MUSINGS FROM PRIYADARSHINI KARVE: A Perspective on Cooking Energy [Part 2]

Last week I gave some calculations about how much expenditure is incurred for daily household cooking by users of LPG and other fuels, as a comparison. The numbers clearly show that even without subsidy, LPG is still the most economical AND convenient option. So why is it not the main cooking fuel in India?

LPG as well as kerosene were introduced as household cooking fuels in India in 1950s. At that time everyone cooked on solid biomass fuels. Typically, the rural households used firewood, either collected, or harvested from own farms, or purchased, and the urban households used charcoal and firewood, both purchased. There was a lot of resistance to fossil fuels, but the convenience of both kerosene and LPG soon overcame the cultural barriers. Most of the urban middle and high income households shifted to LPG, whereas urban poor shifted primarily to kerosene. The rural population just added LPG and kerosene as additional options, but did not totally give up on firewood. Only those people who could not cross the economical barrier, continued to use the traditional fuels, exclusively. This population is however substantially large - about 30% urban households and nearly 85% rural households are using solid biomass fuels for cooking (based on 2011 census data and other sources).  

The push for liquid and gaseous fossil fuels for cooking came from two main considerations - one, to reduce the pressure on forests to supply firewood and charcoal for cooking, and two, to reduce the drudgery and health impacts suffered by women cooking on solid biomass fuels. Over the years however, a number of changes have come in in the usage patterns. 

Firstly the richer households now cook on both LPG and electricity, and recently the option of piped natural gas has also become available in some cities. 

Kerosene as a cooking fuel is now an increasingly expensive option in both urban and rural areas as other uses are being found for kerosene. In places where electricity is not available or is unreliable, whatever kerosene that a household can get hold of, is used for lighting. Almost everywhere, as the price of petrol has gone up, kerosene has also been used for adulteration! As a result, many poor households have been forced to fall back on firewood, as the kerosene supply through the public distribution system has become unreliable.  

The poor who could not afford either LPG or kerosene before are still unable to do so, and therefore other options such as gobar gas and smokeless chulhas have been promoted for them. However, gobar gas (biogas from cattle dung) is not a universally applicable solution for a number of reasons, and so called 'smokeless' chulhas are never totally smokeless. Stoves have been designed that burn solid biomass fuels without high levels of pollution, but this is often achieved at the expense of user friendliness. In any case, these devices too are expensive, and for a variety of cultural, social and economic reasons, there is reluctance on part of the poor households, to invest in a clean cook stove. 

The real problem for the poor or those with hand to mouth existence is that they do not always have the total amount that is required for buying a whole LPG cylinder, either 14.2 kg or even smaller capacity. If somehow it becomes possible for people to pay for fuel as per their daily requirement (INR 20 at a time), more people will be easily able to afford LPG. If the number of households with access to LPG can increase to 75-80% in the total population, we would certainly have made great strides into reducing the health impacts from cooking energy source. It is uncertain whether this will reduce the pressure on forests, though, as the biggest cause of deforestation is not poor people's need for cooking fuel, but is rich people's need for more land for urbanisation and industrialisation. 

I believe that there are technologically feasible ways of overcoming the economic barrier to provide more widespread access to LPG or any other gaseous fossil fuel as household cooking fuel. For example, if cooking gas is supplied by pipe, and the gas flow can be controlled with the help of pre-paid coupons (similar to pre-paid cellphone usage), a household can actually buy the gas daily decided either by the daily need or by the money in hand on a daily basis, or a combination of both considerations. 

I do not think however that anyone is working on any such sustainable solutions. 

Furthermore, in all this, the issue of LPG (and kerosene) being a fossil fuel (therefore essentially non-renewable and non-sustainable) remains unaddressed. The only sustainable substitute is to somehow convert the solid biomass as available into a gaseous form. A number of technologies are available, but none of these have become commercially feasible, particularly in the context of substituting LPG as household cooking fuel. Unfortunately, this is another area where not much innovative thinking has happened over the years, and there is almost no policy support for the few realistic technologies that do already exist. 

At Samuchit Enviro Tech, we are trying some novel approaches for developing cooking energy systems that would provide the same or similar 'quality of energy service' as LPG, but using solid and liquid biomass 'waste' as starting materials. We welcome everyone willing to participate in this process, on a voluntary basis. 

Priyadarshini Karve

Director

Samuchit Enviro Tech

#BeModernBeResponsibleBeRespectful

    Samuchit Enviro Tech.     samuchit@samuchit.com     www.samuchit.com

MUSINGS FROM PRIYADARSHINI KARVE: A perspective on cooking energy [Part 1]

As you know, at Samuchit Enviro Tech one of the primary activities we do is supply a number of renewable options to meet cooking energy needs. What does one want from their cooking energy source? The three most important things, from the perspective of a typical homemaker-cook are: versatility of performing all the typical operations that she wants to carry out, convenience and ease of operation, and affordability. If the homemaker is also conscious about sustainability issues, she will additionally (but not at the expense of the other features) desire the cooking energy source to be environmentally benign. 

