• Energy Research
• 13. Climate action close

Abstract The government of San Luis Potosi (SLP) in Mexico implemented the Ecological Cookstove Program (ECSP) during the period 2010–15, subsidizing over 60,000 improved cookstoves with the goal of addressing poverty in rural communities where people cook with fuelwood in open fires. As part of the comprehensive summative program evaluation conducted during 2014–2016, we assessed the implementation processes analyzing the regulations governing the program and contrasting them with the opinion of the officials and users involved in the program. The evaluation of the operation processes of the program was conducted using three qualitative techniques: documentary analysis, semi-structured interviews, and in depth interviews of stakeholders (government officials and beneficiaries). The processes of social marketing, selection of beneficiaries and follow up were identified as the critical nodes for the successful implementation of the program. There was no document detailing the overall process and this was reflected in a lack of standardization in the execution of each step of the process. This type of programs should go beyond a change in technology, i.e., they need to consider the state's social, cultural, and economic factors, and their difference among the different regions of the state. In summary, the evaluation presents eight recommended actions which should be considered during the design and implementation phases of these type of programs.

Improved cookstoves have been identified in Mexico as a key opportunity to advance sustainable local development priorities in disadvantaged regions while mitigating climate change. This paper reviews the Patsari Cookstove Project initiated in 2003 by an NGO, Interdisciplinary Group on Appropriate Rural Technology (GIRA). The project applied an interdisciplinary and participative user-centered approach to disseminate improved cookstoves in rural Mexico, with a special focus on indigenous and poor rural communities. To date, GIRA and the Patsari Network have disseminated thousands of stoves using a “training to trainers” model. Benefits from the project include tangible improvements in users’ health, as well as savings in time and money expended on fuelwood procurement and use. The project has also documented substantive environmental benefits from significant mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with traditional open fires. To sustain scaling up efforts over the long-term, two networks have been created: The Patsari Network, which includes several organizations promoting Patsari stoves for household users, and the Tsiri Network, which supports local food security and the empowerment of indigenous women through the promotion of institutional cookstoves. Through appropriately designed and implemented local interventions, the project demonstrates that the goals of advancing sustainable local development in rural areas and climate change mitigation may not be contradictory, and may in fact reinforce one another.

In spite of growing interest, a principal obstacle to wider inclusion of improved cookstove projects in carbon trading schemes has been the lack of accountability in estimating CO2-equivalent (CO2-e) savings. To demonstrate that robust estimates of CO2-e savings can be obtained at reasonable cost, an integrated approach of community-based subsampling of traditional and improved stoves in homes to estimate fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, combined with spatially explicit community-based estimates of the fraction of nonrenewable biomass harvesting (fNRB), was used to estimate CO2-e savings for 603 homes with improved Patsari stoves in Purépecha communities of Michoacán, Mexico. Mean annual household CO2-e savings for CO2, CH4, CO, and nonmethane hydrocarbons were 3.9 tCO2-e home(-1) yr(-1) (95% Cl +/- 22%), and for Kyoto gases (CO2 and CH4) were 3.1 tCO2-e home(-1) yr(-1) (95% Cl +/- 26%), respectively, using a weighted mean fNRB harvesting of 39%. CO2-e savings ranged from 1.6 (95% Cl +/- 49%) to 7.5 (95% Cl +/- 17%) tCO2-e home(-1) yr(-1) for renewable and nonrenewable harvesting in individual communities, respectively. Since emission factors, fuel consumption, and fNRB each contribute significantly to the overall uncertainty in estimates of CO2-e savings, community-based assessment of all of these parameters is critical for robust estimates. Reporting overall uncertainty in the CO2-e savings estimates provides a mechanism for valuation of carbon offsets, which would promote better accounting that CO2-e savings had actually been achieved. Cost of CO2-e savings as a result of adoption of Patsari stoves was U.S. $8 per tCO2-e based on initial stove costs, monitoring costs, and conservative stove adoption rates, which is approximately 4 times less expensive than use of carbon capture and storage from coal plants, and approximately 18 times less than solar power. The low relative cost of CO2-e abatement of improved stoves combined with substantial health cobenefits through reduction in indoor air pollution provides a strong rationale for targeting these less expensive carbon mitigation options, while providing substantial economic assistance for stove dissemination efforts.

AbstractWhile plancha-type cookstoves are very popular and widely disseminated in Latin America, few peer review articles exist documenting their detailed technical performance. In this paper we use the standard Water Boiling Tests (WBT) to assess the energy and emission performance of five plancha-type cookstoves disseminated in about 450 thousand Mexican rural homes compared to the traditional 3-stone fire (TSF). In the high-power phase, average modified combustion efficiencies (MCE) for plancha-type stoves were 97±1% which was higher than TSF 93±4%, and reductions in CO and PM2.5 total emissions were on average 44%. Time to boil and specific fuel consumption, however, were increased in plancha-type stoves compared to the open fire as a result of the reduced overall thermal efficiency of the plancha during WBT. In the simmering phase, plancha-type stoves showed much more consistent performance reductions compared to the TSF. MCE for plancha stoves were on average 98±1% and 95±3% for the TSF, while reductions in CO and PM2.5 total emissions were on average 55%. In this phase 27% average savings in fuel use are achieved by plancha-type stoves. Removal of the plancha rings resulted in savings of specific fuel consumption (SFC), thermal efficiency (TE), and time to boil; however, CO and PM2.5 emissions increased significantly as flue air is drawn through the comal surface rather than through the combustion zone, resulting in suboptimal combustion conditions.International Workshop Agreement (IWA) energy performance Tiers for plancha-type stoves ranged from 0 to 1. However, these results contrast sharply with the well documented reductions in fuel consumption during daily cooking activities achieved by these stoves. IWA indoor emissions Tiers are 4 for both PM2.5 and CO using locally measured values for fugitive emissions. Optimization of combustion chamber design on these stoves in Mexico is desirable to further reduce indoor emissions and to reduce the impacts of neighborhood pollution that can re-infiltrate kitchens. Comparison of performance between plancha-type stoves and unvented stoves should reflect the substantial gains that are made by reducing indoor air pollution and exposures by venting pollutants.

