Over beers the other day a friend and I were discussing dissigno's impact. He wondered aloud to me whether we should be interfering with peoples live. He said something to the effect “they lead a simple, uncomplicated life. What can we provide that will make it better? Does adding electricity or stuff (or as Jared Diamond’s friend Yali refers to it in the book Guns, Germs and Steel - cargo) really make their lives better?” I thought for a minute about where to begin this discussion. My friend is a very intelligent, thoughtful person. He’s done work for the ACLU, traveled extensively, and I consider him worldly. But I thought this might be a concept others might share. Who are we to interfere with people’s lives? Who are we to believe we know what is “better”? I remember discussing this with Dave when we first started thinking about the work we wanted to do.
Facts/figures -
According to Hugh Warwick and Alison Doig in their important study Smoke – The Killer In The Kitchen which they produced for Intermediate Technology Development Group
2.4 billion people worldwide use biomass for cooking and heating (Coal bumps that to 3 billion.)
Indoor air pollution (created by cooking and lighting) kills 1.6 million people worldwide, mostly women and children. This represents three people killed per minute. This is as much as unsafe water and unsanitary conditions and greater than malaria. Women are hit hard because they are the cooks, spending 3-7 hours a day by a cooking fire. Children not only use lanterns to study their schoolbooks, but also spend most of their time close to their mothers, inside.
Current trends indicate that another 200 million people will be using biomass by 2030.
The diseases tend to be acute respiratory infection, chronic bronchitis, lung cancer, asthma, TB, low birth weight, infant mortality and cataracts.
Around 2/3rds of woman in China and India with lung cancer are non-smokers.
Women also bear the burden of fuel collection in addition to use. Two to twenty hours a week can be spent collecting fuel and tending fires. Distances tend to be at least two and as many as 20 km from houses. This time could be better spent tending to children, going to school, or earning money. Not only are people spending a long time walking to collect and retrieve the fuel, but also they bear the burden of the weight. Loads of wood can be 20kg. One gallon of kerosene is almost seven pounds.
The light from lanterns and candles is extremely inefficient. The open flame of kerosene lanterns is not only a fire and burning risk, but produces only about 1/100th the light output of a single 15-watt CFL bulb. Lanterns create non-directional lighting that is difficult to control for practical functionality. Similar to an incandescent bulb, much light is lost to heat. A typical three stone fire is 18% energy to heat the pot, 8% release to smoke, and 74% waste heat.
In the excellent report: Per IFC Lighting at the Bottom of the Pyramid GEF Project March 2006 -
Based on electrification rates and demands, $38 billion/year is spent on fuel-based lighting worldwide. This money, as shown below and referenced by Dave is his Fistful of Lumens blog, is higher per lumen than we in the US spend.
Candle provide 1.1 lumen and costs $58.40 USD a year to operate
Simple Wick provides 1.1 lumen and costs $8.92 USD a year to operate
Kerosene Lantern provides 182 lumen and costs $56.73 USD a year to operate
1 W LED provides 320 lumen and costs $4.38 USD a year to operate
Typical lighting accounts for 10-15% of household energy use, but represents as high as 30% of household expenses. In most cases this can be translated to 2-3 hours of poor light per evening
Is step change enough? Is there a difference between providing electricity at US rates and services? Is some electricity better than all fossil fuel lighting. These are some of the questions that dog development work. People’s lives and livelihoods are dependent on the level of change we are able to accomplish.