The most popular cooking energy source of today is LPG, and it scores 10 on 10 as far as versatility and ease of operation are concerned. Its affordability however is perceived as questionable, and although it is very 'clean' in its use, as it is a fossil fuel, it cannot be considered environmentally totally benign. 

The government addresses the cost issue by providing subsidy on LPG for household use. The technologies Samuchit Enviro Tech offers try to come close to LPG on its benefits, try to address the cost issue too, AND environmentally are better options, without doubt. 

Since for us, LPG is a 'competing' technology, I have tried to do some comparative analyses, over the years, and would like to share some of my musings on this issue. 

Let's first address the issue of the perceived costliness of LPG. 

I am sure all of you have seen advertisements appealing people to forgo subsidy on household LPG cylinders. The implication here is that we are entitled to the subsidy on LPG, but we will do the poor people who cannot afford LPG a great service, by forgoing it. 

It is not however clear as to how this is supposed to help poor people. 

By forgoing the subsidy, the consumption of LPG is not going to reduce. The logic perhaps is that if people have to pay higher for LPG, they will practice economy and use it more efficiently. However, that will hold true if the higher price was imposed on the household. If I am voluntarily giving up subsidy, obviously I am able to afford the higher price, and therefore there is no motivation for me to reduce my LPG consumption! So no extra cylinders are going to be available for distribution, by people voluntarily giving up on subsidy. 

No plan has been announced to increase the subsidy (to make the gas cylinders affordable to more people) if a certain number of people voluntarily give up the present subsidy. 

So, I don't see what purpose will be served by this 'sacrifice'. 

A couple of years ago, when it was decided to limit the number of subsidised cylinders per connection to 6 cylinders per year, I felt it was a step in the right direction. It provided a positive incentive for using LPG more efficiently. However, a lot of hue and cry was raised about this measure, and the decision was relaxed to 12 cylinders per year, which is as good as the original status. 

The outcry about reducing the subsidy on LPG as well as the current appeal to 'voluntarily' give up LPG subsidy are both based on the same assumption - that people are entitled to get cooking gas at a subsidised price, because cooking with LPG is expensive. 

Let's look at some numbers to understand how much do we actually spend on cooking energy, with or without subsidy, and what would be the cost if we were to use some non-LPG fuels. 

Let's assume that a family uses 1 LPG cylinder per month. The weight of gas in a domestic LPG cylinder is 14.2 kg and its cost is INR 460 (in Pune), with subsidy. Thus, daily expense of cooking energy for this family would be INR 15. If they decided to forgo the subsidy, the cylinder will cost them INR 640, and their daily cooking energy expenditure would be marginally higher - INR 21. 

Actually even the so-called unsubsidised price for household LPG is in itself subsidised compared to the commercial price. If the family was to shift to LPG purchased at commercial rate, which is about INR 65 per kg at this point, they would spend about INR 30 per day on cooking energy. 

A number of people argue that the pricing of LPG is in itself flawed, and it should be available in the market at a much cheaper cost anyway. But for the present analysis, I am using the prices that are currently prevalent in the market, irrespective of the justification of the pricing. 

Let's compare the above costs with the cooking energy expenditure incurred by a family that does not use LPG. 

If the same amount of cooking was to be done on kerosene, 1 litre kerosene would be required every day. In the open market, cost of kerosene is INR 70 per litre! If the family is below poverty line, they are supposed to get subsidised kerosene through PDS system, but we all know how well that works! 

If the same amount of cooking is to be done on wood, about 3-5 kg of firewood would be required daily. If this is purchased, the cost will be about INR 30-50 per day. If it is to be collected, it may take at least half a day, so the cost would be the wage for half a day's work. Based on the daily wage rates prevalent in Maharashtra today, this cost amounts to as high as INR 100! Of course people can and do use a lot of agricultural residue from their own farms, etc., but there are other hidden costs in this approach, which we will not go into at this point. 

What does this mean? This means that those who cannot afford to shell out the lump sum cost of the LPG cylinder, are actually spending much more for their daily cooking energy need! Even the unsubsidised LPG user ends up spending less on a daily basis, compared to people not using LPG for cooking. On top of that, the LPG user, even when using the most basic LPG stove, faces much less safety and health hazards, and enjoys far greater user friendliness in the cooking operation, compared to the kerosene users or firewood users, using the traditional cooking technologies. 

So, if every citizen is entitled to clean and safe cooking energy, who is entitled to subsidies or any other government support, LPG users, or non-LPG users?

(to be continued...)

Priyadarshini Karve

Director

Samuchit Enviro Tech

#BeModernBeResponsibleBeRespectful

    Samuchit Enviro Tech.     samuchit@samuchit.com     www.samuchit.com