8 thoughts on “‘Energy Access‘: Fuel used”

  1. Sir,
    It is a good analysis and representation of the data using GIS.
    Here are few coments.
    All the analysis shows fuel wise statistics It would be good to see the analysis with households using more than one fuel together (fuel mix) on regular basis at least with majorly (or commonly) used fuel mix. I think there might be people who do not completely depend on single fuel source.

    This may give a picture of shifting from one fuel to another (say for example from kerosene to LPG etc). Another way might be to look for the quantitative analysis with the quantity of fuel used per house hold in a region, along with the fuel availability. This may be difficult to get the numbers for firewood, crop residues, or dung cakes etc, but it would be greatly useful.

    Regards,
    Vamsee

    1. Dear Vamsee

      Thanks for the pertinent comments.
      However, this analysis only looks at the two census snap shots of 2001 and 2011 with the major fuel type.
      Some idea of transition can be obtained once we look at the state data and see the change in the pattern for the fuel mix. This will need a follow up in terms of some kind of household survey to see who switches over to what.

      I think it may be a good idea to compare the pie charts for 2001 and 2011 for the same state and same district. But then you may have to wait a bit or more fruitfully – do the analysis and post it here !!

  2. Very interesting analysis indeed! My recent work has been on gender and adaptive agriculture, studying both the national and state-level climate plans and on-the-ground adaptive farming practices. I have not studied energy directly but the links to your study are interesting. My work shows that though natural resources are depleting, smallholder women farmers are walking longer for water and firewood because there are no alternative energy sources. Again, biogas is an adaptive mechanism for me, one that helps women in particular. Yet, there are few takers for this because poor, smallholders prefer recycling bio-waste into farming inputs, just to survive. This involves a lot more labour than farming with high-yielding varieties and chemical inputs but the crop failure is more with this on their small, rainfed farms. Also, with high-yielding seeds, there is little crop waste which they can use as fodder or as fuel. So biogas has not been taken up in this kind of small adaptive farming. There are some interesting examples using solar panels to pump water in arid Anantapur, AP, which I have talked about elsewhere. A lot of our recent work is up on our new theme-based website and we’ll be adding to this. I’d also like to give the link to your presentation on this website.

    1. Thanks for the feedback. Yes, to a large extent, the bio gas or the chulha programmes have not been sustained is because these solve women’s problems. MNRE is trying to revive the thrust in these two schemes.

      Bio gas need not provide full solution to the cooking problem – its availability does reduce the women’s drudgery considerably. I met a farmer in Jammu who uses a 2CuM bio gas plant which saves only one out of two LPG cylinders. But that is a big help!

      An additional deficiency in the bio gas programme was that the manure aspects were not adequately highlighted (A legitimate grouse of the ICAR against MNRE !). BAIF has now initiated a pilot in this regard where they are trying an image makeover for the bio gas plant and doing separation of the solids, recycling the liquid slurry with very low TS and downstream vermiculture. The image makeover makes the farmer’s son clad in jeans and T Shirt shed his inhbitions about operating the bio gas plant (Much like the green house and drip irrigation based agriculture). The BAIF idea is attractive even without subsidy but MNRE subsidy would surely help.

      An unfinished agenda on which everyone needs to work is to drastically bring the cost of the family size bio gas plant. But that is work in progress..

      All this still does not detract from the fact that low spread of bio gas in regions where cow dung cake is used as fuel on a large scale is a governance issue.

  3. This is interesting.i assume solar energy use would come under other sources in the last slide.
    I am using solar energy in myhomein Varanasi and would dearly like to promote the use .is there any ongoing campaign.
    Pragya

    1. Dear Pragya – thanks for the comments and the use of solar energy. We do need people who lead by example and not just preaching. Regarding your wish to promote solar energy, do let us know the level of involvement you want – individual, with an NGO, part of a programme etc. What kind of time can you spare.
      Do also read the second part of the analysis on sources of lighting before you respond.

  4. This contains some very interesting information and is very relevant for some work that my colleagues and I are doing. We have just completed a study for Shakti on ‘Low-Carbon Inclusive Growth’ where some LEAP scenarios were conducted. We are arguing that it is technically possible to meet the energy access needs of the poor and also bring India’s GHG emissions to 2005 by 2030. I can share the draft report with you if you like. We are interested in other scholars continuing this work, so will shortly post the entire LEAP data set on http://www.energycommunity.org.

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