Rural Pollution From Farm Practices And Biomass Fuel: Indian Government

The Indian Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Mr Jairam Ramesh, has said that pollution in ambient air in rural areas, particularly in terms of PM10 (particulate matter having size less than 10 micron), is due to agricultural practices, burning of post-harvest residual stalks, use of wood, coal and dung-cake based hearth and baking of earthen pots.

In a written reply to a question by Shri Om Prakash Yadav in the lower house of Indian Parliament on March 7, the minister said that NEERI, Nagpur has undertaken a study, namely, Control of Indoor Air Pollution in Rural Areas under RSWNET (Rural Development, SC/ST, Women, North-East and Tribal Sector) project during 2009-10. NEERI has reported an increase in concentration of Carbon Monoxide, PM10 and Volatile Organic Compounds in indoor air in the rural household due to burning of wood, coal and dung-cake in kitchen.

According to the Minister, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has launched a National Biomass Cook-stoves Initiative in December, 2009 with the primary aim of enhancing the availability of clean and efficient energy for energy deficient and poorer sections of the society. MNRE is also implementing a National Biogas and Manure Management Programme and a total of 4.32 million family type biogas plants have been installed under the programme since inception to create a smoke free environment for women in rural kitchens, the reply said.

X PRIZE, Indian Government, IIT Delhi to Partner Global Competition for Clean-Burning Cookstoves

The X PRIZE Foundation, an educational non-profit that designs and administers competitions with prizes of up to $30 million, the Government of India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi  have formed a partnership to create a global competition to develop and deploy clean and efficient cookstoves, says a Press Release of the Foundation.

The competition will focus on the development of affordable and clean-burning cookstove technologies (and possibly delivery models) and is a part of the MNRE’s National Biomass Cookstoves Initiative, which was launched in December 2009. Details of the competition, including the announcement of the launch date, prize purse and competition guidelines are forthcoming.

A study conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that indoor air pollution was responsible for more than 1.6 million deaths worldwide in the year 2000, making it the second largest environmental contributor to ill health, behind unsafe water and sanitation. Additionally, the study found that when households are filled with smoke from inefficient stoves, exposure to these emissions increase the risks of developing pneumonia, cataracts, and tuberculosis. Furthermore, cookstoves generate products of incomplete combustion that are contributors to climate change.

Approximately 70% of Indian households -- more than 160 million households, comprising about 770 million people – are estimated to depend on simple but polluting cookstoves that burn solid fuel, mainly wood or coal. It also is estimated that approximately 400,000 to 550,000 people – primarily women and children – die of the resulting indoor air pollution each year in the country. This makes the cookstoves problem in India and the potential market for cleaner cookstoves amongst the largest in the world.

The cookstoves competition falls under the X PRIZE Foundation’s Education & Global Development prize group, which tackles major challenges in areas such as learning, hunger, health and water. Addressing the grand challenges of our time, the X PRIZE Foundation generates innovation through incentivized competition. Through the strategic design of ground-breaking competitions with significant, multi-million dollar prize purses, X PRIZE spurs collaboration among the world’s most brilliant minds to tackle the most pressing issues and create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity.

The competition is also an integral part of the MNRE’s National Biomass Cookstoves Initiative, which was launched in December 2009 after extensive deliberations and input from a range of domestic and international experts. The Initiative builds upon an earlier program that disseminated 35 million cookstoves. The National Biomass Cookstoves Initiative aims to develop next-generation cookstoves; establish state-of-the-art testing, certification and monitoring facilities; strengthen research and development programs in key technical institutions; and create and implement innovative large-scale delivery models. All of these activities are to be assessed by an independent monitoring unit, and implemented through public-private partnerships.

MNRE believes that the technologies and delivery models that will be developed through this Initiative will be useful in India as well as in 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. The cleaner combustion in the contemplated devices will also greatly reduce the products of incomplete combustion, which are greenhouse pollutants, thus helping combat climate change. Therefore, the success of the Initiative and the prize competition could well have a transformative impact for the energy poor in developing countries around the world while also helping tackle the important problem of climate change.

Change Brewing in the Kitchen: Time for New Age Stoves

Ambuj Sagar, Professor of Policy Studies at IIT, writing in the Times of India makes the point that as opposed to the earlier almost two-decade-long Indian National Programme on Improved Chulhas (NPIC) that focussed on efficiency rather than clean combustion, the new National Biomass Cookstove Initiative by the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy focuses on technology from two specific points of view.

One, that no technology dissemination can succeed without being useful and attractive to the “consumer”. And, two, that just because the ultimate target group is the poor, it does not mean that product has to be low-tech.

The write-up, titled "Change Brewing In The Kitchen: New-Age Chulhas May Finally Make Life Easier, Cleaner For Millions" says:

A quick backgrounder: more than 70% of the households in India still depend on biomass for their cooking needs. These fuels are mostly burnt in traditional chulhas — a three-stone design that leads to inefficient and poor combustion. The resulting pollutants not only lead to enormous health and social consequences for the poorest and the most vulnerable (especially women and children), but also contribute significantly to outdoor pollution as well as climate change.

It is incredibly shameful for India to have an estimated 160 million households suffer these impacts in the 21st century. Globally, an estimated 2.5 billion people suffer the consequences of such poor household energy and the number is estimated to increase in absolute terms in the absence of directed policies to change status quo.
India had a National Program on Improved Chulhas (NPIC) that was initiated in 1984-85 and shut down in 2002.

While there were some questions about its ultimate effectiveness, some 35 million improved stoves were given out. The goals of that program were mainly improved efficiency rather than clean combustion. Recently, the ministry of new and renewable energy has launched a new National Biomass Cookstove Initiative, a very welcome and exciting development.

The government seems open to taking a very different approach. First of all, it begins with the understanding that no technology dissemination can succeed without being useful and attractive to the “consumer”.

Secondly, just because the ultimate target group is the poor, it does not mean that product has to be low-tech. In fact, the initiative intends to provide clean and efficient energy services that could compare with LPG and this objective cannot be met without the use of cutting-edge science and technology to design the next generation of cookstoves.

Providing LPG, of course, would be an even better option but it’s costly and would entail subsidies. In 2008-09, the LPG subsidy burden was Rs 17,600 crore and further increases are seen as unsustainable.

A report prepared for the ministry by an IIT Delhi and TERI team (of which I am a member) has suggested a novel approach – the use of a global innovation prize – as a way to push the frontiers of technology in this area. 

But success cannot come through new technology alone. The report indicates we still need to develop dissemination models that allow for product customization for local needs, build partnerships and networks that facilitate supply chains for biomass as well as cookstoves (and maintenance of the latter).

We will also require a testing and certification system that ensures quality products and builds consumer confidence. A carefully designed assessment system also needs to be in place to ensure that the cookstoves are indeed fitting the bill. But most of all, the program will require a sustained campaign to build awareness and understanding of the ill-effects of traditional cookstoves and promote better-performing alternatives.

What then might be the gains from a successful program? Some of us have tried to assess the potential benefits: as many as 5.7 lakh premature deaths of women and children and over 4% of India’s emissions of greenhouse gases may be avoided. Additionally one-third of the emissions of black carbon, a pollutant that is receiving increasing attention in the climate arena, too could be avoided.

The new cookstoves initiative is very much an idea whose time has come again – and not a moment too soon!