Charcoal may be the ugly duckling of household heating and cooking fuels. Long considered destructive to forests and damaging to the atmosphere, it could turn into a lifesaver, says physicist and energy specialist Daniel Kammen of the University of California at Berkeley. “Burning charcoal in a stove is dramatically better than wood burning.”
Kammen and his colleagues have found that wood-burning stoves in sub-Saharan Africa could lead to nearly 10 million premature deaths over the next 25 years. Particulate pollutants in woodsmoke significantly increase the risk of pneumonia in children and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in adult women.
Switching to charcoal could save 2.8 million of those lives. Lighter and denser than wood, charcoal burns longer and produces fewer toxic emissions, reducing indoor air pollution by up to 90 percent. Charcoal isn’t widely used in most African homes because governments view it as backward and destructive. “Right now, almost every ...
