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Analysis of the life-cycle costs and environmental impacts of cooking fuels used in Ghana

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  • Afrane, George
  • Ntiamoah, Augustine

Abstract

This study evaluated the life-cycle costs and environmental impacts of fuels used in Ghanaian households for cooking. The analysis covered all the common cooking energy sources, namely, firewood, charcoal, kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas, electricity and even biogas, whose use is not as widespread as the others. In addition to the usual costing methods, the Environmental Product Strategies approach (EPS) of Steen and co-workers, which is based on the concept of ‘willingness-to-pay’ for the restoration of degraded systems, is used to monetise the emissions from the cookstoves. The results indicate that firewood, one of the popular woodfuels in Ghana and other developing countries, with an annual environmental damage cost of US$36,497 per household, is more than one order of magnitude less desirable than charcoal, the nearest fuel on the same scale, at US$3120. This method of representing the results of environmental analysis is complementary to the usual gravimetric life-cycle assessment (LCA) representation, and brings home clearly to decision-makers, especially non-LCA practitioners, the significance of environmental analysis results in terms that are familiar to all.

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  • Afrane, George & Ntiamoah, Augustine, 2012. "Analysis of the life-cycle costs and environmental impacts of cooking fuels used in Ghana," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 301-306.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:98:y:2012:i:c:p:301-306
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2012.03.041
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Viswanathan, Brinda & Kavi Kumar, K. S., 2005. "Cooking fuel use patterns in India: 1983-2000," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(8), pages 1021-1036, May.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Wilson, D.L. & Talancon, D.R. & Winslow, R.L. & Linares, X. & Gadgil, A.J., 2016. "Avoided emissions of a fuel-efficient biomass cookstove dwarf embodied emissions," Development Engineering, Elsevier, vol. 1(C), pages 45-52.
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    4. Porzio, Giacomo Filippo & Colla, Valentina & Fornai, Barbara & Vannucci, Marco & Larsson, Mikael & Stripple, Håkan, 2016. "Process integration analysis and some economic-environmental implications for an innovative environmentally friendly recovery and pre-treatment of steel scrap," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 656-672.
    5. Dongli Tan & Yao Wu & Zhiqing Zhang & Yue Jiao & Lingchao Zeng & Yujun Meng, 2023. "Assessing the Life Cycle Sustainability of Solar Energy Production Systems: A Toolkit Review in the Context of Ensuring Environmental Performance Improvements," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-37, July.
    6. Diener, Stefan & Semiyaga, Swaib & Niwagaba, Charles B. & Muspratt, Ashley Murray & Gning, Jean Birane & Mbéguéré, Mbaye & Ennin, Joseph Effah & Zurbrugg, Christian & Strande, Linda, 2014. "A value proposition: Resource recovery from faecal sludge—Can it be the driver for improved sanitation?," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 32-38.
    7. Patel, Sameer & Khandelwal, Anish & Leavey, Anna & Biswas, Pratim, 2016. "A model for cost-benefit analysis of cooking fuel alternatives from a rural Indian household perspective," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 291-302.
    8. Topriska, Evangelia & Kolokotroni, Maria & Dehouche, Zahir & Novieto, Divine T. & Wilson, Earle A., 2016. "The potential to generate solar hydrogen for cooking applications: Case studies of Ghana, Jamaica and Indonesia," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 495-509.
    9. Malla, Sunil & Timilsina, Govinda R, 2014. "Household cooking fuel choice and adoption of improved cookstoves in developing countries : a review," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6903, The World Bank.
    10. Noah Ver Beek & Elvin Vindel & Matthew Kuperus Heun & Paul E. Brockway, 2020. "Quantifying the Environmental Impacts of Cookstove Transitions: A Societal Exergy Analysis Based Model of Energy Consumption and Forest Stocks in Honduras," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-22, June.
    11. Kim, Jiyong & Miller, James E. & Maravelias, Christos T. & Stechel, Ellen B., 2013. "Comparative analysis of environmental impact of S2P (Sunshine to Petrol) system for transportation fuel production," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 1089-1098.

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