Time For Clean Energy Use In Africa

Every person needs food to sustain their lives. The vast majority of staple foods – about 95% – need cooking before they can be eaten, and most people cook at least two to three times per day.

Clean cooking fuel, as fuel with very low level of polluting emis­sion when burned, requires tech­nological education from design and construction to proper use and maintenance. These clean cooking fuels include biogas, liq­uefied petroleum gas, electricity, ethanol, natural gas and solar power (BLEENS).

The extraction and use of wood for energy is prominent in developing country with more than 80% of households in Sub-Saharan African (Angola, Ni­geria, Ghana etc.) depending on wood energy. Frequently, biomass fuels such as firewood, charcoal, dungs and agricultural residue are among the available energy sources especially in the rural areas, and mainly burned on in­efficient open fire and traditional stoves.

The combustion process guar­antees smoke; and this smoke contains a complex mixture of numerous substances composed of various organic and inorgan­ic compounds. These compounds are toxic and dangerous to the health system of human beings. This is because they contain car­bon-monoxide, nitrogen, sulphur oxide, carbon-dioxide, aldehydes, particulate matter, volatile organ­ic compounds, chlorinated diox­ins, free radicals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Access to modern energy re­mains a major problem in devel­oping countries; however, poorer countries suffer more from ener­gy access problems. More than 50% of death from pneumonia, cancer and chronic lung disease in Sub-Saharan Africa is due to combustion of solid fuels. Among women, there is a high associa­tion between fuel wood combus­tion, high risk of chronic bron­chitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease especially asthma and cataract. Childhood respiratory infections such as pneumonia have been highly as­sociated with fuel wood combus­tion (WHO, 2016).

Many countries in Africa lack access to clean fuels and technol­ogies for cooking, and the tran­sition to sustainable energy re­quires an assessment of drivers of the use of clean energy and dirty fuel for cooking. Though, access to clean fuel such as elec­tricity promotes clean fuel use; it does not necessarily lead to a complete transition to the use of clean fuel, hence most house­holds continue using traditional fuel in addition to the clean fuel. Despite massive efforts aimed at substituting and electrification, the number of people relying on biomass is slightly decreasing.

In 2018, about 2.8 billion peo­ple use biomass fuels for cooking. And, it is estimated that by 2030, about 2.52 billion people will still cook with biomass. Apart from the role of biomass for cooking, it is considered “dirty” and “back­ward” and seldom associated with “modern energy.” Yet, bio­mass has come to stay.

Recently, civil societies, aca­demic institutions and interna­tional co-operations promoted the use of clean cooking fuel, thereby encouraging initiatives to replace the traditional cooking fuel. But, to have a real impact on the welfare of the people, it is necessary to join efforts and work together with the public sectors.

Nevertheless, this would be an extensive action in terms of health, and this is the time to expand ideas and propose a com­prehensive approach to remove all the smokes from our homes, knowing very well that healthy people are generally more pro­ductive, enabling some people to break the vicious cycle of poverty.

Africa Clean Cooking Energy Solution (ACCES) Initiative has earlier organized enlightenment campaigns in improving health condition, counteract climate change and decrease negative socio-economic impacts of tradi­tional cooking stoves by introduc­ing clean cooking technologies and clean cooking fuels.

They reiterated that smoke produced by traditional stoves in household or rural areas has harmful effects on the health of families, posing a challenge of almost one-third of the African population. Hence, efforts are be­ing made to remove any device that generates harmful pollut­ants to human health, namely candles and oil lamps to mention but a few.

Since 2015, Universal Access to Energy has been on every na­tional agenda as well as inter­national co-operation. “Energy for all” means providing access to electricity for more than one-fifth of the world population, but the more challenging is providing access to sustainable, affordable and clean cooking energy for more than one-third of the world population.

Access to modern cooking en­ergy has so many tasks to interna­tional development co-operations. It will improve the situation re­lated to education, health, rural development, good governance and sustainable economic devel­opment by instigating cooking energy awareness campaigns to school children and women.

We are aware that for gener­ations, families in rural areas have developed practices that require no modern cooking fuel maintenance or cleaning. In this perspective, it is necessary to en­hance intervention plans to incor­porate activities that ensure sus­tainability for the clean cooking fuel users to take ownership of the new technologies.

According to the Cooking En­ergy Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Universal Access to Energy, there is a high­er share of renewable energy and massive improvements in energy efficiency as part of the top global priorities for sustainable develop­ment in the years to come.

…Christian writes via chi­dochrisozonegold@yahooo.com (09025179984)