| Main knowledge bank page |
Recent additions |
Recent changes |
What links here |
Categories |
Category cloud How-to guides | Organisation profiles | Project profiles | |||||||||||||
What ever happened to kerosene as a cooking fuel?... some experiences from Haiti by Pete Young
[top] [end]Is kerosene all that bad?Well, just about everyone has had bad experiences with kerosene (paraffin) stoves. Remember the days when we carried them on long journeys and had to prepare a meal or make a hot drink. Those were the days that still give us bad memories: who forgot to bring the alcohol for preheating the stove?...' How often had kerosene leaked out of the container and made everything smell bad? How often did someone have to refill the stove by pouring kerosene everywhere because they had forgotten the funnel? Remember too, how difficult the kerosene stoves were to light in a wind, and what happens if the flame goes out and suddenly the stove starts gushing kerosene everywhere. Worse still, the stove and many lamp designs can, at times, resemble miniature flaring oil rigs. Well, I guess if we had used the stoves more often, they would have become more familiar and had less problems. However, the fact remains that people still hold very strong views and experiences which prejudice them against kerosene, despite many advances in modern kerosene stoves that make them extremely clean burning, reliable and easy to use.[top] [end]Why is kerosene not more popular?Gas or electricity is the preferred choice in many countries, but the growth in its use is very much linked to increasing wealth in households. It has therefore been very difficult to increase gas and electricity sales substantially, and households still remain dependent upon either charcoal or wood fuel for cooking. Kerosene, on the other hand, has rarely been considered because of its past record.In the vast majority of cases, it is the poor who continue to use traditional fuels such as charcoal, wood and agricultural residues, because switching to modem fuels requires a lot of cash. In many cases the severest hardships are caused by people not having enough money at the right time, as circumstances prevent them from building up cash reserves. Poor people often do not have access to banks, and when they do, the services are poor and the queues are often long. Keeping money at home means it can be stolen and makes it easy to spend. A recent survey amongst poor women in Haiti showed that 67% keep money in a secret box, 23% use a savings scheme and only 3% use formal institutions such as banks. It is therefore no surprise that they find it difficult to find the large sums of money needed to buy a gas stove, regulator and cylinder, which cost the amount of money earned in one month, even for a very cheap gas stove such as a Bip Ti Cheri. [top] [end]Fuel costs for those with little moneyPoor households not only find it difficult to make one-off payments for equipment, but many will also purchase fuel in small quantities. In Haiti, we find that the majority of households buying charcoal on a daily basis pay the equivalent of 35 US cents per kg. Middle income households buying 2 bags (35kgs each) of charcoal per month pay about 20 US cents per kg, and for rich households with a car, who visit the countryside, they pay as little as 7 US cents per kg.In countries with severe deforestation, unit costs of charcoal and fuelwood no longer have the price advantage they had a decade ago when compared to bottled gas and kerosene. It is therefore no surprise that the poorest households spend more to cook their food than rich households. In Haiti, households purchasing charcoal on a daily basis spend up to 2.5 times more per year to cook their food than rich households using gas. Compared to kerosene, poor households spend 3.5 times more. The poorest households are therefore, disadvantaged in 2 ways.
Kerosene requires a much closer examination than has been given in the past, now that more modern and reliable stoves are available. [top] [end]Modern kerosene stoves - a viable alternative?In recent trials on a range of different kerosene stoves available in Haiti, it was found that the laboratory performance of most models was acceptable, but that most failed quickly in long-term trials with users. Stoves costing as much as US$50 lasted less than 2 weeks before mechanisms failed, wicks jammed or burnt out, and/or produced minor explosions when over-heated. In reality, wick models and the pressure models (Primus type) both performed equally poorly when it came to durability, reliability and ease of use. However the most important conclusion arising from this work was how affordable kerosene was as a fuel. Not only was kerosene considerably cheaper overall to use, but it was easy to purchase small amounts. Kerosene was available at petrol stations for US$1.13 per gallon. The smallest gas cylinder (Bi Ti Cheri) costs US$3.4 and regular gas cylinders cost US$8.75 For households with cashflow problems, buying a gallon of kerosene was slightly less expensive than buying the equivalent of two days consumption of charcoal. On this basis kerosene comes close to having similar advantages to charcoal for poor people in that it can be subdivided very easily by market traders and purchased in very small quantities while remaining very price competitive. The small units purchased also mean that it is very easy to carry home, unlike regular gas cylinders that require at least a small barrow to carry them. The small gas cylinders are easy to carry but the unit cost of fuel is often not very competitive because of the high refill and handling charges. In general, kerosene is much more widely available in the rural areas where it is often used in locally-made lamps, as well as in urban areas.
[top] [end]Kerosene stoves: the centre of the problemIf kerosene has such good market advantages, why is it not more popular? Many of the problems still lie with the stoves themselves. Cheap, poorly produced models and models unadapted to local conditions are still widely available. Markets in Haiti sell wick models designed and produced in Asia, which are neither large enough to support large Haitian pots, nor have they sufficient power to cook quickly compared to traditional charcoal stoves. In other Caribbean countries there are some exceptionally good kerosene stoves that look and work similarly to gas stoves (see Figures 1 and 2). In these stoves, pressurized kerosene (pump or gravity system) is preheated in a nozzle, and this produces a vapour which is injected into an open mouth manifold where it mixes with air. The gas exits through a series of fine holes or slots similar to a standard gas burner, where it burns with a perfect blue flame indistinguishable from a gas stove. Laboratory tests indicate that these types of stoves achieve efficiencies greater than 55% with high/low power ratios as high as four. They can cost as little as US$25 for double burners compared to the simplest double burner gas stove, which costs in the region of US$75.These modern types of kerosene stoves also have the advantage that they can be made locally in small workshops. This may not always make them cheaper, but there is the added advantage that they can be repaired quickly and cheaply when parts need replacing.
[top] [end]Kerosene stoves and the environmentClean burning kerosene stoves can also make an important medium-term contribution to reducing household emissions that are hazardous to cooks, their families and the environment. Although biomass has the potential to be fairly environmentally friendly, its present use is particularly hazardous because the various open and enclosed fires currently in use produce very high levels of carbon monoxide (CO) and particulates. With advances in biomass technology (stoves and kilns), these emissions should become much less. However the dissemination of such appliances will take many years. The current range of clean-burning kerosene stoves are much more fuel efficient than biomass stoves and are likely to produce lower emissions per unit of energy produced. Where kerosene has a cost advantage over gas it is certainly worth promoting, especially as a replacement for charcoal.[top] [end]Contents: Boiling Point 41: Household energy: the urban dimension
| |||||||||||||
Page created:
01 August 2007; Last edited:
04 December 2008; Version: 1 | |||||||||||||
Pagename: WhatEverHappenedToKeroseneAsACookingFuel-SomeExperiencesFromHaiti @HEDON: YCGA | |||||||||||||
