• Energy Research

Enhancing food security is one of the main goals of subsistence farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study investigates the implementation of improved loam-made cooking stoves and its contribution to coping and livelihood strategies. Controlled combustion, air as well as smoke flue, and heat insulation facilitate the more efficient fuel consumption of improved cooking stoves compared to traditional stoves—namely three stone fires. Although the majority of small-scale farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa rely on the free public good of firewood, the increasing time needed for collecting firewood implies high opportunity costs for productive members of the family. The primary outcomes for users of improved stoves are reduced fuel consumption, greater safety, saved time, and reduced smoke in the kitchen. The paper illustrates part of the output, outcome, and impact of a participatory action research approach for implementing improved cooking stoves. Special emphasis was put on enabling the villagers to construct their stoves without external support, hence having locally manufactured stoves made of mud, bricks, and dried grass. The impact pathway of improved cooking stoves followed the training-of-trainers concept, where members of the initially established farmer groups were trained to construct stoves on their own. Special focus was given to knowledge exchange and knowledge transfer in order to increase firewood efficiency and overall satisfaction of users of improved cook stoves. Encouraging the members to further adapt the stoves enabled them to scale-up the construction of improved cooked stoves into a business model and increase dissemination while creating income. Although many important benefits, like time and knowledge gain, were identified by the farmers after adoption of the new technology, we found adoption rates differed significantly between regions.

Globally, natural resources are increasingly under pressure, especially due to population growth, economic growth and transformation as well as climate change. As a result, the water, energy, and food (WEF) nexus approach has emerged to understand interdependencies and commonly manage resources within a multi-scale and multi-level framework. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the high and growing consumption of traditional biomass for cooking purposes - notably fuelwood and charcoal—is both a key source of energy and contributor for food security as well as a pressure on natural resources. Improving the bioenergy value chains is essential for limiting environmental degradation and for securing the livelihoods of millions of people. Although the WEF nexus approach entails large potential to address the complex problems arising along the bioenergy value chains, these are currently not considered. Based on the WEF nexus approach, we analyze the different steps within the charcoal value chain in Sub-Saharan Africa and highlight the respective interdependencies and the potential for improving overall socio-economic and environmental sustainability. We emphasize the water, energy and food related implications of vicious and virtuous production cycles, separated by value chain segments. We discuss the potential and major challenges for implementing more sustainable value chains. Furthermore, we underline the necessity of applying WEF nexus approaches to these value chains in order to optimize environmental and social outcomes.

Having access to firewood and charcoal for cooking purposes is essential for the world’s poor. In this paper, we outline the consumption patterns of firewood and charcoal energy recorded at a specific south-western Tanzanian village (Laela) based on a household survey carried out in late 2010 (n = 160). We identify varying consumption rates among four relative income classes (rich, above average, self-sufficiency, below self-sufficiency). We furthermore simulate the effects of different dissemination levels (10, 25, 50, 100 %) for a specific type of efficient wood stove over the years 2010, 2015 and 2030, with a predicted increase in future energy consumption rates that correspond with population growth. Our findings suggest that energy consumption will increase until 2030. We also foresee excellent energy-saving potentials in different diffusion and adaptation scenarios. The limitations of the study as well as its developmental potentials are also addressed with one focus on the possible effects on local forests. The factors utilised and the results obtained are discussed and compared with other values drawn from the current literature. Furthermore, the pro-poor development potential is examined by using the energy-saving capacity of different dissemination/adaptation scenarios. Additionally, hurdles and hypothetical setbacks that may occur during the process of efficient stove dissemination are described. In sum, our findings highlight the need for efficient stove diffusion programmes to carefully incorporate weaker income classes within rural communities.

AbstractThe lack of adequate techniques for food processing is among the reasons underlying food losses and high levels of hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa; the application of solar energy to dry agricultural products is one potential solution. However, the total replacement of traditional uses of solar energy is still far from reality. Therefore, in this study, we systematically review the academic literature testing passive solar drying systems in order to assess their performance. Then the main limitations and challenges for passive solar dryers developed in Sub-Saharan Africa are derived. The literature search reveals very limited research and a lack of standardized methods to assess solar dryer performance. Studies mainly report parameters related to dryers’ thermal performance and physical features, thus neglecting parameters related to the quality of dried products and economics. Standardized and robust methodologies are urgently needed for more accurate conclusions and comparability of study results. Moreover, successfully applying passive solar dryers as an alternative to the traditional use of solar energy requires overcoming challenges such as time consumption, limited quantities of dried products, and the periodic nature of solar radiation. Thus, given its ability to significantly improve the self-life of food and overcome the current limitations for effective utilization of solar dryers in SSA, the use of mixed mode passive greenhouse dryers is proposed.

The impacts of biofuel production and the adequacy of the associated production structures are controversial matters despite a projected medium-term growth rate increase. Concurrently, electricity is increasingly perceived as a prerequisite for development. In this article, we assess the potential impacts of the local production of biofuels for electricity production on development and the food supply in the village of Laela in Western Tanzania. Based on a village survey, focus group discussions and expert interviews, we calculated the potential food security effects on four different economic types of farmer groups. The objective of this analysis was to evaluate the potential use of sunflower and groundnut oils as substitutes for fossil fuels for the production of electricity. The baseline framework is based on a comparison of crop production data with current fossil fuel consumption. The ex-ante scenarios assess the gap between the estimated yield losses and the increasing fuel demand through 2015. These comparative analyses of schemes in which vegetable oil production replaces a given level of crop production showed that replacing food crops with crops producing biofuel will most likely impact local food security negatively, causing increased hunger, especially for the poorest farmers and even if climate change is not considered.