NASA Study says Black Carbon Deposits on Himalayan Ice Threaten Earth’s "Third Pole"

Black soot deposited on Tibetan glaciers has contributed significantly to the retreat of the world’s largest non-polar ice masses, according to new research by scientists from NASA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Soot absorbs incoming solar radiation and can speed glacial melting when deposited on snow in sufficient quantities. (Pic: To better understand the role that black soot has on glaciers, researchers trekked high into the Himalayas to collect ice cores that contain a record of soot deposition that spans back to the 1950s. Credit: Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Researchers led by Baiqing Xu of the Chinese Academy drilled and analyzed five ice cores from various locations across the Tibetan Plateau, looking for black carbon (a key component of soot) as well as organic carbon. The cores support the hypothesis that black soot amounts in the Himalayan glaciers correlate with black carbon emissions in Europe and South Asia.

Temperatures on the Tibetan Plateau -- sometimes called Earth's "third pole" -- have warmed by 0.3°C (0.5°F) per decade over the past 30 years, about twice the rate of observed global temperature increases. New field research and ongoing quantitative modeling suggests that soot's warming influence on Tibetan glaciers could rival that of greenhouse gases.

At Zuoqiupu glacier -- a bellwether site on the southern edge of the plateau and downwind from the Indian subcontinent -- black soot deposition increased by 30 percent between 1990 and 2003. The rise in soot levels at Zuoqiupu follows a dip that followed the enacting of clean air regulations in Europe in the 1970s.

Most soot in the region comes from diesel engines, coal-fired power plants, and outdoor cooking stoves. Many industrial processes produce both black carbon and organic carbon, but often in different proportions. Burning diesel fuel produces mainly black carbon, for example, while burning wood produces mainly organic carbon. Since black carbon is darker and absorbs more radiation, it’s thought to have a stronger warming effect than organic carbon.

"Tibet's glaciers are retreating at an alarming rate," said James Hansen, coauthor of the study and director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City. "Black soot is probably responsible for as much as half of the glacial melt, and greenhouse gases are responsible for the rest."

The study was published December 7th in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Fifty percent of the glaciers were retreating from 1950 to 1980 in the Tibetan region; that rose to 95 percent in the early 21st century," said Tandong Yao, director of the Chinese Academy's Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research. Some glaciers are retreating so quickly that they could disappear by mid-century if current trends continue, the researchers suggest.

Since melt water from Tibetan glaciers replenishes many of Asia’s major rivers -- including the Indus, Ganges, Yellow, and Brahmaputra -- such losses could have a profound impact on the billion people who rely on the rivers for fresh water. While rain and snow would still help replenish Asian rivers in the absence of glaciers, the change could hamper efforts to manage seasonal water resources by altering when fresh water supplies are available in areas already prone to water shortages.

The Improved Cook Stoves Stories...

The New Yorker is the most recent to take a serious look at the Cookstoves challenge. (Burkhard Bilger, Annals of Invention, “Hearth Surgery,” The New Yorker, December 21, 2009, p. 84)

Later, writing for his blog (The Perfect Stove – New Yorker Blog Post), Bilger puts out a quick look at the annals of the new stove:

Industrial giants like Bosch-Siemens, British Petroleum, and Philips Electronics have all tried their hand at building more expensive and sophisticated devices—stoves that cost between twenty and a hundred dollars retail, and are clean enough to run indoors. The results have been mixed.
The Germans, at Bosch-Siemens, developed an elegant oil-burning unit called the Protos, but it never really took off. (It’s as noisy as a blast torch, I was told). The British, at BP, spent millions designing a stove that runs on pellets, then promptly abandoned the project and sold the design to an Indian company.

The Dutch, at Philips, have just finished field tests of a stainless -stell fan stove, a prototype of which I tried out this fall. The Philips stove has a rechargeable fan in its base that works as a kind of bellows: it helps the fire light quickly and keeps it burning hot and clean. The stove that I used boiled a pot of water faster than my GE gas range, produced almost no smoke, and left only a thin residue of ash behind.

Even more promising is a stove designed by an Italian-American engineer named Nathaniel Mulcahy. The LuciaStove, as he calls it, is a gasifier made of beautifully injection-molded aluminum. It’s modular in design, so its most intricate parts can be packed flat and shipped inexpensively, while the rest can be manufactured locally...

