Project Gaia is a US-based non-governmental, non-profit organization engaged in developing alcohol-based fuel markets for household use in Ethiopia and other developing countries. The organization identifies alcohol fuels as a potential alternative to traditional cooking methods, which they suggest may contribute to fuel shortages, environmental issues, and public health concerns in these regions. Focusing on impoverished and marginalized communities, Project Gaia is active in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Brazil, Haiti, and Madagascar. The organization is also planning to expand its projects to additional countries.
Current cooking methods in energy poor communities: the problem
Biomass fuels and associated risks
More than 3 billion people cook with wood fire worldwide. Approximately 60% of African families cook with traditional biomass, a percentage that increases to 90% for Sub-Saharan Africa. Smoke and gaseous emissions pour out of burning wood, animal dung, or crop residues, leading to lung disease and respiratory illnesses in women and children. Traditional biomass fuels release emissions that contain pollutants dangerous to health, such as small particles, carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide, butadiene, formaldehyde, and carcinogens such as benzopyrene and benzene. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 4 million people die each year from household air pollution generated by cooking with solid fuels in poorly ventilated spaces. 500,000 of these deaths are from childhood pneumonia. Indoor air pollution is especially deadly for children; it is responsible for nearly 50% of pneumonia deaths in children under the age of five.
Indoor air pollution Because of their higher exposure to cook fires, women and children are particularly at risk. Indoor air pollution causes 56% of deaths and 80% of the global burden of disease for children under the age of five. Indoor air pollution also increases the risk of acute lower respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and is associated with tuberculosis, perinatal mortality, low birth weight, asthma, otitis media, cancer of the upper airway, and cataracts. Respiratory disease is the leading cause of death for children. Indoor air pollution disproportionately affects refugees and urban populations in poverty, due to crowded and poorly ventilated living areas, as well as those with a decrease immune response due to HIV/AIDS.
Fuel collection
Personal safety Meanwhile, collecting wood involves risk to personal safety. Women and older children usually collect wood, often facing gender-based harassment and disputes with landowners who accuse them of trespassing. Women in Ethiopia's United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) refugee camps say that they fear assault, rape, and violence while searching for wood.
Deforestation and desertification Beyond these public health issues, cooking with wood fires is also unsustainable and contributes to rapid deforestation in the developing world. Where wood is already limited, its collection leads to desertification. In Africa, collection of wood for cooking and charcoal production is the primary reason for the disappearance of the forests. Further, the burning of hydrocarbon fuels, coal, charcoal, and even dung contributes to the accumulation of greenhouse gases. Smoky cooking fires and stoves contribute to the soot that is estimated to cause approximately 16% of global warming. Black carbon particles in the atmosphere are considered one of the most dangerous pollutants after carbon dioxide. Furthermore, higher rates of deforestation and desertification force women to travel further and further to gather fuelwood, increasing their vulnerability to the dangers of fuelwood collection.
Alternatives to biomass fuels The available alternatives to biomass fuels do not offer much improvement. This was made in Central Africa for the benefit of locals and others. Kerosene is imported at significant expense, and is burnt with a wick stove that does not combust the fuel efficiently and tips or spills easily. The projected retail cost of ethanol is lower than that of government-subsidized kerosene in Ethiopia today. Kerosene stoves are also prone to flare ups and explosions; accidental kerosene fires cause many injuries and deaths each year. Kerosene releases carcinogenic emissions and is often poorly refined or adulterated by the time it is acquired for domestic use. Liquified petroleum gas (LPG) burns cleanly but is expensive and cannot be produced locally. Charcoal, a processed biomass fuel, burns with less smoke, but emits carbon monoxide. Meanwhile, coal produces all of the dangerous emissions of traditional biomass fuels and depending on its quality, also produces sulfur oxides and toxic elements such as arsenic, lead, fluorine, and mercury.
Aid and energy Aid initiatives and emergency response projects rarely provide energy for cooking, focusing instead on food rations and necessary cookware. Occasionally the UNHCR purchases and provides biomass and transports it to communities where it is desperately needed. When aid projects do involve stoves, many undertake the dissemination of improved biomass stoves. These burn biomass fuel more efficiently but do not eliminate the household need for biomass nor eliminate indoor air pollution.
