An Assessment of the Economic and Environmental Advantages of Solar Cookers over Traditional Stoves in Adaa Chukala Woreda, Oromya Regional State, Ethiopia

Zelelow, Sisay Berhe (2010) An Assessment of the Economic and Environmental Advantages of Solar Cookers over Traditional Stoves in Adaa Chukala Woreda, Oromya Regional State, Ethiopia. Masters thesis, Addis Ababa University.

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Abstract

Energy is one of the basic things needed to satisfy basic human needs. The primary source of almost all forms of energies is the sun. Ethiopia is among the countries situated in the Sunbelt and is endowed with abundant solar radiation, yet it suffers from cooking energy shortage. Inability of Ethiopians to get alternative cooking energy source to biomass fuel forces them to unsustainable use of biomass energy resources that degrade the environment. Solar cookers, which depend on clean, free, and abundant solar radiation can play an important role in help to solve the cooking energy shortage throughout the country. In Adaa Chukala Woreda, distribution of solar cookers has been done since 2007. With this background, efforts were made to explore the attitude, perception and acceptability of solar cookers by women and the economic and environmental benefits of the technology in the area. Regarding attitudes, it was found that 97.5% of the women have favourable attitude towards solar cookers while the remaining 2.5% have a neutral attitude. Perception of women obtained from their last words is in favor of using solar cooker. Solar cooker use frequency together with the favourable attitude women have towards it shows the majority of women have accepted the solar cooker as an alternative cooking device. Constraints to frequent use of solar cookers in the area are the non competiveness of the solar cooker with the traditional stoves and the cognitive behavior of women towards the technology. The experimental results of measuring the amount of wood and charcoal as well as solar cooker shows that regularly cooking selected foods on the solar cooker for a week can save 5.18 to 7.245Kg of wood, which costs in the range of birr 3.367 to birr 4.709. Using charcoal in place of wood to cook these foods needed 2.31Kg to 4.9Kg of charcoal and this had a price of birr 5.567 to birr 11.809. Expanding these values to a larger number of solar cookers has a significant benefit from the environmental and economic point of view. Hence solar cooker dissemination throughout the country can play greater role to reduce the cost of energy for households and help them save from their meager income and therefore contribute to poverty reduction, the main enemy of the country. Solar cookers use has the potential to create environmental awareness among beneficiaries and reduce the amount of biomass fuels consumed on open fire and contribute to environmental safety.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) Q Science > QH Natural history > QH301 Biology
Divisions:	Africana
Depositing User:	Selom Ghislain
Date Deposited:	24 May 2018 12:23
Last Modified:	24 May 2018 12:23
URI:	http://thesisbank.jhia.ac.ke/id/eprint/4075

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