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Theme editorial: forests fuel and food
[top] [end]IntroductionThe ‘environment’ has a number of meanings. The ‘global environment’ conjures up an atmosphere increasingly affected by globally polluting gases – a consequence of the growing demand for energy. The more localized environmental issues include provision of clean ambient air, sustainable forests, non-polluted water supplies, and adequate waste disposal.For a poor woman living in a rural community, her ‘environment’ may well be a kitchen filled with smoke, inadequate access to fuel, water and sanitation, and insufficient money to improve her situation. However, she may also be the blameless victim of increased floods and drought from global warming, and fuel scarcity from non-sustainable wood felling. How should we address the need for future cooking energy, in the light of increasingly scarce wood supplies in many countries, and the increasing dangers facing the planet from nonsustainable energy use? It may be stating the obvious – but an important starting point is that for people to have food to eat, someone must cook. Unfortunately, achieving this basic need, whilst improving both the global and local environments, is far from simple. [top] [end]Options for household energy and their impact on forest resources[top] [end]Biomass stovesBiomass is the only available energy supply for millions of people, but in seeking to reduce pressures on forests, many stoves add to the burden of global pollution by creating more smoke than traditional three-stone fires. This is because the overall efficiency is made up of two parts: the combustion efficiency (how well the wood burns), which affects the amount of smoke produced; and the pot efficiency, which describes how well the heat is transferred to the cooking pot.The overall efficiency of a stove can be much higher than a three-stone fire if the pot efficiency is very high. However, the combustion efficiency is often lower. To be greenhouse gas neutral, the carbon dioxide absorbed by a wood when it is growing in the forest must match the amount of greenhouse gases produced when the wood is burnt. For this to occur, biomass fuels must be gathered from renewable sources and must have nearly 100% fuel efficiency (World Energy Assessment, Chapter 3, UN Publications, 2000). The majority of biomass stoves in current use have efficiencies of less than 30%. Thus, a stove that is considered environmentally friendly by those seeking to protect the forests may be deemed very unfriendly by those concerned with greenhouse gases, and the smoke it produces may cause greater health problems to the cook than her original three-stone fire. Improved biomass stoves should be designed to use less fuel and emit less smoke. [top] [end]Fossil fuelsFor those with access to fossil fuels, such as LPG and kerosene, the effects on the environment, from all perspectives, can be very positive. (Coal is a special case and can be as polluting as wood.) LPG and kerosene, when used in urban centres, reduce the serious pressures on forests caused by charcoal production and non-sustainable fuel gathering.Globally, less greenhouse gases are produced, especially with LPG, as the gas is more completely burnt. Although carbon dioxide is produced, this is not nearly so damaging to the environment as the products of incomplete combustion. For the cook, her environment will be cleaner, and her vulnerability decreased through improved health, less danger and fear in fuel collection, a cleaner kitchen and reduced drudgery. It can also ensure that during times of natural disaster – such as drought or flood – she still has access to fuel, and thus food. However, forests not only provide fuel – they also provide employment. Moving from a biomass-based to a fossil fuel-based energy service may have a major impact on local employment. Fossil fuel stoves tend to be imported and the supply chain for fossil fuels will employ considerably fewer people than are needed to supply households with biomass fuel. [top] [end]Other optionsSolar cookers, insulated boxes, biogas, using lids on cooking pots, and insulating house walls in cold regions, are all very environmentally friendly. Where they are appropriate to people’s lives, they can be highly beneficial. However, they are often introduced in a way that does not regard the cook as the ‘customer’ and this can lead to inappropriate introduction and low take-up of these interventions.[top] [end]New technologiesSustainably-grown biomass can be used to provide energy through gasification, methanol/ethanol production and gelfuel. Boiling Point will seek to report on any technologies that are affordable and appropriate. However, whilst the greatest polluters of the planet are in the industrialised world, it is surely incumbent on them to reduce their greenhouse emissions through research, development and change of behaviour, in order to mitigate the natural environmental disasters that afflict the most vulnerable communities.[top] [end]Download the original article Theme editorial: forests fuel and food by Liz Bates (82 KB)[top] [end]Contents: Boiling Point 49: Forests, fuel and food
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Page created:
28 June 2007; Last edited:
20 August 2007; Version: 1 | ||||||||||
Pagename: ForestsFuelAndFood @HEDON: GFFA | ||||||||||
