page_title: Project Gaia
section_title: Biomass fuels and associated risks
hierarchical_section_title: Project Gaia / Current cooking methods in energy poor communities: the problem / Biomass fuels and associated risks
caption_attribution_description: English: A small boy sits by his mother's traditional woodfuel stove. Nigeria.
context_page_description: Project Gaia is a U.S. non-governmental, non-profit organization involved in the creation of a commercially viable household market for alcohol-based fuels in Ethiopia and other countries in the developing world. The project considers alcohol fuels to be a solution to fuel shortages, environmental damage, and public health issues caused by traditional cooking in the developing world. Targeting poor and marginalized communities that face health issues from cooking over polluting fires, Gaia currently works in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Brazil, Haiti, and Madagascar, and is in the planning stage of projects in several other countries.
context_section_description: More than 3 billion people cook with wood fire worldwide. Approximately 60% of African families cook with traditional biomass, a percentage that increases to 90% for Sub-Saharan Africa. Smoke and gaseous emissions pour out of burning wood, animal dung, or crop residues, leading to lung disease and respiratory illnesses in women and children. Traditional biomass fuels release emissions that contain pollutants dangerous to health, such as small particles, carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide, butadiene, formaldehyde, and carcinogens such as benzopyrene and benzene. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 4 million people die each year from household air pollution generated by cooking with solid fuels in poorly ventilated spaces. 500,000 of these deaths are from childhood pneumonia. Indoor air pollution is especially deadly for children; it is responsible for nearly 50% of pneumonia deaths in children under the age of five.
caption: A small boy sits by his mother's traditional wood fuel stove. Because of the inefficient heat production of wood-fired stoves such as this one, women cook indoors for hours each day in poorly ventilated dwellings.
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