[Stoves] Berkeley improved stove featured on Voice of America Broadcast

[Thomas Reed]

Dear David:

I couldn't access

David:

The website "darfurstoves.lbl.gov" doesn't respond. Have you had any 
success finding out more?

TOM REED BEF

David Whitfield wrote:
> TEXT from VOA News pertaining to Berkeley improved stove.
> http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/2006-11-06-voa2.cfm
>
> VOICE TWO:
>
> Scientists have designed a cookstove that could make life a little 
> easier for refugees in the Darfur area of Sudan. It might also help 
> reduce the loss of forests in poor countries where trees are cut down as 
> fuel for cooking fires. The scientists are from the Lawrence Berkeley 
> National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley.
>
> Two of them, Ashok Gadgil [ah-SHOKE GAD-gil] and Christina Galitsky, 
> went to Darfur late last year. They found that many refugee families 
> were missing meals for lack of fuel.
>
> The light metal stove uses only about one-fourth as much wood as the 
> cooking method currently used in the camps. That method is known as the 
> three-stone fire. Less need for fuel would mean less need for women to 
> leave the camps to search for wood and risk being attacked in 
> violence-torn Darfur.
>
> VOICE ONE:
>
> Since that visit, the researchers have improved the stove. Now they are 
> trying to set up production. They estimate that the stoves could be 
> built locally in Darfur for about fifteen dollars each. They say about 
> three hundred thousand are needed. The hope is to begin producing five 
> thousand stoves by the end of the year.
>
> Ashok Gadgil says his team agrees with aid organizations that the stoves 
> should not be given away free of charge. If they are free, he says, they 
> will be undervalued. People might then try to sell them for the value of 
> the metal. The scientists say microlending programs could help people 
> buy the stoves with loans if they do not have enough money. And people 
> could use borrowed money to start their own stove-building business.
>
> VOICE TWO:
>
> San Francisco area members of Engineers Without Borders-USA are 
> providing engineering support for the project. The groups working on the 
> Darfur Cookstoves Project are also seeking donations to support their work.
>
> The project has a Web site. The address is darfurstoves.lbl.gov.
>
> VOICE ONE:
>
> During the nineteen nineties, Ashok Gadgil invented a water-purifying 
> system that won awards for its design. The system is called UV 
> Waterworks. It uses ultraviolet light to disinfect water of viruses and 
> bacteria. And it can be powered by a car battery or energy from the sun.
>
> Now there is another award-winning water-purifying device on the market. 
> The Vestergaard Frandsen Group, a Danish company with headquarters in 
> Switzerland, invented the LifeStraw last year. The LifeStraw won an 
> award from a nonprofit organization in Denmark that honors designs to 
> improve life.
>
> VOICE TWO:
>
> The LifeStraw is a thick plastic tube twenty-five centimeters long. You 
> place one end into water and drink from the other. The water passes 
> through a series of filters to catch extremely small particles. Iodine 
> and active carbon are also used in the cleaning process. It takes about 
> eight minutes to filter one liter.
>
> Vestergaard Frandsen says the LifeStraw kills organisms that spread 
> diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid and cholera. The device filters most 
> bacteria and parasites. But it has limits, including against viruses. 
> Also, it does not remove arsenic or other heavy metals from water.
>
> VOICE ONE:
>
> The LifeStraw costs about three dollars. It can be worn on a string 
> around the neck. It has a lifetime of up to seven hundred liters, or 
> about one year.
>
> The company notes that each day, worldwide, more than six thousand 
> children and adults die from unsafe drinking water.
>
> (MUSIC)
>
> VOICE TWO:
>
> SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Jerilyn Watson and Jill Moss. I?m 
> Faith Lapidus.
>
> VOICE ONE:
>
> And I?m Doug Johnson. Learn more about science, and download transcripts 
> and MP3 files of our programs, at voaspecialenglish.com And join us 
> again next week for more news about science in Special English on the 
> Voice of America.
>
>
>