We’ve received the following request for participation: Dear Sir/Madam I kindly request your participation in a survey developed to assess the challenges and successful experiences in the Improved Cook Stove (ICS) implementation programs carried out around the globe. The purpose of this survey is to collect the know-how obtained through the experience in the diffusion of ICS worldwide, with particular emphasis on the social, cultural and economic aspects of firewood consumption. The survey’s results will contribute to develop a toolkit with recommendations for future implementation programs in Central America. Your experience is very valuable for us. We will give credit Continue reading
Technology
Haiti’s charcoal crisis comes into focus, but is anyone listening?
(Reporter William Wheeler writes about Haiti’s addiction to biomass in the most recent issue of Good Magazine)
Elizabeth Sipple, an agronomist who recently took a post as the director of International Lifeline Fund’s Haiti program, is working to wean Haiti off a lethal addiction: wood and charcoal, which supply the majority of Haiti’s energy needs.
The main source of revenue in the countryside is cutting trees for firewood and charcoal production—part of a hugely inefficient wood habit that consumes trees much more quickly than they can regenerate.
This dependency has cost the country its forests, sapped its fertility, and set the stage for an increasing series of natural disasters, including—by driving migration into the congested, anarchically-constructed capital—the human impact of the earthquake that killed roughly a quarter of a million people.
Relieving Haiti’s homefuel crisis through ethanol
Most people in the United States, Europe, or Brazil think of ethanol as a heavily subsidized corn- or sugar-based liquid biofuel that is often mixed with gasoline to power so-called “flex-fuel” vehicles.
But for the 3 billion people who depend on wood, charcoal, or animal dung for their household cooking or heating, ethanol means … … Well, ummm, actually, the word “ethanol” probably doesn’t mean all that much.
One plucky non-profit is hoping to change this by making locally and sustainably produced ethanol an attractive homefuel alternative to solid biomass fuels for the world’s 3 billion energy poor
A Insider’s Perspective on the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves
Kirk Smith, Ph.D., is probably the world’s leading authority on the public health impact of indoor air pollution caused by the incomplete combustion of biomass fuels for cooking and heating. His recent remarks help cast some light on what stakeholders can expect from the recent launch of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. We’ve borrowed the following excerpt from the good people at Indoor Air Pollution Updates and we urge you to click on the link to read the extended article. Smith KR, What’s Cooking? A Brief Update, Energy for Sustainable Development (2010), doi:10.1016/j. esd.2010.10.002 Full-text: http://ehs.sph.berkeley.edu/krsmith/publications/2010/ESD_whats_cooking.pdf (pdf, 89KB) Extensive world press Continue reading
IPCC to feature role of Black Carbon in next report
Speaking Tuesday at a briefing on Capitol Hill, EPA officials said that “black carbon” (BC), an important factor in global warming and major by-product of solid biomass fuel and dirty diesel emissions, would figure prominently in a International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report due out next year. BC emissions can also seriously affect the health of residents in households that depend on burning wood, charcoal, animal dung, and agricultural residues for home cooking and heating. Another scientific paper due out early next year is likely to cast much needed light on the role of BC on global warming. The Continue reading