The solution: alcohol fuels and clean cookstoves
Alcohol fuels
Alcohol fuels have a low-flammability limit (LFL) that is higher than hydrocarbon fuels, which means they do not catch fire easily, even when spilled. They can be extinguished by water and are not prone to explosion like LPG (propane and butane). Alcohol burns cleanly, producing only carbon dioxide and water vapor, and none of the soot or toxic chemicals produced by solid fuels and kerosene. Alcohol fuels are clean, with particle emissions far below the WHO levels.World Health Organization "Pollution and Exposure Levels." Retrieved 27 August 2010. When used with an efficient stove, alcohol fuels can significantly improve indoor air quality, thereby improving respiratory health and the overall quality of life by reducing the global burden of disease." World Health Organization "Global Burden of Disease." Retrieved 27 August 2010.
Alcohol is increasingly gaining recognition as a source of fuel. Because of initiatives like Project Gaia, the UNDP has placed the previously absent ethanol and methanol near the top of its “energy ladder,” a progression of fuels that range from dirty and inefficient (e.g. biomass) to clean and efficient (e.g. biogas, LPG, ethanol, methanol). Project Gaia believes in gradual introduction of ethanol-burning appliances into both the private household market and the small or large institutional market, to ensure widespread acceptance. As the alcohol fuel market increases, and acceptance of clean cookstoves grows, Project Gaia sees the potential for the use of other high-performing alcohol appliances that provide lighting, refrigeration and air-tempering, and generation.
Ethanol Ethanol can be produced locally from byproducts that would otherwise cause environmental damage. It can be produced from biomass, natural gas, coal, and even landfill gas—resources plentiful in many developing countries. The use of alcohol fuel for household fuel, therefore, is efficient resource management—transforming waste products to a highly valuable resource. This transformation can lead to a cleaner environment, the forming of new jobs in industry, agriculture, manufacturing, and the service sector, and a decreased need for imported fuels.
Clean cookstoves
The Clean Cook Stove
Origins Project Gaia's team currently works with the alcohol-based Clean Cook stove, a stable, stainless steel, one or two-burner stove adapted from the Origo stove invented by Bengt Ebbeson in 1979 and manufactured by Swedish company Domestic AB, the leading manufacturer of alcohol stoves and appliances worldwide. The Origo stove, recognized as the best alcohol stove available, is popular in the leisure markets in the U.S. and Europe, commonly for boating and camping use.“Clean, safe ethanol stoves for refugee homes” , The Ashden Awards for sustainable energy. Retrieved 30 May 2010. The stove's working life is to projected to be 5–10 years for daily use. Project Gaia works to adapt the stove to local cooking needs and habits. Some of the adaptations made to the Clean Cook include the slight raising and redesign of the pot-stand to allow for larger pots and for more oxygen to reach the flame, and the addition of handles to make transport and refill of the stove easier.
Domestic Domestic seeks to address the developing world market because alcohol fuel technologies are particularly appropriate for it. The Clean Cook contains a non-pressurized, no-spill fuel tank that can hold methanol or ethanol. The Clean Cook stove was designed with several specific safety measures. The Clean Cook stove's fuel canister holds an absorbent mineral fiber covered by a protective metal mesh, preventing fuel from spilling from the canister even when the stove is inverted. The design of this fuel tank eliminates risk of explosion, flare-up, or leakage, and other safety features built into the stove make the CleanCook less likely to cause burns than other cooking methods. Meanwhile, the Clean Cook is a high-performing stove, equivalent in power (1.5 to 2kW) and temperature to an LPG stove.
Operation of the Stove To operate the stove, its fuel canister must be filled with one liter of ethanol. If pouring the fuel results in drops around the hole, these must be wiped away. The canister must be clipped onto the base of the stove, the regulator opened, and the ethanol vapor lit with a match or lighter. After cooking, the canister should be left in position to limit further evaporation of remaining ethanol.
Emissions vs. performance The US-based Aprovecho Research Center has conducted tests comparing the emissions and energy performance of the CleanCook in comparison with conventional LPG and kerosene stoves. When compared with kerosene, the CleanCook used less energy, produced lower emissions, and was quicker than to bring water to a boil. Compared with LPG, the CleanCook produced the same level of particulate emissions, but LPG released lower emissions of CO and was quicker to boil water. The UNDP in Malawi compared the CleanCook with wood and charcoal stoves and found that the CleanCook cut wood stoves’ CO emission in half, particulate emission by 99%, and energy use by 71%. The findings in comparison with charcoal showed similar results, with the energy use decreased by 55% and the emission and particulate reduction even greater than for wood stoves.
Local production and sustainability