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

Mon Nov 13 18:40:09 CST 2006

Thomas Reed wrote:
> 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.
>>
>>
>>   
>>     
>
>
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>   
Tom,
Try this link
http://darfurstoves.lbl.gov/
or
http://darfurstoves.lbl.gov/stove.html

google darfurstoves.lbl.gov    too

enjoy
David

-- 
"We make a living by what we get... we make a life by what we give." - unknown author

David Whitfield V.
Executive Director
CEDESOL Foundation

Alternative Education, Renewable Energy, Social Equality 

http://www.cedesol.org

SKYPE - solar1bol