Even as administrator of US EPA, Lisa P Jackson, is on a visit to Ethiopia to discuss with the Government issues relating to environmental health, improvement of indoor air quality through clean cook stoves and management of electronic waste, Dr Ashok Gadgil of Berkeley Lab is testing out a modified version of the Berkeley-Darfur stove to accommodate the specific characteristics of Ethiopian cooking.
As per a report on TsehaiNY.com, Jackson will speak with students from Addis Ababa University to encourage women to come forward and take charge in addressing environmental issues facing Ethiopia. She will also participate in a demonstration of clean cook stove technology with civil society groups to learn about the work of local non-governmental organizations.In the meantime, Berkeley Lab is poised to open a new chapter in cook stoves in Ethiopia. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in partnership with several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including Oxfam America and the Clinton Global Initiative are testing out an adaptation of the Berkeley-Darfur stoves which reduces firewood consumption by up to 50 per cent.
With help from the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF), Lead Scientist Dr. Ashok Gadgil is bringing his latest innovation to Ethiopian households which face the problem of acute firewood scarcity due to shortage of firewood.
Keeping the same basic design of the Berkeley-Darfur cookstove, the researchers modified it keeping the Ethiopian style of cooking in mind.
Dr. Gadgil is a strong proponent of field testing and says that while the principles of the efficient cookstove were known for many decades, the Berkeley team is doing things more effectively just by listening to the end user. These field tests usually consist of one group of women cooking a traditional meal using a three-stone fire and another group that simultaneously cooks an identical meal using the energy efficient cookstove. Currently there are twenty fuel-efficient cookstoves being tested on the ground in Ethiopia. Dr. Gadgil hopes to have 500 more of the stoves in Ethiopia for additional testing in the coming months, according to a report in in Energy.gov.
Photo: From Berkeley Lab
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