Life Cycle Assessment of Cookstove Fuels in India and China
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) conducted research to provide data and tools that inform decisions regarding clean cookstoves and fuels for China and India. A life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted to compare the environmental footprint of current and possible fuels used for cooking in these two countries. This report provides the life-cycle inventory (LCI) environmental tradeoffs for cooking fuels. The fuels evaluated include natural gas; liquefied petroleum gas (LPG); coal; kerosene; biomass (crop residue, dung, charcoal, firewood, wood pellets); biogas; sugarcane ethanol; and dimethyl ether (DME). The study also assessed electric stoves that utilize a diverse set of fuel types upstream. Current fuel mix profiles are compared to scenarios of projected differences in and/or cleaner cooking fuels.
A complementary report was developed by the Alliance focusing on additional cooking fuels, indicators, and countries and can be viewed here under the Resources tab.
