Igor O'Neill Jakarta

Vice President Jusuf Kalla on Oct. 7 announced the government's plan to spend Rp 150 billion (US$15 million) to buy 10 million coal stoves as a part of the government efforts to diversify energy resources and to reduce the costly subsidy for kerosene.

Such a move is at odds with research-based public health initiatives such as the Partnership for Clean Indoor Air, discussed here in Indonesia during the preparatory conference for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. The initiative addresses the increased environmental health risk faced by more than two billion people in the developing world who burn solid fuels indoors.

According to the World Health Organization, exposure to indoor cooking with solid fuels results in an estimated 1.6 million premature deaths each year, largely among women who do most cooking, and children who are at increased risk of death by respiratory infection.

Poor ventilation is a key factor increasing the health risk from cooking with coal briquettes. Many households in Indonesia make do without stovetop hoods or a proper chimney designed to create a draft to draw cooking fumes upwards and out of the kitchen.

Homes with chimneys or hoods still experience some risk as shown in a carefully controlled study Lung Cancer and Indoor Pollution from Heating and Cooking with Solid Fuels, published earlier this year in the American Journal of Epidemiology. This study found that even in Eastern/Central Europe and the United Kingdom where most homes are equipped with chimneys, cooking with solid fuels including coal significantly increases the risk of lung cancer, while switching to "modern" nonsolid fuels reduced the risk.

Studies conducted in China have detailed the nature and causes of health risks to women and children of cooking with coal: Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons formed during coal combustion are a cause of oesophageal and lung cancers, and other combustion products increase rates of acute respiratory infections and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (such as bronchitis and emphysema).

Amongst cooking fuels, coal brings unique health problems because of a tendency to contain sulfur, mercury, arsenic, selenium and fluoride contaminants. The quality of coal chosen for cooking is important. According to University of Pittsburgh research published in 2004, women in Xuan Wei County, China who cook indoors with local coal have 20 times the normal rate of genetic mutations that greatly increase their risk of developing lung cancer.

Elsewhere in China, in a paper entitled Health impacts of domestic coal use in China researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey and the Institute of Geochemistry, Guizhou estimated that at least 3,000 people in Guizhou Province in southwest China are suffering from chronic arsenic poisoning apparently from consuming food prepared over fires fueled with coal.

Clay binders used to make briquettes can boost the levels of fluorine naturally present in coal, with an estimated 10 million people in China suffering from dental and skeletal fluorosis (bone deformation) caused by eating foods prepared over fluoride- containing coal briquettes.

In light of the Chinese experience, the government should provide details of the levels of toxic contaminants in the coal produced by proposed coal briquette manufacturer, PT Batu Bara Bukit Asam in order to assess the level of public health risk.

In terms of fire safety, coal briquettes are not necessarily as safe as they seem at first glance: Impatience or lack of safety training commonly leads to burn injuries when cooks apply too much liquid fuel to start coal briquettes burning, or if they mistakenly use an explosive starter fuel such as gasoline. Spent briquettes which appear to be extinguished can hold heat inside for several hours and may start a fire if disposed of too soon or into a plastic container.

Although a kilogram of coal briquettes seems cheap, we must take into account that it contains only around 60 percent of the energy (5500 kcal) of a liter of kerosene (8900 kcal), and less than half the energy of a kilogram of liquid petroleum gas (11900 kcal).

The government's plan to procure 10 million coal briquette stoves seems a hastily contrived reaction to community outcry over the unpopular policy to reduce fuel subsidies. However, choosing which cooking fuels to support entails examining the needs of different users and the various health, environmental and poverty benefits and impacts.

Coal is not an ideal replacement fuel, and fortunately there are a range of low-impact alternatives available. For rural communities, castor oil and biomass fuels produced from agricultural wastes such as coconut and rice husks are a renewable and readily obtainable resource eminently worthy of research and investment. The Agency for the Assesment and Application of Technology (BPPT) has also determined that solar cookers are viable supplements to fuel-burning stoves.

Where distribution centers can be established, particularly in towns, cooking with liquid petroleum gas (LPG) is healthier, easier and more efficient, providing instant on/off and adjustable heating. Indonesia enjoys world-class gas reserves.

The hurdle for most families is that purchasing an LPG stove costs around Rp 250 000, and a gas bottle costs around Rp 350 000. For LPG to be affordable it must compete with the purchase price of a kerosene stove at only Rp 100 000. If the government is looking for a place to relocate subsidies to benefit the poor, perhaps it could consider narrowing this gap.

In contrast with renewable biomass fuel, coal is a non- renewable fossil fuel which brings health risks for indoor use and environmental impacts through open-cut mining and greenhouse gas emissions. It is doubtful that cooking with coal briquettes will be popular, and given the adverse impacts, cooking with coal is not the best choice for public health or the environment.

The writer is WALHI (Indonesian Forum for Environment) national office staff. He can be reached at igor@walhi.or.id.