The household cooking sector in Nigeria: Environmental and economic sustainability assessment

Abstract

This paper studies life cycle environmental impacts and costs of the household cooking sector in Nigeria from 2003 to 2030. Five scenarios are considered: business as usual, dominated by fuel wood stoves; low penetration of improved fuel wood and solar stoves, as planned by the government; high penetration of these stoves; increased use of fossil fuel stoves; and increased use of electric stoves. If business as usual (BAU) continues, the environmental impacts would increase by up to four times and costs by up to five times, mainly because of high fuel wood consumption. Implementing the government's plan to introduce improved fuel wood and solar stoves would yield no environmental advantages, as the proposed number of stoves is too low. A higher number of the advanced stoves would lead to significant improvements in some impacts but would worsen others so that some trade-offs are needed. From the economic perspective, the scenario with a high use of advanced stoves has the lowest total costs but its capital costs are three times higher than for BAU. The government should prioritise the introduction of advanced stoves to reduce health impact from indoor pollution and reduce pressures on biomass resources; however, this may require subsidies. Fossil fuel and electric stoves would also help to preserve biomass and reduce health impacts from indoor pollution but would lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and depletion of fossil resources.