Finally, Dean Still and the engineers at Aprovecho have joined with a start-up firm called Biolite to create a new generation of low-emissions stoves. Their design incorporates a thermoelectric fan designed by Jonathan Cedar and Alec Drummond, co-founders of BioLite. The fan runs without batteries or external electricity. Instead, it uses the heat from the fire to generate its own power. Cedar and the Aprovecho staff built the prototype in October and presented it for the first time at an international stove meeting in Bangkok, in November. The new stove reduces emissions by more than ninety per cent, compared to an open fire, and should cost about twenty dollars a unit to build. Best of all, it’s user-friendly: unlike other fan stoves, it has a side-feeding combustion chamber that’s easy to refuel. Aprovecho and BioLite hope to make it commercially available by 2011.

(Photos: Top, the Philips Stove. Middle: Nat Mulcahy prepares to add fuel to his Lucia stove. The copper pot can be set on top of the stove to function as a space heater. Bottom: The Biolite Stove

Global Economies pitch in with $350 Million Climate REDI Initiative

At United Nations’ Summit on climate change at Copenhagen, the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) Secretary Steven Chu unveiled Climate REDI - the Climate Renewables and Efficiency Deployment Initiative.

Climate REDI is a $350-million investment by major economies of the world towards increasing efficiencies in home appliances and developing renewable energy sources specifically wind and solar energy in developing world. The initiative will fund the deployment of “affordable home systems and LED lanterns to those without access to electricity,” according to a program fact sheet.

Reported Scientific American that Jairam Ramesh, Minister of Environment, India, welcomed the effort and called for his country to be one of the recipients. Such technology transfers with specific funding is what developing world is looking at as part of any Copenhagen agreement.

Writes Scientific American:

The 1970s, refrigerators in the U.S. have swelled from 18 cubic feet to 22 cubic feet. But, at the same time, the energy consumption of such gargantuan coolers has dropped by 75 percent, down to roughly 40 watts, saving countless tons of coal from being burned. And a five-year global program that reached all the refrigerators in the world with similar efficiency improvements might save 1.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide over that span, a significant contribution to combating climate change.

And that's exactly what U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) Secretary Steven Chu unveiled here Monday at the United Nations' summit on climate change: the Climate Renewables and Efficiency Deployment Initiative (Climate REDI)—a $350-million investment by major economies, including $85 million from the U.S., to bring everything from efficient refrigerators to solar lanterns to the developing world.

"The energy savings from refrigerators is greater than all U.S. renewable energy generation—all the wind, solar thermal and solar photovoltaics —just the refrigerators," Chu said in a speech announcing the initiative, noting the refrigerators also cost less. "Energy efficiency is truly a case where you can have your cake and eat it too. [But] it was driven by standards; it didn't happen on its own."

In addition to coordinating global standards for efficient appliances, Climate REDI will also invest in further developing renewable energy sources—such as wind and solar power—in the developing world. The initiative will fund the deployment of "affordable home systems and LED lanterns to those without access to electricity," according to a program fact sheet.

"We want to help turn the lights on where people live but also in a way that helps solve climate change," Chu said, referring to the at least 1 billion people who lack access to electricity globally.

Jairam Ramesh, India's minister of the environment, welcomed the effort and called for his country to be one of the recipients. But he also noted that "Indian companies have been pioneers in low-cost pharmaceuticals now being widely used in Africa. I see no reason why Indian companies in the next five or six years with the help of American counterparts cannot emerge as world leaders in renewable energy technology.

Photo: U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) Secretary Steven Chu.

INTERVIEW: BUSINESS FIGHTS POVERTY

On the eve of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, the Business Innovation to Fight Climate Change and Poverty focussed on business innovations for the global South that help mitigate climate change and its impact on the poor. What types of innovative models are emerging? How can these be brought to scale? What is the role of governments and donors to encourage innovation?

The event was sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Growing Inclusive Markets initiative (GIM), and co-hosted by Business Fights Poverty, the Overseas Development Institute, the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Interview of Jeroen Blum, Deputy Director, Shell Foundation who take part in the panel discussion.

See what’s cooking in Shimoga...

