Need for alternatives

Friday 17th June, 2022

The fuel crisis has taken a turn for the worse, and government leaders have run out of excuses, promises and rhetoric. Instead of finding ways and means of making fuel available in sufficient amounts, they have got the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation to release a list of filling stations, to which fuel stocks are dispatched, on a daily basis. They seem to think their responsibility ends there! Queues for cooking gas are also getting longer.

Newly-appointed Litro Gas Chairman Muditha Peiris has dropped a bombshell. He has said no fresh orders have been placed for LP gas. Thus, it is clear that the hapless gas consumers will have to wait in queues indefinitely. They are bound to stage more protests, blocking roads and plunging the country into chaos. These agitations have not jolted the government into taking action to solve the gas problem; instead, they only inconvenience the ordinary road users who are in the same predicament as the protesters.

It really breaks one’s heart to see women, men and even children suffering in long queues, braving as they do rain and the scorching sun. Why people, especially city dwellers living in apartment complexes, are desperate for LP gas is understandable. Traditional firewood stoves cannot be used at most houses in urban areas for obvious reasons. People must therefore be provided with LP gas. Let that be the bottom line. But there are some modern, smoke-free, efficient alternatives to gas, as senior engineers such as Parakrama Jayasinhge have pointed out. The National Engineering Research and Development Centre (NERD) has already addressed this issue, and several veteran engineers have written extensively on these alternatives in this newspaper for years, but successive governments have not taken their views seriously; it is doubtful whether even the public took any notice of them until recently. If their advice had been heeded, and action taken, the country’s dependence on LP gas could have been reduced significantly.

Many LP gas consumers switched to kerosene stoves, but today kerosene is also in short supply. Some people are using electricity for cooking, and the CEB laments that electricity consumption has been increasing. But the day may not be far off when the ordinary people cannot afford electricity even for lighting purposes; a massive electricity tariff hike is said to be on the cards. If electricity prices are jacked up exponentially, as feared, it will be well-nigh impossible to use electricity for cooking.

The need for harnessing solar energy cannot be overemphasised. It is the way forward for not only this country but also the entire world. But rooftop solar systems cannot be installed in a hurry and are expensive mostly due to the prevailing forex crunch. Hence the need to look for viable alternatives to cooking gas.

Some LP gas consumers have already opted for coconut charcoal stoves, which are virtually smokeless and very efficient. They inform us that cooking is now much cheaper and they are not that desperate for gas. Others ought to try this alternative and see whether it works for them as well; the government cannot raise funds for LP gas imports.

The government cannot be forgiven for its failure to ensure a steady supply of cooking gas as well as other fuels, and the politicians responsible for bankrupting the country must be dealt with severely, come the next election, but people cannot stop cooking until such time. They should find alternatives to LP gas and kerosene, at least as a short-term measure, shouldn’t they?

Will the government, or community based organisations or local councils launch a pilot project to provide city dwellers with coconut charcoal stoves at affordable prices in a bid to ameliorate their suffering? The stoves available in the market could be further developed to increase their efficiency and reduce harmful emissions. The burning of charcoal and firewood has some ill-effects, which could however be mitigated scientifically, as an eminent scientist points out in an article published on the opposite page today. Given the situation we find ourselves in, we have to turn to alternative fuels for cooking. As Prof. O. A. Ileperuma has rightly pointed out what is needed is to use firewood, etc., safely to avoid adverse health effects.

It is high time the government and bureaucrats turned to the NERD engineers, scientists, and innovators for a solution to the cooking gas crisis. The coconut charcoal stove seems to be a viable alternative.