article i nfo Half of the world population relies on biomass for cooking, with very significant health as well as climate change impacts. Improved cookstoves have been disseminated as an alternative to reduce these impacts. However, few detailed studies about the economic benefits of improved cookstoves (ICS) interventions, including environmental and health co-benefits, exist to date. In this paper we perform a comprehensive economic evaluation of a dissemination program of ICS in rural Mexico. The resulting cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of the Patsari improved cookstove is presented, utilizing estimation of direct costs and benefits, including fuelwood savings, income generation, health impacts, environmental conservation, and reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The analysis is based on comprehensive data obtained through monitoring studies carried out in the Study Area from 2003 to the present. Results show that Patsari cookstoves represent a viable economic option for improving living conditions of the poorest inhabitants of rural Mexico, with benefit/cost ratios estimated between 11.4:1 and 9:1. The largest contributors to economic benefits stemmed from fuelwood savings and reductions in health impacts, which constituted 53% and 28% of the overall benefit, respectively.

There have been few detailed assessments of the actual impacts of improved stove interventions in rural communities, although many improved stove projects have reported overall efficiencies from tests in simulated kitchens using water-boiling tests (WBTs). This paper presents an integrated energy evaluation of the Patsari cookstove, an efficient wood-burning cookstove developed in Mexico that has recently obtained international recognition, in comparison to traditional cookstoves in rural communities of Michoacan, Mexico. The evaluation uses three standard protocols: the WBT, which quantifies thermal efficiency and firepower; the controlled cooking test (CCT), which measures specific energy consumption associated with local cooking tasks, and the kitchen performance test (KPT), which evaluates the behavior of the stoves in-field conditions and estimates fuel savings. The results showed that the WBT gave little indication of the overall performance of the stove in rural communities. Field testing in rural communities is of critical importance, therefore, in estimating the benefits of improved stoves. In the CCT for tortilla making, the main cooking task in Mexican rural households, Patsari stoves showed fuelwood savings ranging from 44% to 65% in relation to traditional open fires (n=6; P<0.05). These savings were similar in magnitude to the average energy savings from KPT before and after Patsari adoption of 67% (n=23; P<0.05) in rural households exclusively using fuelwood. Similar energy savings of 66% for fuelwood and 64% for LPG, respectively, were also observed in households using mixed fuels. With sound technical design, critical input from local users and proper dissemination strategies, therefore, improved stoves can significantly contribute to improvements in the quality of life of rural people with potential benefits to the surrounding environment.

This paper describes the monitoring and evaluation of three improved cookstove dissemination projects implemented between 2004 and 2006 by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in India and Mexico. The projects assessed stove performance using lab-based water boiling tests (WBTs), which yield a number of performance indicators including time to boil water, specific fuel consumption, and energy efficiency when the stove is operated at both high and low power output. They also conducted field-based kitchen performance tests (KPTs), which yield daily per capita fuel consumption in real cooking conditions. In addition, one NGO utilized a controlled cooking test, which combined elements of lab- and field-based tests. In all cases, improved cookstoves (ICSs) were compared to local traditional cookstoves (TCSs). The results of the WBTs were mixed. Although the improved stoves generally showed some improvement in efficiency for the low-power simmering phases, the stoves were less efficient than traditional stoves in high-power water-boiling phases. The results from the KPTs were much less ambiguous. Three ICS models were tested for fuel consumption during real household use. All ICSs showed statistically significant reductions (p < 0.05) in average daily per capita fuel use ranging from 19 to 67 %. We also explore the correlations between the outcomes in lab-based tests and field-based tests in order to understand the relationships between the two assessment methods. Only fuel consumption in the low-power phase of the WBT showed a strong correlation with fuel consumption in the field (r 2 = 0.83, p = 0.01). We discuss the implications of this association as well as the other outcomes and present some policy recommendations for monitoring and evaluation of large-scale stove interventions.

In this study, lignocellulosic material derived from guava tree pruning was used to make pellets in a laboratory machine. The following experiments were conducted to identify the properties of the biomass samples before the pelletizing process: chemical analysis, proximal analysis, elemental analysis, ash microanalysis and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA-DTG). The following analyses were performed on the densified material: moisture content, particle density, bulk density, impact resistance and calorific value. The guava pellets evaluated, with respect to open fires, mitigate the CO2, CO, CH4, HCNM, EC, OC and PM2.5 emissions. Emissions per unit of consumed energy were reduced by 8 times for PM2.5, almost 5 times for HCNM, 3 times for CH4, 7 times for CO, 2 times for CO2, 6 times with respect to EC and almost 30 times for OC. The results of the physical and energetic evaluation of the pellets indicate good potential for its use as a solid densified biofuel.