In an interview with Deccan Herald, Shell Foundation Policy and Communications Manager, Simon Bishop talks about how Shell Foundation is tackling the issue of Indoor Air Pollution and creating awareness for it's reduction by running campaigns such as the current campaign on promoting ‘improved stoves’ in the Shimoga district of Karnataka .

Here are the excerpts from the interview...

How are emission reduction stoves useful?
It has been estimated that if we could get an improved stove into every one of the 500 million homes in the world that still cook on open fires and traditional stoves this would reduce CO2 emissions by more than Britain’s annual CO2 output. Put another way, an improved stove used regularly each day for one year, offsets a return London to New York flight. Stoves also reduce black carbon. We are aware that there is some disagreement between scientists on just how big a role black carbon plays in climate change. If, in time, it is proven to play a significant role, then, improved cook stoves which have an estimated impact of 55% reduction in smoke levels and up to 40% reduction in fuel usage could represent a highly effective way to tackle black carbon emissions.

So, how will the stoves help?
Since biomass is likely to remain the main source of cooking fuel for a large majority of rural Indian households for many years to come, the main aim of the improved stoves is to retain the traditional style of cooking - using traditional fuels like wood - but reduce fuel use and the health impacts from Indoor Air Pollution.

The mode of use of both the Selco and Envirofit stoves strikes a close similarity to that of a traditional cook stove from the cooking methods to the placing of fuel in the stoves. None of these stoves require prior installation, and maintenance mainly consists of clearing out the ashes from the cook stove.

Also, there is an ongoing (for the last two years) Monitoring and Evaluation Assessment of Improved Stove Projects in South India conducted by Berkeley Air, California and being implemented on ground by Sri Ramachandra University, Chennai which indicates significant reductions in carbon monoxide and particulate matters due to the use of alternative improved stove models by households in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Shell Foundation: Getting 2 Billion People to Adopt Improved Stoves Needs an Enterprise Approach

The issues in changing over 2.6 billion people worldwide from traditional fuel stove to improved biomass cooking stoves lie as much in driving home the health message as ensuring that the process meets the demands of business viability, demographic reach, appropriate pricing and financing options, Shell Foundation India Country Head Anuradha Bhavnani said at the Technical Consultation on 'Advanced Cook Stoves for Improved Health of Women and Children' organized by USAID here today.

Outlining the learnings from the ongoing Indoor Air Pollution awareness campaign in Shimoga District of Karnataka, Ms Bhavnani said the four cardinal requirements are that, First, stoves that meet standards of reduced emission; Second, price points that are viable for business scaling; third, financing options; and fourth, the participation of the government at the grassroot level to gve scale to the awareness programs. Jeoren Blum, Deputy Director, Shell Foundation, presided over the session on Enterprise Solutions to Poverty.

Shell Foundation has undertaken a comprehensive program of engagement in 111 villages in Shimoga and is partnering with the district and state administration to drive awareness on the third largest killer in the country, Indoor Air Pollution (IAP).

“The Shell Foundation sees this awareness campaign as one of the most exciting and important developments in its Breathing Space program, which aims to achieve a significant long term reduction in IAP by designing so-called improved stoves that are more emission and fuel efficient - and by developing a sustainable way to get them in to people’s homes,” said Mr Jeroen Blum, Deputy Director, Shell Foundation.
Shell Foundation has received support from the Chief Minister’s office on its proposal to appoint an inter-ministerial committee with participation of IAP experts, stove manufacturers, MFIs, NGOs and others to develop a blueprint for State action. The State Government has positively viewed Shell Foundation’s proposal to adopt a mission of turning Districts with high firewood usage into “IAP Free Districts”, starting with Shimoga as a model District. The campaign currently in operation in the Shimoga district in Karnataka has received the support of relevant officials of the State and District administration.

The campaign in Shimoga district is an initiative by Shell Foundation to focus on promoting the internationally-recognised, most effective and sustainable method for tackling IAP, namely ‘improved stoves’, which significantly reduce emissions and fuel use. At present, the program is taking the message to 111 villages in Shimoga district through a combination of on-ground static and interactive activities. The high intensity campaign is being conducted over a 90-day time period between October and January 2009.

The campaign is also being reached to the people through active support from the District Administration including the health and education infrastructure, village level health workers and demonstration of campaign for Gram Panchayats.

