The Cost of a Meal: Impacts of Cooking with Solid Fuels

Efforts to combat pollution and greenhouse gas emissions often center on cleaning up basic infrastructure. Areas like transportation and large-scale power generation receive the most attention in efforts to lessen our dependence on fossil fuels.

But for 2.6 billion people worldwide, the challenge of fixing our air and climate starts in the home. More specifically, it starts in the kitchen, where daily meals are cooked in ways that blanket families in harmful particulates on their way to adding to climate change challenges.

The environmental costs of dinner

Wood and charcoal are the primary cooking fuel for many people in developing economies, and those sources are responsible for about 2% (or 1 gigaton) of carbon emissions annually.

“The equivalent of that is the carbon emissions of the entire aviation industry” said Colm Fay, Sr. Director for Market Strengthening at the Clean Cooking Alliance. “There are significant amounts of carbon emissions there that could be avoided with cleaner solutions.”

Fay said the effects are just as troubling at the local level.

“The health burden that is experienced by populations that are heavily dependent on non-clean sources of cooking fuel is significant.”

“Significant” in this case means about 4 million premature deaths annually. Most of these victims are women and children, who inhale smoke in a confined space every day while preparing meals for the family.

“There are still 2.6 billion people in the world that are cooking over polluting stoves and fuels. A lot of that is burning biomass, whether it’s over a traditional three-stone fire or lower-quality cookstoves using wood or charcoal.”

Clean fuel solutions

This is a problem we can solve.  We have the solutions:  better stoves and cleaner fuel sources. 

On the fuel side, there are a range of options, with bioethanol as a top alternative to replace wood and charcoal for cooking around the world. Bioethanol is a low-carbon fuel that burns clean, without the harmful emissions that damage lungs and contribute to other health problems.

On the supply side, nearly 30 billion gallons are produced annually worldwide, with the U.S. and Brazil as the leading producers. Fay said bioethanol production can add an additional economic benefit to the proposition.

“It is feasible to look at local, domestic production,” he said. “There’s an interesting opportunity around decentralized production that reduces reliance on imported fuels while also generating economic development from the growing of feedstock and other value-adding steps in the process.”

As for the stoves, they’re fairly simple.

“They look like most two-burner gas camping stoves that we might be familiar with, that would sit on a tabletop,” Fay said. The heat is controlled by regulators to increase or decrease airflow to regulate the intensity of the flame.

Creating change

Clean fuels, modern stoves, enormous benefits to health and the environment. Groups like the Clean Cooking Alliance and Pivot are committed to supporting the development of sustainable markets that deliver clean and affordable solutions. This requires enterprises that design, manufacture, and distribute solutions rooted in a strong understanding of the user experience; the availability of appropriate capital, including more risk tolerant capital; healthy supply chains that include fuel infrastructure, appliances, and supportive policy environments that enable access to clean cooking businesses and services.    

Fay said that’s done through engaging with investors, helping create demand and encouraging a business and policy environment that helps companies in the clean cooking arena succeed.

“It’s really with a view to creating the enabling conditions for a sustainable industry to emerge.”