Veerabhadran Ramanathan vividly remembers the family kitchen in his grandfather’s village home in India. It was small, intensely hot and its walls were layered with caked-on soot the color of pitch.
Ramanathan’s was one of millions of Indian households that used cow dung, a cheap and plentiful source of fuel, for cooking. But the age-old practice exacts a different kind of price, discharging high levels
of pollutants into the air, and millions of women and children face a more immediate respiratory hazard posed by direct prolonged contact with the smoke inside the kitchens. About half of the world’s population, and 75 percent of households in India, use biofuels and biomass to prepare food and heat their homes. International health agencies estimate that this daily exposure leads to 400,000 to 550,000 premature deaths every year in India alone.
Now the atmospheric science professor at UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography is soliciting support for a project that would harness another plentiful source of energy. Project Surya, named for the Sanskrit word for sun, aims to install parabolic solar cookers and other energy-efficient cooking implements, made by a variety of manufacturers, to 20,000 rural Indian households. Ramanathan plans simultaneous air quality measurements in the vicinity of the test sites and hopes to record a pronounced downward trend in smog levels.
“It is basically a win-win approach that brings poverty alleviation, public health benefits and global warming mitigation under one package,” Ramanathan says. “We are hopeful that support from the private sector and foundations here in San Diego and elsewhere can make it happen.”
For more information on Surya go to: ramanathan.ucsd.edu/ProjectSurya.html
— Robert Monroe
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