The current initiative follows a pilot campaign on IAP conducted by Shell Foundation in 2008 in the districts of Raichur, Koppal, Udupi and Mysore, which indicated that although small changes like ‘keeping the kitchen windows open’, ‘installing a chimney or ventilator’, ‘keeping children
away from smoke‘ or ‘use of dry firewood’ can make a big difference in reducing IAP, the final focus needs to be on motivating people to change behaviour, with a focus on improved stoves.
Shell Foundation has also developed the concept of ‘standardization of stoves’ to be able to directly connect the campaign with the improved stoves. The mark called ‘Symbol of trust’ (see top of release for symbol) will appear on the packaging and marketing materials of all improved stove manufacturers i.e. those that have passed rigorous tests on minimum emissions and fuel reduction standards as laid down by international bodies. At the local level, this mark will double-up as a ‘standards mark’ to indicate an improved stove that will reduce smoke levels by as much as 55%, while using at least 40% less fuel.
The campaign is being taken to the doorstep using the concept of Sustained Activist Householder who is an active local village lady visiting various households and informing the villagers about the problems of IAP and its solution – use of improved stoves standardised with the ‘mark of trust’ through flipchart stories and distribution of leaflets. Smoke-less Stove demos being conducted at weekly markets will introduce villagers to the benefits and effective use of stoves by providing them with a first-hand experience of using the stove.
At present, the campaign by Shell Foundation will highlight to the villagers the presence of independent improved stove manufacturers like Envirofit and Selco who have launched a range of clean burning biomass cookstoves in the country designed by teams of globally recognized scientists and engineers.

India's National Cookstove Initiative an Opportunity For US to Contribute to Tackling IAP

India’s “National Biomass Cook Stove Initiative” is an exciting opportunity for the U.S. to contribute to India’s longstanding efforts to tackle the problem of indoor air pollution in India while enhancing the lives of all Indians, says US Ambassdor to India Timothy J Roemer. He was speaking at a technical consultation on 'Advanced Cook Stoves for Improved Health of Women and Children' in New Delhi organized by USAID to address health and environment outcomes associated with use of traditional open fire cook stoves.

(Picture: Ambassador Timothy Roemer and Indian Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Mr. Farooq Abdullah)

The event saw participation from eminent academicians, business and government officials and experts from civil society & development sector. The discussions focused around the potential and opportunities for moving forward with improved, cleaner and healthier cook stoves in India.

Speaking on the event, US Ambassador to India Timothy J. Roemer said:

“The United States of America welcomes the bold announcement of India’s ‘National Biomass Cook Stoves Initiative’ – quite likely the largest initiative of its kind in the world.

India’s “National Biomass Cook Stove Initiative” is an exciting opportunity for the U.S. to contribute to India’s longstanding efforts to tackle the problem of indoor air pollution in India while enhancing the lives of all Indians. Working together, we can make efficient and healthy cook stoves accessible to all.

Sharing a meal unites families, friends, and communities every day in every corner of the world. And yet, in so many parts of the world and in so many communities in India, the simple act of preparing a traditional meal and nourishing a family can expose the household and neighborhood to increased levels of pollution.

Because women are usually responsible for food preparation, the reality is that the majority of those exposed to indoor air pollution are women – and the young children who spend their days with their mothers around the cook stove. Yet, women often play a critical decision making role with respect to household energy resources. And when women control decisions related to the kitchen and cooking, it can lead to investment in alternatives, like improved cook stoves which not only benefit their families, but their communities.

Every year in India, exposure to smoke from solid fuels contributes to nearly
440,000 deaths in children under five years and more than 34,000 deaths from chronic respiratory disease in women. That is close to half a million women and children.

The saddest part of this story is that these deaths are largely preventable and the effects of indoor air pollution on our communities and planet can be ameliorated with the efforts of those of you represented here today.

I have long been very deeply concerned about the harmful effects of indoor air pollution on the health and wellbeing of men, women, and children, as well as on our environment. It is a well documented fact that open cook stoves without chimneys, or chulhas, as they are called in India, are a major contributor to indoor air pollution throughout the world.

This is not only an Indian problem, but as a global power, India can lead the way to a solution for her own citizens and others at risk around the world.

