In millions of households across Sub-Saharan Africa, meals are prepared in much the same way. Sitting outside, or in small, soot-blackened kitchens, women tend to cooking pots suspended over open fires and rudimentary stoves. It is an everyday scene.
没有气体分配网络或可靠地访问廉价的电力，木炭或固体生物量通常是可用或实惠的唯一燃料。但对于这些非洲家庭来说，一项作为准备膳食的一项活动就是危险的生活。
令人遗憾的是，传统的烹饪燃料在燃烧时产生有效的空气污染物混合物，包括颗粒物质，氧化二氮和一氧化碳。经常致命，这些局部污染物在关于转换到清洁能源的讨论中相对较少。
This is perhaps because pollution from cooking makes its impact felt on two very different scales. On the one hand, it is a domestic problem, taking place in the homes of the world’s poorest citizens. On the other hand, the sheer number of people affected by the problem defies easy solutions.
总之，世界上超过30亿人依靠传统的烹饪方法来制作他们的食物。据估计，其中400万人每年过早死亡 - 来自肺部疾病，心脏并发症，中风或其他疫苗。
一半的肺炎死亡五岁以下的儿童are caused by exposure to airborne pollutants from cooking.
Want more articles like this? Sign up to the KNect365 Energy newsletter>>
打击问题的进展已经很痛苦。虽然世界依赖于传统烹饪方法的世界人口的比例正在下降，但受影响的人数正在另一个方向移动。随着全球人口的扩展，脏烹饪燃料的使用正在增加。
与电气化相比，在发展世界引入清洁烹饪燃料的成功更有限，受到更少的关注。去年，没有电力接入的人数下降到10亿以下。
200 million people have been granted electricity access since 2016 alone, as NGOs, billionaire philanthropists and popular politicians lend their weight to the cause of rural electrification.
Lack of access to clean cooking fuels is arguably a greater challenge. Not only are traditional cooking methods harmful to human health, but demand for firewood is also driving deforestation and environmental degradation.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for instance,96% of all harvested wood用于烹饪燃料。这代表了平均刚果家庭能源消耗的90％。
Project Gaia
Fortunately, a solution is starting to take shape. Its impact has so far been limited – but its proponents have their sights trained on a wholesale change in the way that nearly half of the world’s inhabitants choose to meet their primary requirement for energy.
In the city of Dar es Salaam, in Tanzania, one of the most ambitious clean cooking projects is about to go to market. This city of over 4 million, known for its sandy beaches, rapid urbanisation and large Swahili speaking population, will be a testing ground for the large-scale deployment of ethanol as a cooking fuel.
Funded by the Global Environment Facility, clean cooking NGO Project Gaia is working in collaboration with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) to distribute ethanol cooking stoves to 500,000 Tanzanian households.
当项目达到成熟时，每年将创造一个9000万升燃料乙醇消费的市场。将获得近40％的达累斯萨拉姆人口，将获得清洁烹饪替代方案。
The project follows on from asmall-scale pilot study2014 - 2015年由桑给巴尔的项目Gaia进行，该项目得出了切换到乙醇烹饪的优势。
95% of participating families believed that ethanol cooking stoves were preferable to traditional cooking methods, with the average household saving 2.1 hours of additional labour each day.
Particulate matter concentrations in kitchens were reduced from 575.4 to 109 ug/m³, while carbon monoxide concentrations dropped to 3.5mg/m³, well below the WHO guideline of 10mg/m³.
The goal of the Dar es Salaam project is to build upon the successes in Zanzibar, but with a much more ambitious scope. “You have to go for large scale,” says Paul Harris, a consultant at UNIDO working on the project.
“Trials or small projects just will not work. Most of the NGOs operate by playing around the peripheries in that way… but it’s only companies that will deliver at a large scale, and it’s only industry that can really deliver a solution.”
Ethanol production in many parts of Africa has had trouble achieving sustained growth, despite the continent’simpressive natural advantages. With the right support, it could become a key producing region.
In Tanzania, sugarcane mills have historically been incentivised to produce sugar to shore up the country’s import deficit, rather than switching to ethanol production.
哈里斯的信念是，乙醇消费的烹饪增长将为当地工业提供触发器，以获得认真生产乙醇。“当地行业并不知道存在市场，”他说。“人们只在看到市场时投资植物。”
Along with their stoves, participating households will be required to purchase ten litres of denatured ethanol to kickstart demand.
At first, most of the ethanol used is likely to be imported, probably from producers in Eastern and Southern African countries. “But we want to encourage local production as much as possible,” Harris says.
Why ethanol?
To understand what is happening in Dar es Salaam, it’s useful to consider the alternatives to ethanol as a cooking fuel.
Firstly, there is electricity. Although electric cookers may work well in the developed world, for the countries still struggling with dirty cooking fuels, they aren’t usually a workable option.
现实情况是,在这些电力供应countries are both limited and unreliable. “Any developing country is battling to put enough power stations in,” Harris says. “They are always behind.”
对于大多数非洲人民来说，电力最好为能源需求低的应用程序保留，并且对于没有替代能源来源的复杂家电。具有高热负荷的应用，例如烹饪和加热，仅可以在具有成熟电网基础设施的经济中来电。
The other alternative is LPG. While LPG can and does provide a reliable solution for many households across Africa and the developing world, levels of supply are inflexible. Because it is a by-product of the oil and gas industry, LPG volumes are linked to the level of oil and gas production.
Moreover, there is the difficulty of transporting LPG to regions that may not produce oil and gas domestically, which inevitably raises costs.
为数十亿个最贫穷的居民带来清洁烹饪需要一个廉价的燃料，能够在国内生产足够的体积，并且没有毒素和杂质。乙醇目前是唯一适合账单的燃料。据估计，转向乙醇将使坦桑尼亚燃料成本降低约70％。
What is happening in Dar es Salaam will impact millions of lives – but it is only the start of something much larger. “UNIDO is doing of lot of work to raise funding for further projects right now in other countries,” Harris says.
The plan is to introduce ethanol cooking stoves to a total of twenty countries around the world as part of a global impact programme. “500,000 is just a demonstration, you know,” Harris says. “What we really need is 3 billion.”
要了解有关工发组织在坦桑尼亚的工作以及非洲其他干净的烹饪燃料项目的更多信息，请加入Paul Harris，在糖和乙醇非洲。
