Comparison of improved and traditional cooking stove user in terms of firewood consumption
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In Nepal, overall energy resources as categorized by the Government of Nepal is into three types viz. Traditional, Commercial and Renewable resources. Traditional energy resources include firewood, agricultural residues and animal dried dung whereas commercial energy resources include Liquid Petroleum gas (LPG), Kerosene oil etc. Mountainous rural household in Nepal mostly depends upon firewood and animal dried dung as main source of energy for cooking purpose. Improved cooking stoves (ICS) has been installed in Chhekampar Village Development Committee (VDC) that is introduced in the village from adjacent Tibetan markets rather than from the nearest Nepalese market. The local name for ICS is “Chiadap”. Accordingly, this paper has the purpose to compare between improved and the traditional stoves user with regard to firewood consumption categorizing the altitude according to ward elevation. For this, stratified random sampling was done to collect primary data using structured questionnaire from 61 households out of 244 households of Chhekampar VDC which is 25% of the universe. The major variables used to analyze the firewood consumptions of the households are Stove type, Family Size, Livestock Holdings, Frequency of firewood collection, income, firewood collected at once, time spent inside the kitchen, and time taken to gather the firewood from the nearest forest. Furthermore, this paper aims to identify the benefits received after the installation of ICS in the households and also the source of information about the ICS. The results reveal that all the respondents are totally dependent on the firewood and animal dried dung as a primary source of energy for cooking purpose. Moreover, the results showed that using improved stoves reduced per capita firewood consumption by 620.5 kg per capita/year, household firewood savings by NRs 71357.5 per capita/year. The Carbon Emissions of traditional cooking stoves user is more than ICS user by 1135.51 Kg per capita/year. Out of 61 households, 45.90% HH reported that they had respiratory and optical problem whereas 54.09% HH reported they had not suffered from respiratory and optical problem. Improved stoves users agreed that, ICS have many advantages over the traditional one. The entire ICS user responded that the source of information of ICS is through their relatives/neighbor. The findings from the study recommends that improved cooking stoves have the potential to reduce to consumption of firewood however the efforts should be made to encourage villagers to install ICS. Since, almost every household is dependent upon national forest for primary energy resource; alternative energy should be made available to reduce the depleting rate of the forest.
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