[Stoves] Low-cost interventions to reduce emissions and fuel consumption in open wood fires in rural communities

[K McLean]

Here is the Stockholm Environment Institute's article
<https://www.sei.org/featured/open-fire-cut-fuel-usage-cooking-emissions-in-half/>
about the scientific journal article
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0973082620302775>:

A simple addition to an open fire could cut fuel usage and cooking
emissions in half

A new study finds that rock beds and grates can reduce wood consumption by
31–58% and emissions by 51–84%.
 Topics and subtopics
Energy <https://www.sei.org/topic/energy/> : Household energy
<https://www.sei.org/topic/household-energy/?parent_topic=energy>

Gender <https://www.sei.org/topic/gender/> : Household energy
<https://www.sei.org/topic/household-energy/?parent_topic=gender>

Health <https://www.sei.org/topic/health/> : Household energy
<https://www.sei.org/topic/household-energy/?parent_topic=health>

Photo: Rob Bailis / SEI

Rural Vietnamese households can significantly reduce their wood consumption
and emissions by adding rock-beds or grates to their open cooking fires,
according to a new, open-access study
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0973082620302775>
in *Energy
for Sustainable Development.*

SEI teamed up with the non-governmental organization Sun24 and SNV
Netherlands Development Organisation to test the effectiveness of these
simple low-cost approaches. The team found that rock-beds and ceramic or
metal grates could reduce wood consumption by 31–58% and emissions by
51–84%.

“Our findings indicate that easy, inexpensive modifications to existing
cooking methods can make a real difference, by cutting down on
unsustainable fuelwood harvesting, reducing climate impacts, and improving
air quality,” said SEI Senior Scientist Rob Bailis,
<https://www.sei.org/people/rob-bailis/> an author of the study. “Making
these changes could also ease the burden of collecting wood, a task that
often falls to women.”

Many current programs focus on the cleanest cooking options – such as
stoves that use electricity, liquid petroleum gas (LPG), or ethanol –
because they have very low emissions and are more likely to reduce health
risks from indoor cooking.

But these ideal options are not available everywhere: the majority of rural
households in sub-Saharan Africa have minimal access. In South Asia, access
to clean fuels has increased, but consumption remains low
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-019-0429-8>. Where clean cooking
options are available, many people use them alongside traditional fuels and
cookstoves, a practice known as fuel or stove “stacking”.

The modifications in the study are unlikely to reduce health impacts. But
they are attractive transitional solutions because they are inexpensive,
simple to maintain, easy to replace, and require no change in cooking
practices.

Cooking options tested in this study (clockwise from upper left): iron bar
baseline stove; rock-bed; ceramic grate; and metal grate with rocks. Photo:
SEI, SNV and Sun24.

For the study, researchers tested these modifications against a baseline
iron bar stove, using both lab and field tests. The results were consistent
and robust across all tests: the modifications reduced wood consumption and
emissions.

A survey of users also revealed a high degree of satisfaction, indicating
that they would likely use these modifications for most or all of their
cooking.

“Rock beds are free and require little behavior modification. They also
reduce the drudgery of collecting firewood – a task that often falls to
women — and so are readily adopted. This makes training simple and
inexpensive. We estimate that millions of households are using rock beds as
a result of our training in a dozen African countries in partnership with
the Catholic and Anglican Churches,” said Kevin McLean, president of Sun24.
“In addition to the time saved collecting firewood, the cumulative
reductions in forest destruction, indoor and ambient air pollution and
climate damage are enormous.”

Sun24 promotes these low-cost approaches in rural communities throughout
the Global South, with current activity focused in sub-Saharan Africa. The
recent study was part of a partnership with SNV and SEI to better
understand the impacts of these efforts.

Bastiaan Teune, Global Cookstoves Coordinator for SNV explained, “At the
request of Sun 24, SNV tested this cooking concept in a laboratory in Hanoi
that was set up with support from EnDev. As we have an experienced team
that has conducted many household energy surveys, we were poised to bust
the rock bed myth. To our astonishment, the lab and the field tests only
confirmed the positive impact of rocks and grates as predicted by Sun 24.
We see great potential for our energy projects in remote and refugee
settings”.

On Wed, Sep 30, 2020 at 3:17 PM <ajheggie at gmail.com> wrote:

> The listbot held this message with an over large attachment, I have
> included a link instead.
>
> Andrew
>
> "Attached is a recently published article analyzing the testing (SWBT,
> CCT, KPT) by SNV of rock beds and grates in open-fire cookstoves.  (No
> paywall.)  Here is the online version.  The article was written by Rob
> Bailis (Stockholm Environment Institute) and an SNV team led by
> Bastiaan Teune.
>
> Free rocks on the ground below an open-fire cookstove improve
> efficiency by a third.  Rocks on a metal grate (< USD 0.50) improve
> efficiency by almost half.  Emission reductions are even greater.
>
> Please consider these findings when reviewing “The State of Access to
> Modern Energy Cooking Services", just released by the World Bank.
> This report states that $150 billion per year is needed to achieve
> universal access to modern energy cooking services by 2030.  For a
> minuscule sliver of that cost, rocks beds and rock beds with grates
> can get us much closer to this goal.
>
> These modifications do not make open-fire cookstoves clean.  But they
> do substantially decrease:
>
> Time spent by women collecting wood.
> Deforestation
> Ambient air pollution
> Climate damage
>
>
> Thank you,
> Kevin"
>
> Kevin McLean, President
> Sun24
> https://sun24.solar  Sun24 Cookstoves Overview
> Tampa, Florida, USA
> +1 (813) 505-3340
>
>
>
> https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S0973082620302775?token=6CEAA3CF7FB955D21AF0CC1F7CD01105C565A6CD80337EDEA8A8F19A7CDB7E0902BACA034ED62399A48BB6B42C6405DC
>
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