[Stoves] 300,000 Berkeley Stoves for Darfur by Next Year

[Tom Miles]

The October 2006 issue of MIT's Technology Review has a feature story on
their "Humanitarian of the Year," Christina Galitsky of Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory. Among the work reported is Christina's demonstration of
the Berkeley version of the Tara (Development Alternatives, India) stove in
Darfur that Ashok Gadgil reported to us last month. See
http://bioenergylists.org/en/btara 
 
She reportedly demonstrated a three stone fire, a "mud stove popular with
many aid groups," and the metal stove. Fuel consumption was reported as 10
piles (of 250 grams) of wood for the three stone fire, 9 piles for the mud
stove and "four or five" piles for the Berkeley metal stove. 
 
By that measure the Berkeley Tara should perform pretty well in a Water
Boiling Test compared with the open fire and the mud stove. Charlie
(Sellers) have you compared the Berkeley stove with an open fire using the
WBT? Does anyone know what the mud stove design might have been? It would be
useful to compare performance and emissions of the Berkeley stove with the
mud stove and Ken Goyer's Sixbricks stove in a WBT.   
 
The article states "The Berkeley researchers plan to begin delivering test
stoves to refugee families this fall: they hope to produce 300,000 by next
year." Ambitious goal. We hope they make it. (Is that a $1.5 million project
or a $3 million project?) Charlie or Ashok please keep us posted on your
progress.
 
See the article at:
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17473
<http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17473&ch=energy>
&ch=energy
 
Excerpt:
"Nongovernmental organizations have suggested that, along with other
measures to protect women, better cooking tools could reduce the need for
firewood. While there have been a ton of competing ideas--everything from
clay ovens to solar cookers--and a ton of opinions about which ones work
best, none of them had been tested in Darfur with any rigor. So Galitsky and
Gadgil went to Darfur, partnering with aid group CHF International. 

Traditionally, Sudanese women balance their cooking pots on three stones
over a wood fire. But lots of heat escapes, and much of the wood simply
chars and smokes. As a better option, Galitsky and Gadgil looked to a simple
metal stove designed in the 1980s by the Indian nonprofit organization
Development Alternatives. Galitsky held a demonstration in Darfur--kind of a
cross between a lab experiment and a Ron Popeil infomercial. Before a large
crowd, she set up the traditional three stones, the metal stove, and a mud
stove popular with many aid groups. A handful of community leaders chopped
wood and stacked it into 250-gram piles. Then Galitsky cooked three separate
meals, so the women could see how much wood each stove used. "The stone fire
used ten piles, the mud stove used nine, and the metal one used only four or
five," she recalls. 

Despite the metal stoves performance, the researchers knew it would need
modifications to fit life in Darfur. So Galitsky interviewed dozens of women
about their lives and their cooking duties. She determined that the stove
would need a windshield, to control the gusts that whip through the camps,
and stakes for stability when the women stir their assida, a sticky dough
that makes up most meals. She and Gadgil also need to make sure the stove
can be manufactured quickly and cheaply. But the technology shows promise.
"We are very excited," says Maha Muna of the United Nations Population Fund
in Sudan. "The U.N. and [aid groups] have funded so many projects on
fuel-efficient stoves as pilots, but CHF and Berkeley Lab are actually
carrying out the analysis we need to be able to determine what should be
replicated." The Berkeley researchers plan to begin delivering test stoves
to refugee families this fall; they hope to produce 300,000 by next year." 

Tom