Avoided emissions of a fuel-efficient biomass cookstove dwarf embodied emissions

Artikel

Three billion people cook their food on biomass-fueled fires. This practice contributes to the anthropogenic radiative forcing. Fuel-efficient biomass cookstoves have the potential to reduce CO2-equivalent emissions from cooking, however, cookstoves made from modern materials and distributed through energy-intensive supply chains have higher embodied CO2-equivalent than traditional cookstoves. No studies exist examining whether lifetime emissions savings from fuel-efficient biomass cookstoves offset embodied emissions, and if so, by what margin. This paper is a complete life cycle inventory of 'The Berkeley-Darfur Stove,' disseminated in Sudan by the non-profit Potential Energy. We estimate the embodied CO2-equivalent in the cookstove associated with materials, manufacturing, transportation, and end-of-life is 17kg of CO2-equivalent. Assuming a mix of 55% non-renewable biomass and 45% renewable biomass, five years of service, and a conservative 35% reduction in fuel use relative to a three-stone fire, the cookstove will offset 7.5 tonnes of CO2-equivalent. A one-to-one replacement of a three-stone fire with the cookstove will save roughly 440 times more CO2-equivalent than it 'costs' to create and distribute. Over its five-year life, we estimate the total use-phase emissions of the cookstove to be 13.5 tonnes CO2-equivalent, and the use-phase accounts for 99.9% of cookstove life cycle emissions. The dominance of use-phase emissions illuminate two important insights: (1) without a rigorous program to monitor use-phase emissions, an accurate estimate of life cycle emissions from biomass cookstoves is not possible, and (2) improving a cookstove's avoided emissions relies almost exclusively on reducing use-phase emissions even if use-phase reductions come at the cost of substantially increased non-use-phase emissions.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Journal: Development Engineering ; ISSN: 2352-7285 ; Volume: 1 ; Year: 2016 ; Pages: 45-52 ; Amsterdam: Elsevier

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Wilson, D. L. ; Talancon, D. R. ; Winslow, R. L. ; Linares, X. ; Gadgil, A. J.
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Elsevier
• (wo): Amsterdam
• (wann): 2016

Weitere Informationen

• DOI: doi:10.1016/j.deveng.2016.01.001
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/187779
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:45 MEZ