The Quest For Clean Cookstoves

'My choice is between going out there and collecting firewood and being raped, or for my husband to go out and get killed, and I would rather go and get raped,'. These stark words from women in North Uganda possibly explain the great human tragedy that is linked to the innocuous firewood cookstove and drives hundreds and thousands of engineers, social development experts and field workers to continue their unrelenting quest for the clean cook stove.

These words motivate people and organizations such as Veronique Barbelet of the World Food Programme to find solutions that can help solve the problem of firewood and the killer smoke from firewood and results in a collaboration like the one between Aprovecho and World Food Programme in Africa.

The World Food Programme now plans to use in Africa an Approvecho stove to cook meals for school children and refugee camps. The stove is built in a steel 55-gallon drum and has the capacity of cooking rice for 20 people with only a handful of wood sticks, 90 per cent less than what traditional stoves use.

An NPR report etches the journey of Aprovecho, improved cookstoves and the various efforts at fixing one of the biggest threats to women and children's health. The "rocket stove" Larry Winiarski invented in the 1980s is the prototype for Aprovecho's current crop of clean, efficient stoves, and his 10 principles have become the catechism for good stove design around the world.

Photo Courtesy: Aprovecho (Participants from the World Food Programme and a Kenyan NGO observe the flame of a top-burning Institutional Stove.)

To Read Full Story: Engineers Hone Clean Energy Stoves For the World 

EPA Award For Stove Team International

Stove Team International, an improved cookstove organisation has been awarded the “Special Achievement Award in Developing Local Markets" for fuel-efficient stove projects by the EPA’s Partnership for Clean Indoor Air (PCIA). Founder Nancy Hughes was also awarded Whitman College Alumnus of Merit as per a report on Hedon.

Established in 2008, StoveTeam International has built stove factories in four countries, which have sold more than 12,000 stoves.

Nancy Hughes felt the need to come up with a solution on indoor air pollution and its associated problems when she traveled to Guatemala with a medical team in 2004. In Guatemala, she met an 18 year old girl whose hands were burnt shut at the age of two from cookstove fire. And the girl was waiting all those years to get surgery done on her hands. There were babies with choked throats with creosote, countless causes of hernias from collecting wood, and the effects of deforestation which had reached incurable stages.

On leaving Guatemala, Hughes realized the unavailability of medical services to the innumerable inhabitants. She wanted to go to the root of the problem and find a solution for it –which was smoke from the cookstoves.

She got help from Rotary International in form of a grant which was used to manufacture Ecocina, a portable, affordable and safe cookstove. She found local entrepreneurs who were willing to start sustainable factories to produce the stoves which also created employment. Her work was recognized among one of 100 people in the world who were contributing to the society and was awarded the ‘Service Above Self Award’ in 2009. 

In January this year, Hughes was awarded the Whitman College Alumnus of Merit Award for recognizing the health issues associated with open-fire cooking and developing Ecocina stove and starting Stove Team international to counter the problems.

In 2011, StoveTeam will be helping to establish clean cookstove factories in Mexico, Ghana and Kenya. 

Photo Courtesy: Stove Team International
Read the full story on: StoveTeam International Wins Top Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Award

IAP Experts To Gather In Peru For 5th PCIA Forum

The 5th Biennial PCIA Forum will take place at the El Pueblo Conference Center in the outskirts of Lima, Peru, February 21-26th, 2011. It will gather together over 300 of the world’s leading household energy and health experts for five days of dynamic workshops, technical presentations and case studies from successful programs around the world. The Forum, which will begin on Tuesday, February 22nd; will be preceded by a one-day kickoff event in downtown Lima on Monday February 21st as part of the “Half-million Stoves for a Smokeless Peru” campaign.

PCIA Forums rotate between Latin America (LAC), Africa and Asia; the last two Forums were in Uganda and India. The Peru venue will allow LAC Partners to access the Forum more easily, and will allow non-LAC Partners to learn firsthand about the work that’s happening in the Western Hemisphere related to indoor air pollution, and fuel use reduction technologies. The forum is being organized in collaboration with GTZ-Peru.

Discussions on improving cookstove efficiency, manufacturing clean technologies and fuel and visits to stove projects sites will form the core at the forum. The seminar will also discuss accessing carbon finance and planning for the future.

The forum will begin with an analysis on the “Half-million Stoves for a Smokeless Peru” campaign, which began in June 2009 and will last through December 2011. The campaign’s goal is to contribute to an improved quality of life for Peruvian families through the installation of certified improved stoves in half a million households, and to create development opportunities for communities.

The inaugural event will present results to date (for certification and installation of improved stoves) and advances in the policy framework among other topics. The forum will provide insights on the happening related to indoor air pollution and reduction techniques on fuel use. The participants will be able to light stoves to see its working and there will be film screenings on PCIA Partner activities and results as well as poster exhibitions.

All the Questions Answered on the 2011 PCIA Forum