Since my arrival in India, I’ve looked for opportunities in all areas where our two great nations can come together. Today is one of the many, I hope, results of that search. We’ve got some of the best minds currently working on improved cook stoves here in this room today and I urge you to work together to find a way forward for the health of our communities and our planet.

Today’s conference brings us one step closer to developing safe and affordable cook stoves that honor the cooking traditions so important to families throughout India while protecting the health and safety of these families and our environment."
Photo Courtesy: US Embassy Photo Gallery

India puts Improved Biomass Cook Stoves on the National Agenda

The Government of India today pushed the button on an aggressive cookstoves program. The Times of India reported that Once completely rolled out the full-scale programme would target 135-140 million households nationwide that still depend on burning wood, twigs, leaves and agriculture residues for heating and cooking needs.

(LEFT: The Union Minister of New and Renewable Energy, Dr. Farooq Abdullah addressing at the Launch of ‘National Biomass Cookstoves Initiative’ in New Delhi on December 02, 2009)

Following is the full text of the Press Release on Launching of the ‘National Biomass Cookstove Initiative’ on 2nd December 2009 at New Delhi

A New Initiative on Improved Biomass Cookstoves

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) is launching a new initiative on biomass cookstoves, with the primary aim of enhancing the availability of clean and efficient energy for the energy deficient and poorer sections of our society.

A large section of our country’s population – 75% of the rural households and 22% of the urban households, according to the National Sample Survey’s 61st survey -- still uses biomass for its cooking needs. An estimated 80% of the residential energy in India comes from biomass, much of it burnt in traditional chulhas. The adverse health and socio-economic implications of this form of energy supply are enormous, with women and children at particular risk. The burden of biomass fuel collection and processing for cooking also falls mainly upon women and children (mainly girls), who spend significant time gathering fuel resources every day.

Therefore, providing a clean cooking energy option for these households will yield enormous gains in terms of health and socio-economic welfare of the weakest and the most vulnerable sections of society. At the same time, the cleaner combustion in these devices will greatly reduce the products of incomplete combustion which are greenhouse pollutants, thus helping combat climate change.

This initiative of MNRE is envisaged to be structured differently from the earlier National Programme on Improved Chulhas, although it will build on the several successes of that programme while also drawing lessons from the experience gained from its implementation.

The starting point of the current exercise is the user. The solution on offer should, first and foremost, be easy to use and maintain and conform to local cooking habits across the country. Its adoption must make economic sense to the household. The programme is conceived not as a handout to poorer households, but rather as an economically sustainable business solution. As the Prime Minister of India has often said, we need to make the poor of this country bankable.

This new initiative is also based on the recognition that cookstove technology has improved considerably in the past few years. But further advances are still possible and, indeed essential. Our aim is to achieve quality of energy services from cookstoves comparable to that from other clean energy sources such as LPG.

MNRE has held several brainstorming sessions and consultations over the past few months with a range of stakeholders and experts from civil society, academia, business, and government to develop an understanding of current activities and future potential of such a programme. The Prime Minister’s Office has been closely associated with these deliberations.

Under this Initiative a series of pilot-scale projects are envisaged using several existing commercially-available and better cookstoves and different grades of processed biomass fuels. This will help in exploring a range of technology deployment, biomass processing, and delivery models leveraging public-private partnerships.

At the same time, it will set in motion a series of activities that are designed to develop the next-generation of household cookstoves, biomass-processing technologies, and deployment models. This may include an innovative global contest to develop combustion units with high thermal efficiency and low pollution characteristics and, in parallel, appropriate biomass-processing devices The Initiative will aim for a significant enhancement of technical capacity in the country by setting up state-of-the-art testing, certification and monitoring facilities and strengthening R&D programmes in key technical institutions. An independent monitoring and evaluation component is envisaged to assess the activities and fine-tune them on an ongoing basis. And, last but not the least, it will welcome and promote participation by civil society and private actors to make it a true public-private partnership.

MNRE also believes that the technologies and delivery models that will be developed through this Initiative will be useful for other developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America whose populations also suffer from health and other problems related to biomass use in household cooking. Therefore success of this Initiative could well have a transformative impact not only for our own citizens but also for the energy poor in other developing countries.