Air pollution small solution: cookstove

[lola]

www.bbc.com/specialfeatures/horizonsbusiness/episode/air-pollution/?autoplay=true&vid=p01l249z&tab=1

I love it when smart young people work on solutions to big world problems.

This small Brooklyn company Biolite produces an advanced technology cookstove that could cut down on air pollution in India and Africa, while using 50% of the fuel. In the process it generates enough electricity to charge a mobile phone and light a small room.

Together with Columbia U. they are studying the carbon monoxide levels in pregnant African women, comparing those of women who sit over traditional fires to those using the Biolite stove. CO is especially harmful to those in utero.

I bought the small backpacker's version of a Biolite stove and keep it in my emergency kit. (But still can't decide where to keep the emergency kit; what if there's a tornado?) A handful of twigs can quickly boil water, cook, and provide a little heat.

Mine is smaller, and cost more than the $40 cited in the BBC clip. Though the Biolite guy says -- probably truthfully -- that it will pay for itself in six months, the initial cost is surely beyond the means of many target customers.

[bixaorellana]

This is fascinating, Lola -- an extremely interesting solution to a global problem. The fact that it uses so little fuel is another plus.

Not too long ago I lived up in the foothills of Monte Alban, almost up to where the electrical service ended. I used to go walking further up, & marveled at how people were making their homes where there was no water nor electrical service. If they can't find water by sinking a well into the sheer stone of the ground, it has to be trucked in. For light, they need to buy candles or fuel for lamps. And for cooking, they mostly have to buy charcoal or wood, as there is little wood to scavenge around their homes. Being poor is expensive!

The 6,000 Biolites currently in use in Africa & India will surely lead not only to refinements &/or adaptations of the design, but into possibilities for local, cheaper production of the stoves.

In the video, it just knocked me out to see twigs and cow dung being fed into the stove & to hear the two presenters talking about the usb port on the side!

[lola]

Yes, Bixa! Thanks for watching it.

Being poor is a lot of work, too.

I've cooked over enough open fires, after scavenging my own wood, to appreciate efficient use of fuel. When our girls were little, while we were camping in the middle of Yellowstone, our transmission went out at a lean time when we really couldn't afford the trip. We camped an extra week while it was being repaired, and used dried buffalo dung to supplement our purchased cooking wood, and would have appreciated less smoke and odor.

[lagatta]

That is a great story. $40 is a hell of a lot of money for those village women, but I suppose there can be pilot projects with a subsidy, and support to local small enterprises that can produce them cheaper, as bixa says.

At the other end of the scale, there is an interesting story about Mexico City just afterwards.