stove-smoke-is-killi_b_6587462.html> In a single hour, a fire in a hearth generates quantities of these hydrocarbons at levels produced by burning 6,000 packs of cigarettes <http://uphe.org/priority-issues/wood-burning/wood-burning-quick-facts/>.”
This last “6000” is from http://uphe.org/priority-issues/wood-burning/wood-burning-quick-facts/ <http://uphe.org/priority-issues/wood-burning/wood-burning-quick-facts/> - and bigger than reporting in this article
More below.
> On Mar 11, 2017, at 10:32 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:
>
> Dear Stovers who want to have a clue about fuelwood combustion
>
> This is a quote from the article linked below:
>
> “At the household level, the key issues to consider are women’s and children’s health. Indeed, World Health Organization studies show that one hour of using firewood has the same health impacts as smoking a packet of cigarettes.”
[RWL7: I only found this statement in this Mwololo article - as probably from the fossil fuel representative, Ms. Manyara, who was urging LPG (which she is paid to do). We on this list don’t like it much, but this health difference is the reason for the major LPG stove tests going on with GACC support. The problem for us on this list is that we need to show that there are ways to get the biomass stove performance to be fairly comparable to LPG - and certainly less costly and less harmful to the climate than LPG. We can’t make the climate argument re ethanol - but we can say that charcoal-making stoves are also needed for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and soil improvements. Ethanol can’t do either of those, nor can it make money for the cook. I am not claiming here that these multiple benefits of char-making stoves outweigh the remaining health benefits of liquid fuels - but the poor I hope to soon see using char-making stoves may come to that conclusion. I am here saying I am in agreement with Ms. Mathai’s statement above in RWL4.
>
> Of the many untrue things written in the article, this is probably the most outrageous, and that is really saying something.
[RWL8: This above reference to WHO didn’t surprise me as much as it did Crispin. For instance, here is a quote from Kirk Smith in a WHO document:
http://www.who.int/features/2014/clean-household-energy/en/ <http://www.who.int/features/2014/clean-household-energy/en/> : “Having an open fire in your kitchen is like burning 400 cigarettes an hour,”
As Crispin responds to my statement that this statement is not outrageous, I hope he will also expand on his other “many untrue things”. These must relate to the 6 panelists - not the reporter. Since she goes through the 6 panelists sequentially, we can figure out which panelist is saying these “outrageous" things. I don’t agree with other things Ms. Manyara says - but the one above I can’t complain about.
> The exposure one gets from a single cigarette is about 45 milligrams of PM2.5.
[RWL9: I found a number about half as large - so this is not the problem.
> The exposure in the worst home tested by Fresh Air in Kyrgyzstan in the past 4 months, which has terrible indoor air pollution in most low income homes, was 6000 micrograms per cubic metre. That is 20 times the exposure in Beijing on a bad ‘orange alert’ day. The exposure of a Kenyan cook is very unlikely to be as high as that and I invite researchers to show that it is indeed as high as 6000 for one hour per day, on average.
>
> Next, to be exposed to the same level of PM2.5 as a pack of 20 cigarettes (45 x 20 = 900 mg or 900,000 µg) one would have to inhale 150 cubic metres of such air in an hour, or 150,000 litres. To do that in an hour would require about 6000 <https://www.quora.com/How-much-volume-do-we-inhale-and-exhale-in-a-day> people!
[RWL10 : I need help with the “150 cubic meters of such air in an hour”. I am pretty sure one doesn’t need anywhere near that much to smoke a pack of cigarettes. This site: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/human-air-d_186.html <http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/human-air-d_186.html> says 0.5 m^3/hour. Smoking one cigarette per hour gets me to 10 m^3 per pack - not 150.
>
> As the health effect on a human from cigarette smoke is far worse than wood smoke,
[RWL11: I found numerous statements besides the two cites above that the reverse is true. Here is one source: http://www.familiesforcleanair.org/health/health4/ <http://www.familiesforcleanair.org/health/health4/>, with these statistics:
"EPA researchers estimate the lifetime cancer risk from wood smoke to be 12 times greater than from a similar amount of cigarette smoke.
