Fuels

Almost three billion people worldwide cook their meals on simple stoves that use biomass fuels such as wood, charcoal, dung, and crop residues. This account for approximately half of the totalenergy consumption in developing countries. In industrial countries, the switch to more efficient stoves took place when fuelwood prices increased and stove makers increased efforts to build more efficient models. This was followed by a transition to cleaner fuels for cooking, such as coal and petroleum-based fuels.

In past few decades, urban households in developing countries too have made the switch to cleaner fuels like liquid petroleum gas (LPG) or kerosene for cooking. Most rural households in these countries, on the other hand, are not endowed with the infrastructure that would bring them cleaner fuels, nor do they have the adequate income to pay for the fuels if they were available especially compared to biomass resources, which were more freely available.

Since less than one percent of the rural households have access to electricity,they could greatly benefit from the increased-efficiency improved cookstoves.This can be a step taken toward reducing indoor air pollution, decreasing time and money spent on fuelwood, and preventing the use of animal waste for fuel.

A wide range of fuels and energy sources are used by households in developing countries, including:

Wood
Agricultural residues
Charcoal
Kerosene (called paraffin in some countries)
Biogas
Liquified Petroleum Gas
Coal
Grid electricity

There is growing interest in renewable energy which includes:

Solar cooking
Solar hot water
Solar photovoltaics, or Solar PV
Wind energy
Small hydroelectricity
Ethanol, including ethanol gel and ethanol fuel
Jatropha, which can be used as oil or converted to biodiesel
Biofuel

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User:Grant Ballard-Tremeer 25 October 2004
User:Dr Karabi Dutta 11 September 2003

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Page created: 01 September 2003; Last edited: 24 May 2007; Version: 11
Knowledge Bank text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

Pagename: Fuel @HEDON: HCAA

Fuels

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Highlights