In a laboratory study at Louisiana State University <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2546867>, researchers found that hazardous free radicals in wood smoke are chemically active 40 times longer than those from cigarette smoke—so once inhaled, they will harm the body for far longer.
Other EPA estimates suggest that a single fireplace operating for an hour and burning 10 pounds of wood will generate 4,300 times more carcinogenic polyaromatic hydrocarbons than 30 cigarettes”
Crispin is asserting/assuming that the health impacts of both cigarettes and cookstove smoke are only due to PM2.5. I look for his citation that backs that up. It won’t be in anything from Kirk Smith - who has made this his life work.
I have never been in a room with cigarette smokers as bad as many wood-burning stove situations I have been in. I have been in a closed room with a char-making stove where I could smell nothing.
> let’s call it 10,000 people to be safe. If an exaggeration of 10,000-fold is not alarming enough, consider all the other unsupportable ‘climate’ assertions thrown left and right in this piece. Good grief why can’t people just promote their products on their merits without linking it to all the junk-topics-of-the-hour.
[RWL12: I found no “unsupportable climate assertions”. This panel was apparently often talking about charcoal production - which is why I am on this list and responding. I can’t recall any article, except for those on biochar, that says char-making is climate-beneficial. Does anyone have any such “junk-topic” cite?
>
> CleanStar’s product makes perfectly good sense and has a viable business plan. Sugar cane-based ethanol is a processed biofuel which is convenient and can be burned very cleanly (test, don’t assume). It can be produced at scale and distributed at lower cost and at greater convenience than LPG. So….just do it.
>
> For those who don’t know Sagun, he was one of the judges in the TerraWatt Prize competition held by National Geographic a couple of years ago. The organizer of that competition was so inspired by the experience he has moved to Mozambique to try to fill in a gap created when CleanStar moved to Kenya.
[RWL13: See this about Sagun: http://blog.worldagroforestry.org/index.php/2013/06/14/biofuels-venture-connects-cities-to-farms-in-mozambique/ <http://blog.worldagroforestry.org/index.php/2013/06/14/biofuels-venture-connects-cities-to-farms-in-mozambique/> . He seems to be doing good work - as Crispin is agreeing
>
> May they both succeed.
[RWL14: Not sure who “both” refers to - maybe CleanStar in both Kenya and Mozambique? I agree - but not agreeing on LPG.
(small bit more below)
>
> Regards
> Crispin
>
>
>
>
> Using Efficient Methods to Manage Fuelwood is the Key
> By MILLICENT MWOLOLO
>
> To use or not to use fuelwood?-http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/DN2/kenya-fuel-use-or-not-to-use-fuelwood/957860-3838414-ra9sgf/index.html <http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/DN2/kenya-fuel-use-or-not-to-use-fuelwood/957860-3838414-ra9sgf/index.html>
> In Summary
>
> Woodfuel releases carbon fumes into the air, adding to the carbon footprint and global warming. This has resulted in global climatic change, which is also being witnessed in Kenya in the form of higher temperatures, prolonged droughts and dry spells.
>
[RWL15: These two sentences in the summary appear exactly the same in the text and as a photo caption. I react a little negatively (wanting to see stove performance improve and believing biochar reduces the carbon footprint), but there is no doubt that black carbon (soot) has a global warming effect. Traditional char-making which is only venting (not flaring) the pyrolysis gases is also adding to global warming. And as long as forests are disappearing (as they are in Kenya), this also adds to global warming.
I have no problems with the next two summary statements, which were surely part of the panel discussions (thankfully). But, as I am trying here to point out - making charcoal in a home stove setting has many advantages to the user and society (who should be offering incentives to do that). I wish the panel had someone to advance char-making stoves - but I found the overall panel to be mostly talking about the right things - the stove world needs much help.
Ron
> Though new to the local market, ethanol has gained wide use in Mozambique because it is clean and efficient, comparable to LPG. CleanStar Ventures has conducted market research primarily in urban households that confirms the convenience and safety of ethanol.
>
> The Kenya Forestry Service (KFS), the Kenya Forestry Research Institute (Kefri), and ICRAF, among others, are working with farmers on managing trees for woodfuel. They promote the harvesting of mature stems, growing of acacia trees for charcoal and managing trees in drylands.
>
>
>
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